When I met Maurice, he was exhausted. Yes, he had just taken a bus from Nairobi to Kampala that ran from 7pm the day before until 10am when he arrived, but he boarded that bus because I invited him (just an hour before he left) to learn more about the mission of our ministry.
In conversation with some men whom he had known and worked with for years, they suggested I reach out to their friend and let him know I was doing a presentation of Global Outreach Developments East Africa’s (GOD EA) mission in Uganda the very next day.
When I talked to Maurice that day on the phone, he explicitly expressed that the invitation was an act of God as he was just praying about quitting the ministry he had been doing for over a dozen years, because he felt weary, unsupported, and without a clear vision for the future.
GOD EA exists to equip laborers who want to advance the Kingdom of God, developing leaders who are concerned with discipleship and the great commission, believing that community building according to the word of God is key to God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven.”
This effort initially focuses on specific “communities of need,” where select leaders are trained through a process of 1) demonstration, 2) discipleship/mentorship, 3) accountability or monitoring, and 4) empowerment through the assignment of responsibilities into a functional role in the organization.
When a “community of need” is identified, typically there are a wide range of needs to address - from basic needs like food and water to needs related to infrastructure and institutional support. When Jesus said that the harvest was plentiful, but laborers were few, a careful reading of this Matthew 9:35 - 37 has one recognizing the need for developing leaders, or shepherds, who are concerned with the wellbeing of a community, who have been discipled in Jesus’ way to bring about this Kingdom of God where the sick find healing and the issues of poverty are addressed (healing every affliction).
Our approach trains leaders by first demonstrating how our programs work. So, an already trained and experienced team will run a program from beginning to end (for example a SLAM Service Camp which lasts 5 days) just so leaders can be exposed to the effort and witness the outcomes.
Then the trained and experienced team disciples or mentors the new leaders into specific roles that collectively run the program. Trainers do this by running the service week alongside the new leader, working with them to understand what is expected and how they can best accommodate the need.
Next, trainers will be available for a third effort where they stay nearby, but their job is to monitor the independent performance of the new leader in their new role and help clean up in lack of clarity for effectiveness.
If all goes well (a rubric is used to determine this) then empowerment happens when the new role is assigned to the new leader and this becomes their functional role in the mission of the organization to meet needs in the community through our ministerial programming.
Discipleship, or leadership training, isn’t merely a checklist for program implementation, but it is also lessons in identity in Christ; as a disciple, as a laborer, as a member of the Church, as a neighbor in the community. Mark 10:45 serves as a launchpad of consideration for the distinction in Christian leadership that calls us to serve and not be served. Servant leadership characterizes how leaders exercise their authority in our ministry.
At the end of my presentation that day in Uganda, Maurice came up to me and though weary in physical disposition, his eyes had a glimmer of hope and he said, “I want to be a part of this ministry. Please teach me. I’m ready and I have others who are also ready.” We sat down for several hours before he had to leave back to Kenya, and in that time I saw Maurice's posture change and his countenance lift.
Maurice has been serving with our ministry for almost 18 months now, and while it hasn’t been easy, he has said himself, “I needed to be taught. There was so much I didn’t know. I was doing many things, but I had not learned from the Bible what I needed to do, and I was never taught the processes to do it the way I have this last year. We are coming up, and we are blessed.”
As a new leader in our ministry, it is important that you remember it is our ministries aim to serve the Lord according to scripture. You can have confidence that what we are doing and how we are doing it is rooted in the Bible. However, that doesn’t mean things will be easy and you will indeed be stretched.
The work of ministry really is work, and often hard work, but it can be a light burden. The easy yoke and light burden is reserved for those who get discipled by Jesus, going to him and learning from the gentle and humble teacher who longs to give us rest amidst the great work of harvesting humanity for the Kingdom of God (Matthew 11:27, 28).
(1) A “community of need” is a term our ministry uses to speak about groups of people who live in proximity to one another and share the burden of meeting practical needs, while contending with the challenges of day to day living, where the welfare of the community is a collective concern.