One of the blessings of doing mission work in modern times is that we can utilize technology to assist us in accomplishing the work of God in ways we never could previously. One example of this is in the area of coaching.
Coaching is walking alongside a national pastor, asking questions, offering encouragement, providing accountability, continuing to do some training and helping the pastor to accomplish the pastoral work to which God has called him. This “walking alongside” is what Jesus did with his disciples after they returned from being sent out with the Gospel message in Luke 10. They returned, and he “coached” them. Obviously this works best when we can be face to face with pastors, but nowadays we are able to do this well through tools like skype, email and other methods of communication. In fact, one avenue we are exploring is utilizing relatively inexpensive smartphones which are preloaded with training tools on them, and the pastors use these, accessing the internet from anywhere in Africa to continue the training process.
An example of this happened just a few days ago. I’ve recently mentioned about Pastor Enock, who is one of the Tanzanian pastors I’ve been training. As he has faithfully responded to the call to equip other pastors, he has gathered a group of pastors from his region who are eager to be trained. However, he was nervous about the training, and had many questions. So we set up a skype call, and from the US I was able to have a 90 minute “meeting” with him where I could answer all of his questions, and we went systematically through the training to review key points and clarify areas of confusion. By the end of the call, he was deeply encouraged and inspired to move forward with the training, which is happening this week. Please pray for Pastor Enock as he trains pastors in how to study God’s Word, obey God’s Word, and teach God’s Word.
So I want to encourage you that even though I am not able to be resident in East Africa at this time, through regular trips and utilizing technology for global coaching, training of African pastors is most certainly happening, to the glory of God.
Pressing on, Eric