I have been meaning to write a post for several days now. The whole week before I’ve had plenty of moments that I’ve wanted to reflect upon and share and I really wanted to stick to my promise to myself that I would blog once a week. But there are many things that I’ve been meaning to do for the last week that can’t quiet seem to get done. Last week was particularly challenging logistically between the power not cooperating and not having reliable transportation. Then again this week the power was off for almost two days straight. So blogging got pushed down low on the priority list – OK it got shoved right off the end of the page! For good reason but that’s a story for another post. For now I’ve got a short update on some of what is happening in my ministry.
Last week was my first opportunity to engage in a training session with some of the pastors here in the East Africa Annual Conference. Most of the pastors who are leading congregations here are not ordained. One of the main reasons is education. Some of them have been able to get as far as an associate’s degree but most are lucky to have completed secondary school. And seminary training is limited to only a handful of ministers in the conference. Getting the necessary education for ordination will take years if it is possible for any of these pastors to achieve at all. So, as an interim step, the EAAC decided to provide additional training opportunities for local pastors to teach them about theology, doctrine, Methodism and leadership skills. The past two weeks were the inaugural session of a two year plan for a Bible College for local pastors. For two weeks at a time throughout the year, a small group of pastors and leaders have been invited to participate in the Bible College. The Bible College meets at Humble School, which is a primary school established by the UMC for orphaned and vulnerable children. When the school is not in session for holiday breaks, the Bible College meets using the facilities.
I didn’t find out that I was expected to teach until just over a week before the Bible College started. I was assigned Methodism. We decided that I should teach a series of courses similar to what is expected of those who are seeking ordination in the United States – a series of classes on Methodist history, theology and polity (or in other words church governance and structure). As a candidate for ordination in the US, I was expected to take the same series of courses in my seminary education. The only problem now was that I did not have any materials. The other instructors were using a predesigned curriculum that had been obtained from a local Pentecostal Bible college so I was on my own to design the course. At the same time I had already scheduled travel the week before the Bible College so by the weekend before I had only had time to identify some online resources and obtain a wealth of electronic resources from a former professor at Candler. That meant I was designing my lesson plan the night before or the day of the class I was leading.
Day one of my class, I was standing in front of 27 local church pastors from four countries most of whom spoke English as a second (or third, or fourth) language. I had a Methodist history lesson plan in hand and some trepidation of how well I would be able to communicate, whether what I had to say would be relevant and how they would perceive my teaching style. As I worked through my lecture and they asked questions I began to get a sense for how the week might unfold. I knew I was going to have to design my lesson plans each evening in response to the speed they were learning and what areas needed further background.
Not knowing much about the group before the classes began, I had to guess at what they already knew before coming to the Bible College. Many questions they asked pointed out to me areas that I needed to expand on because I designed my course assuming a certain level of background knowledge which they clearly did not have. I quickly discovered the wide variety of experience and education level in the group. What they had in common though was very little exposure to what it means to be United Methodist. For me, I had learned about the UMC by attending church in my teens and 20s while listening to preachers and leaders who had been trained in Methodist theology and practice. Many in this group were the first generation of United Methodists and they lead congregations of new Methodists. The United Methodist Church is a relatively new presence in Uganda and some of the other East African countries.
Another thing I discovered they had in common was an eagerness to learn and to do well in the course. Truthfullyn history of any kind can be a bit dry at times ,but this group was engaged and listening. My class period was late in the day so it was hot and they were tired from their other lessons earlier in the day but the questions kept coming from them. After the first reading and writing assignment I had asked them to complete, I was amazed to see how anxious they were to get their papers returned to them. They excitedly gathered around the class leader waiting to get their papers back to see what marks they had received. And the anticipation of the final exam created a good deal of stress for all of the students who really wanted to be able to show what they had learned. The value that they placed on education and learning seemed much greater than what I have seen from my peers in the US as I completed my studies. I can imagine it has to do with the scarcity of education. Opportunities to study somewhere like a Bible College are much harder to come by and much more rare here than for students in the US. This class was only about 25 out of the approximately 500 pastors in the East Africa Annual Conference of the UMC. That means for each person who was able to attend there were 25 pastors who were not able to participate because of the budget limitations for the Bible College.
So for now I've gained more clarity about a need here but I still need to do some more work to get a better understanding of the context and the issues at hand. In the days and weeks ahead, I will be exploring how to work with the people here to help the Conference move forward with the Bible College as one piece of a larger leadership development program. While this may seem like only a small drop in a big bucket it is at least a drop that wasn't there before. I actually see it more like the parable of the mustard seed that Jesus tells about the Kingdom of God in Mark 4:30-32. The mustard seed which is the smallest of all seeds grows into the largest of all the trees in the garden with branches so large birds can perch and nest there. In this tiny seed of knowledge and education, we are giving these leaders a start of something that will grow into much more than we can ourselves imagine.
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