Soroti – Part Two

PDN’s training focuses around six core competencies. The first three are covered in the conference I am attending and the second three are covered the following year. Day one focuses on theology, where Dr David will be covering a basic overview of what theology is and some basic doctrinal points.

Most of these pastors have had little to no theological training, yet many have been preaching to their congregations for ten, twenty or even thirty years. Pastor Luke then introduced them to the inductive bible study method (Observation, Interpretation, Application). This is one of the most important tools we gave the pastors. Growing up in the west, we have at least a basic understanding on interpreting scripture (although the amount of rubbished that gets preached you wouldn’t think so), but most of these pastors have no idea how to process the text that they are reading.

But knowledge isn’t everything, they have to be able to apply the technique in order for it to be useful, so the end of the day I led them through an inductive study of Romans chapter 7, helping them identify the key themes, find the context of the passage and identify how it applies to them and their congregations.

Over the following two days we covered Preaching and Family & Counselling, and I spoke with a number of pastors who were so grateful for the opportunity to train and learn more about the word of God and the ministry they had been called too. I had one pastor tell me he loved me, and that he was praying God would “add many years to my life” (maybe I looked unwell, I don’t know…)

We connected with 110 pastors over those three days, with an average congregation of 70, that’s just short of 8000 people who will be impacted, in just three days work. These pastors can’t afford training, so all the funding to provide this training comes from the west. For more information on how you can get involved check out PDN’s website: PDNAfrica.org.

By Andy Galpin

Strategy Consultant for IBM. Passionate about God, and equipping His church to fulfil the great commission. Blog on mission, life and leadership. My opinions are all my own and do not represent IBM.

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