This week’s update is the last of Jack’s reviews of his special guest speakers during last month’s Church Planting Methodology (CPM) course at Kenya Baptist Theological College (KBTC). After the students heard reports from Samson Kisia (May 30th Update), Euticauls Wambua (June 6th Update), Zack Mahalangang (June 13th Update), and Shem Okello (June 20th Update), they still listened and responded enthusiastically to the last speaker, on the last afternoon of that three week round of classes, share one more view of what God is doing among Baptists in Kenya. And as you will quickly sense, as Jack once again relates the past of legacy work to the current work! Now it is Jack’s turn:
Probably one of the most difficult things in modern church planting is URBAN church planting. It has always been difficult compared to rural church planting where there is adequate space, community unison, good security and easy access. The city however, is complicated with neighborhoods, boundaries both social, economic and physical, distances to travel and the aspect of incredible expense. Plus, too often, city churches were planted in the same fashion as the rural churches, which led to problems due to the difficulties and higher costs of buying land, building a church and supporting a pastor in the city. Almost always, even city folks rely on the pastor to act like the rural pastor, who is often a farmer, lightly trained in leadership and pastoring, and totally self-reliant.
Which leaves the city with its millions of persons, often the most educated, skilled and by statistics, the most religious and spiritual. The absence of churches leads to spiritual problems and issues on which sinful man capitalizes. Generational transfer of beliefs and practices are hindered and often result in a lost generation of youth and children. Clearly, it is not something which Christians can ignore or leave to the Holy Spirit by himself. Building mega churches is also not the solution. CHURCH needs to be where the people are!
As a missionary in Nairobi I wrestled with this for over ten years as the church planter for Urban Nairobi. While we started over 60 churches in that time span, it was not enough to keep up with the growth and demands of the city. Nairobi grew from 2.5 million to over 4 million during that time! Our traditional methods just could not keep up! Plots began to escalate in costs up to millions of dollars! Asking poor people who earn around $1000 per year to be the primary givers did not work. One example was a church committed to raising around $75 thousands for a superb plot. Every time they saved enough to approach a down payment, the price of the land increased. Today after 15 years they still rent a small building and have lost the land. We lose our trained pastors to salaried positions in other denominations or professions and few urban poor churches can afford to support the pastor at all. Most pastors who have been trained through seminary want urban positions to use their gifts, but none are prepared to work for free! Many are bi-vocational but only after years of planning and becoming self-supporting. The need of the urban church CANNOT WAIT for years of planning!
So what to do? Several years ago a missionary couple was called to begin something called Nairobi Business as Mission. The idea was to start a business, train pastors in the necessary skills, salary them, and then send them out as church planters every Friday through Sunday. Their mission was simple, start with a small group after evangelizing an area. Meet weekly using Chronological Bible Storying and waiting on any mention of the words “building” “property” or “pastor.” SEMA LEATHERWORKS resulted and God has blessed it. Over 60 groups have been started in locations throughout Nairobi in areas where there were no churches. This year 7 churches have begun out of those groups with more coming to the point of maturing into a church body.
The blessing as the project Director, Jeremiah Chacha, says, “Any business or project can operate under our registration. Any young pastor needing support can find bi-vocational work through the Nairobi Business as Mission system. Pastors and their families feel good about themselves as their dignity and responsibilities are met. Churches feel good about giving knowing that their pastor is there to support them and is also giving towards the church’s needs. Everyone is blessed.” The urban model used in Nairobi is successful and is reproducible. It does not depend upon any mission or missionary. Started by funding from Baptist General Response (BGR) it supports itself through sales of the products produced. Urban church planting has never been so much fun as this method is working and producing churches!
You may remember that I have shared bits about SEMA LEATHERWORKS before, including the dedication of Zimmerman Baptist Church in Nairobi earlier this year. So rather than end with prayer items this week, I will close this update by asking you to click https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150822462065130&set=vb.685050129&type=2&theater to view a special praise time shared during this dedication of a church begun thanks to SEMA LEATHERWORKS. BERT
Want to learn more of what God is doing in East Africa? Check out this week’s additions to Prayer/What God is Doing in East Africa Nudges at http://easternafrica2012prayernudges.blogspot.com/ or at https://www.facebook.com/Imb.East.Africa.
