In May of 2006, a JSM preaching seminar was held in Kenya. This was a Level 1 and Level 2 seminar following up the 2005 seminar hosted by St. Paul’s Limuru. One of our Kenyan facilitators, Wanyeki Mahiaini, wrote the following:
I have just returned from Nairobi where I attended a Bible Expositors Conference organized by John Stott Ministries/Langham Partnership in cooperation with St Paul’s Theological College and the Kenyan Philip Project. It is one of the most useful conferences I know. In one week you see people learn new skills in Bible handling and you hear amazing testimonies of lives and congregations impacted. I spent a fair amount of time chatting with the delegates; many of whom have no theological training. The time I spent with them took me back to the time I returned to Kenya after my studies at Warwick University in 1990.
Although I had done a fair amount of preaching before Warwick, offers to preach increased considerably on my return. It troubled me that I could only preach a very limited number of sermons memorised from my favourite speakers. I knew good Bible teaching, but I also knew I couldn’t do faithful Bible teaching. Chatting with the delegates I heard the same story again and again
“I would love to preach well, but I have never been shown how. I have been making do with what I know and I am sure it is not good enough.”
To which I would ask, “How have you been managing?”
The answer: “For the most part I have been telling stories. The temptation to entertain is very strong, otherwise you lose people.”
I empathised. I too used to “tell stories” to hide my difficulties with Bible texts, and so I felt right at home with the youthful pastors as they began their journey to become better at handling the Word of Truth.
“How did you hear about the conference?” I would ask.
Most had heard about it by word of mouth. However there were others who had come to the conference via a more interesting route. On the opening night they got a chance to speak.
“I heard about the conference from the church secretary in our (church) region,” said one. “He called all the preachers in our region and shared what he had learned in last year’s conference and then he asked us to take turns in preaching from a passage from the Bible. We all knew we had not preached well, so when he showed us how to preach from it, we were convinced we needed help. That is why there are six of us in this conference now.” He continued, “After that first meeting the church secretary organised, a day conference in Kakamega where he taught us how to preach more faithfully, it was just what we had been looking for and I have not turned back since then. I find that the Bible is opening itself to me and my people also appreciate my sermons-not only are they shorter, but they have more content than before.”
Another delegate had come from Eastern Kenya; from the Diocese of Mt Kenya East. His story:
“I attended last year’s conference and learned about faithful Bible teaching. I was in my last of Theological Education then. When I went to my first posting I knew I had to share what I had learned with the parish even before I got there. I soon called another Philip Project alumnus of these preaching seminars and asked her if she would be willing to help train my lay preachers. She agreed and we held our first meeting in February this year, on a Saturday.”
‘How was it received?’ I asked.
The facilitator responded, “Well, I don’t want to speak on behalf of the delegates, so I will ask one of them to speak on behalf of the others.” At this time a pastor stood up, “That single day changed my preaching.” He began. “I saw for the first time that I can understand the Bible and that I don’t have to invent things to say. There is plenty in the Bible already and the Bible says it better than I ever could. I stand before you today to say that before the training day, we were losing people from our church, especially the young. Today they are coming back and staying simply because they are hearing the Bible taught. That is why I have come to this conference.”
All this happened on the opening day, Monday, 22nd May.
In my view, things got better and better after that high note. The conference is a mixture of modelling Bible teaching from upfront followed by instruction on how to access the message in the passage. These sessions are followed by practical workshops in which groups exegete a passage using the skills already taught. They then put together a sermon outline which is presented to peers in a supportive environment. They receive feedback and then try a different passage. By the time they have completed the second sermon outline, their improvement is obvious and quite astounding.
The lynchpin in the whole process is the work done in the workshops. Good workshop leaders help the groups to bring together all the theory they have been learning. It has been the privilege of the Philip Project Alumni to lead workshops in Kenyan conference. I dream of the day when Kenyans will run the conferences themselves and even cross the borders to take the vision of faithful Bible teaching to more countries in Africa and beyond.
Come to think of it, that day is not far away. I have just this week received confirmation that two Kenyan Philip Project Alumni will be travelling to Cameroon in July to help another alumnus run a Bible teaching conference. All praise to the Lord!
Wanyeki
Wanyeki Mahiaini runs the Philip Project (to which he refers), which is a training program for African post-graduate students who are studying in the UK. Langham Preaching is a partner with the Philip Project.