By Anthony:
At the beginning of August, I taught the Preaching manual to our Timothy Leadership Training group in Katakwi. It was a great success. TLTI (Timothy Leadership Training Institute) has been having me assist in editing and revising the Preaching manual. I have greatly enjoyed working on this project. In Katakwi, I tested out my newly edited version that has never been used before, and which includes the 4-Page Method for organizing sermons, which I explained in my Amuria TLT - Preaching post. It's not an official version yet, just a work in progress that still needs a lot of testing and editing by other people. But I was excited to see my hard work in action and seeing pastors learn so much about preaching in a short four days.
The preaching manual, especially the newer version that we are revising, definitely needs five days. But all the participants wanted to be able to sell their things at market on Friday, so they agreed to go long hours and finish in four days. Some of the days we went as long as 7:30am to 7:30pm with only about an hour of breaks total for meals. Needless to say, by the end of the four days I was exhausted, but also fulfilled. I am so privileged to have such a fun job. I love teaching.
There is a lot of small group work in this new manual and the leaders really enjoyed those times of collaboration. Near the end each group had to prepare a sermon after being assigned a biblical text. They had to carefully go through all the steps they learned for studying a Bible passage. They only spent 3-4 hours making the sermon. When I've asked people how long they spend working on their sermons at home, they talk about spending hours and hours, up to 10 hours. Yet they were astonished at the amount of work they had to do in these 4 hours, which makes me think that maybe they don't truly spend 10 hours preparing at home. While preparing they said, "wow, we can now see it's very hard to be a leader, a big responsibility!"
During the week, we took some time to share reports about how their action plans went from the last manual, Overcoming Family Violence. There are always so many stories to tell and I can't tell you them all. But these pastors really worked hard to teach others what they learned, counsel families, and restore relationships. This is the power of TLT, how God uses these leaders in the Church. For me, I just teach and facilitate discussion, but it is the pastors and leaders who are doing the hard work on the ground, in the realities of life, with all of its discouragements and complications. When you consider that they are all volunteers who don't really get paid much of anything, it's amazing all the things that God accomplishes through them.
One pastor visited and taught 15 families about family relationships, marriage, and family violence. Ten of the
families had previously stopped coming to church because of broken relationships in their families. But after her visits, there was reconciliation and restored peace, and those 10 families have resumed coming to church.
A pastor and usher visited 4 families, each with at least one parent who is an alcoholic. Although none of them gave up drinking, one of the family members gave his life to Christ.
A pastor and usher visited 4 families, each with at least one parent who is an alcoholic. Although none of them gave up drinking, one of the family members gave his life to Christ.
Two pastors teamed up together to teach 27 people the lessons about family violence and healthy loving relationships. One of the husbands who was trained, confessed that he regularly beats his wife. He viewed her as his property that he paid dowry for, so he should be able to order her around and beat her. At the training, he confessed his mistake, explained his new understanding of his wife as his partner made in the image of God, and promised to never beat her again. A married couple confessed that they had been having marriage issues in the area of sex. The wife had been having great pain during sex, but the husband used to not care and not listen. After the training, he realized he needs to love his wife's body as his own body, and now he is being sensitive and they are seeking treatment together.
My co-leader Lazarus helping pastors with action plans:
In this photo you see a translator multitasking, translating the sermon for her group's preacher and taking care of the child.
One group standing together for the judgment! Actually we were very loving and gentle in the evaluations.
Most of the group (some left before the photo) holding their action plans! They are ready to go home and preach using the new method they learned!
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