|
I first visited Christ Seminary in June 2003 through the invitation of one of the lecturers. My intention was to see how the seminary was equipping men for service so that I could steal some of the skills and carry them back to my country Kenya, not knowing God was going to use this to call me back here. Before coming to Christ Seminary I was involved in evangelism, church planting and pastoral ministry. My main task was training teams in evangelism, church planting and leadership development.
I was involved in this ministry for 15 years before coming to South Africa.
When I received the call to come and be part of Christ Baptist Church and Christ Seminary in South Africa, my wife and I hesitated, because we were not ready to leave our security and comfort. We were used to the routine of our ministry and we didn't want to take any new challenge. But, we were reminded of the command of our Lord in Matthew 28:19 “go and make disciples.” We realized making disciples was not just limited to our country Kenya, but it involved crossing over borders. We obeyed and came down to join the team at Christ Seminary in July 2004.
It was not long before we realized that we were exactly where God wanted us to be. The reason why? We found a church committed to sound biblical teaching, to expository preaching, as well as to missions, and that is led by a biblically qualified plurality of elders. Not only that, but the seminary that we came to serve with, is a church-based seminary with a team that is committed to equipping men for sound biblical teaching and expository preaching so as to save the church in Africa from two common extremes—either 1 inch deep and 100 miles wide or a 100 miles deep and 1 inch wide.
This is where my practical experience comes in. At Christ Seminary we believe in student-lecturer relationship training. Therefore, every lecturer has a number of students he is mentoring. We do this by relating to them personally and being an example to them. The students see how we live in our homes and treat our wives and children. They see how we handle problems biblically. The goal is to exemplify what we teach in class so that through good theology good character will be formed. It is my responsibility at the seminary to see each student is attended to in this area of ministry. Apart from this, I do lots of counseling and advising on church planting and church leadership. I achieve this goal through teaching the class on missions and by visiting the students on the field. For me this is the best way I can impact them with the scripture and my ministry experience. Our goal as staff of Christ Seminary is to produce men who are self-disciplined in preaching the Bible, to bring change in their communities and to lead by example as they make disciples for Christ. I believe this is what Africa needs now and not the trickery and techniques some are using out there to “entice” people into the Kingdom. |
