Timothy Leadership Training Part 1

By Anthony:

I have just completed my first of three weeks of Timothy Leadership Training.  Here is a summary of what it is, taken from their website.

"TLTI" stands for Timothy Leadership Training Institute, an organization that took root in Africa in the 1990's and has since developed rapidly throughout the world. The mission of Timothy Leadership Training Institute is to train pastors, evangelists and lay leaders, enabling them to build viable and healthy congregations and communities in the spirit of 2 Timothy 2:2, "Entrust what you have heard from me to those who will be qualified to teach others." TLT goals include the growth of faith, generosity and productive work accounted for through regular reporting.

I took the first of three parts of this training last week in Houston and stayed with my cousin Andy and his family.   He is a Christian Reformed pastor here.  It was great to see them, but unfortunately I still had to drive a few hours each day of the training.  A Japanese seminary student, Keisuke, also stayed with them and we drove together.   We had some crazy adventures navigating the highways of Houston and got lost a fair number of times.  Here is a picture of us.

The training itself was good and is from a Reformed biblical perspective.  I am very excited to utilize this training in Uganda.  There have already been some TLT trainings in Uganda, but there is plenty more to do.  There are still many untrained pastors with no theological education.  And TLT is also really good for training up lay church leaders.

The curriculum is very simple, so there wasn't really much new for me.  But almost the whole time, you read passages of Scripture, so it was a great week of digging into God's Word.   The curriculum is centered around making concrete action plans to carry out what God's Word teaches, so even though all the passages were familiar, taking this training gave me a personal push to practically do the things God says.  The entire training consists of 7 manuals of about 14 lessons each, which can be taught very flexibly in whatever time arrangement one sees fit, whether teaching a couple manuals in an intensive week, or teaching one manual over several months of weekly meetings.  The manuals are: 1. Caring for God's people, 2. Stewardship, 3. Biblical Preaching, 4. Teaching the Christian Faith, 5. Serving God in Work and Worship, 6. Overcoming Violence in the Family, and 7. God's Plan for Sustainable Development. 

The style of learning is very interactive.  It is not one person lecturing.  Together the group reads Scripture and discusses.  But it doesn't have the subjective feel of "what does this mean to you?"  It has the feel of, "this is what God's Word says, so let's discuss how to carry out this clear teaching of God's Word."  If you were to glance at this material, you probably would not think to use it in a typical North American church.  But although simple, the material has a way of really getting you to change things in your life to carry out what God says, and I could see this material being helpful in churches here.  Below are some pictures of the small TLT group I worked with this past week.  We were the ones doing manuals 1 and 2.

We had a very international group of people at this training.  I am amazed hearing about the ways God is using TLT in various countries around the world.  The transformation that it brings in churches is hard to believe.  The material doesn't seem really incredible when you look at it, but God is sure using it in big ways.  Perhaps its simplicity is why it works so well.   I was also humbled hearing the stories of what local pastors are doing around the world.  They put in double the hours I do, with a tenth of the resources I have, and they do it for practically no money.  Their sacrifices are incredible.  And most of their stories we probably won't hear about until we are in Heaven.  Here is a picture of our larger group, praying for each person and their action plans.

I think TLT will be very helpful for the Ugandan pastors I know.  The goal is to teach them so that they can teach others.  And that can take place relatively quickly.  Once I complete all 3 weeks of TLT, I will be a master trainer.  The goal is to have a group of Uganda pastors who are master trainers (having completed all 7 manuals) who can go out and keep the teaching spreading.  I'll write more about Timothy Leadership Training as the year goes on.  I'll have my next training in June.  I would guess that TLT will be between 1/3 and 1/5 of the work that I will be doing in Uganda.  I'll figure exactly how much later when I am there.

The Paralysis of too much freedom

By Anthony:

I've reflected on this before, that is the problem of having too much freedom and choice.  You may remember reading my other post called - "Freedom in Choice?"  Read it again if you forgot about it :)

Recently a friend referred me to a TED talk that was on this same theme, called "The Paradox of Choice."  Watch it here.  It's really good, I highly recommend it.  He of course affirms that some choice is good.  Having no freedom or very limited freedom is not good.  But he makes the argument, convincingly, that too much choice actually causes us to freeze up in our decision making, and can actually reduce our satisfaction and happiness in life.  I think all of us experience this, as he shows with numerous examples, and yet we don't seem to realize it, and don't change our life practices in order to have more satisfaction.

For some of us, this might be a hard concept to understand.  Living in another country for a while without a lot of the conveniences you are used to is one way to help you to understand having more satisfaction and more "freedom" of a sort, even when having less, or having less choices.  It would probably also work to purposely limit yourself to less choices, and less things.

This is something that I learned while we lived in Uganda, and perhaps one of the reasons I miss living there so much.  If you asked me if I wanted to have intermittent power, I'd say no.  If you asked me if I wanted to have a library with only a few books, I'd probably say no.  If you asked me if I wanted to be limited to only watching the movies that I own, I'd probably say no.  If you asked me if I wanted to be limited to the food I could purchase at a Ugandan market, and go without my favorite cereals and chips, I'd probably say no.  And I could add many similar questions to this.  But when you add all of these things together, it's make for a simpler life, a life less confusing and complicated, a life with less time spent on making choices, and a more exciting satisfying life.  It also makes for a life, I would argue, in which you appreciate the things you do have much more.  It made the movies and books I owned much more special and treasured and I got more use out of them. 










It made it much more exciting to find a favorite food at the supermarket.  I just about guarantee you that I had more fun coming back from a shopping trip in Uganda after finding a bag of Doritos, than you usually do going to the grocery store buying whatever you want every time.  You came home with exactly what food you wanted (or thought you wanted after looking at 100 choices), but I came home feeling excited and grateful for that bag of chips, and you might have felt nothing especially positive.  Makes you wonder, doesn't it?  Is our plethora of choices at the supermarket really making us better off?

I'm not trying to judge all of you.  I am just like you.  It is very hard to have this satisfaction and simple life in the United States.  Even after being in Uganda, I fell back into the same life patterns while living here.  It makes me wonder if we have to stop worshiping the idol of freedom and choice, and purposely give ourselves some more limits, less choices, and more self-control.  I wonder if it is sinful for us to agonize over life choices (especially simple choices like what bag of chips to buy), when our concerns should be on more important things.   Further, I think it is very hard to cultivate the biblical virtue of gratitude when you always have so much choice.  With simplicity and less choice, it is easy to be grateful for what you have, and occasionally really grateful for unexpected circumstances like a week with no power outages.  But if you always have everything you want, and there is no special occasion for gratitude, there might tend to be only occasions for complaint when we don't get what we want.

This is a really interesting topic to me as I've pondered ways to limit myself in order to live for God more, make my life less complicated, and enjoy life more.  If you have any thoughts on this, or have some contrary points that I should keep in mind, please comment below.  I like a healthy debate :)