Africa Region Leadership Conference Report

An Irish diarist wrote a short poem that we've quoted before but that's accurate these days: "A man who keeps a diary pays, due toll to many tedious days; but life becomes eventful then, his busy hand forgets the pen." It's taken us awhile to do the Leadership Conference post we promised because the Leadership Conference kept us so busy!

The Africa Region Leadership Conference was a gathering of 300 Nazarene leaders from all over Africa. Each daybegan with a devotional, followed by a plenary speaker and breakouts in the morning, and plenary and breakouts in the afternoon and ending with a preaching service in the evening. The days were 14-15 hours long, but very rich. Some highlights and pictures:

• The first picture at the top is of our blue T-shirted (mainly) ushers--all ANU "Bachelor of Theology" students, ready to greet our visitors. The next three pictures are of Horn of Africa people. Sudan DS John Yual (left in patterned blue shirt), currently a student at ANU and one of the interviews we'll post later, greets a colleague upon arrival. The group picture is one Mark posted on Facebook, but we're still being taught by the joy of this group that lost eight of its members to Muslim and anamist persecution in 2008. The third picture is of a pastor from Ethiopia who is the "prayer warrior" for the Horn of Africa. Terry Barker, the Education Coordinator there, said this pastor climbs a sacred mountain in Ethiopia for a month several times a year to pray for the work of the Church and the Kingdom in Africa. Each time we begin to complain or to use "entitled" language, we will think of this group that is winning souls and starting churches in the midst of tremendous oppression.

• General Superintendent Jerry Porter preached two really excellent sermons. The first one, more earnest and intense, talked about the fact that Jesus was tempted, and that only yielding to temptation is sin. He acknowledged both the crisis and on-going relationship aspects of sanctification, and quoted 2 Peter 1:3-4 as he reminded the audience that we have access to power as well as purity through if the Holy Spirit. In the second, funnier, sermon he encouraged unchanging principles and changing stratgies. One item: he said--don't you just hate those songs where you have to stand and sing the same words over and over? For example, let's all stand and sing this irritating song which repeats the same word 56 times (and then a pianist accompanied him in the singing of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus!)

• Rev. Balibanga, from French Equitorial Africa, gave an excellent devotional one of the days. He pointed out that even in the 36 African countries where the Church of the Nazarene is active, the economic, racial/ethnic, and health problems of Africa exist. He said that the Church of the Nazarene must present the nations of Africa and the world not just with holy words, but with holy lives, and with a "new world order" built not on economic transformation or social transformation, but built on a testimony of radical spiritual transformation.

• Mark Lowe, Field Strategy Coordinator, quoted George Whitfiled, the famous Methodist evangelist, who said Wesley was right in putting his converts into classes, and observed sadly that his own converts were "a rope of sand." Mark said that without a well-constructed discipleship program, converts from such evangelistic efforts as the Jesus Film were in danger of also being a "rope of sand."

• Chanshi Chanda, the Field Strategy Coordinator from French Equitorial Africa, told the true story of an Imam to whom he witnessed and who was saved in a dramatic way. When he returned to his home as an Imam he was given the platform at his local mosque and preached the gospel there. He is now training to become a Nazarene pastor. His wife is not yet converted and, as one might imagine, is having a hard time accepting his conversion. They need your prayer.

• In a breakout session, Chanshi said that if he were kicked out of the Church of the Nazarene at any point, he would leave everything but the message of holiness. He said, "Some of us treat holiness as a play word. We treat it as a toy to be played with, but the essence of Christianity is holiness." Chanshi studies online with a Jewish rabbi in Toronto, and says that God's intention for the Israelites is that they be holy and close to God. He said, "We need to take our message of holiness to heart. If we are not strivintg to maintain the church as pure as it can be, forget about 'ministry sustainability.'"

• Mashangu Maluleka, the principla of Nazarene Theological College in Muldersdrift, South Africa, preached a powerful, very African sermon, about Moses and the stick. He said that Moses was an African boy. His point was that we need to recognize the resources God has put into our hands, and we need to recognize the "snakes" that need to be killed.

• As you might imagine, there were many, many other good sessions, including presentations by Howie Shute, Dr. LeBron Fairbanks, Fili Chambo and several others.

• We attended (and mainly listened) in fascinating breakouts where DS's from all over Africa talked about some of their challenges: how to make graceful leadership transitions in a culture where the chief stays in as long as he can and historically has killed rivals. How to make disagreements model holiness and encourage learning and growth. How to deal with members or associate members (policy differs across Africa) who have been saved and repented, but are dealing with the consequences of polygamous marriages.

• In between sessions, we did interviews with Dr. Eugenio Duarte and the three FieldStrategy Coordinators who are graduates of ANU: Chanshi Chanda, FSC of French Equitorial Africa; Paul Mtambo, FSC of Central Africa; and Ermias Choliye, FSC of the Horn of Africa. We will be publishing blog posts based on each of those interviews and others we are doing, so we'll save that for a different time.

• Below, some additional pictures "just for fun" (apologies for a couple of slightly out of focus but favorite pictures): Dr. Eugenio Duarte and delegates from Sudan; Rev Paul Mtambo, Field Strategy Coordinator of Central Africa (in tan suit); lady drummer from the Horn of Africa; small part of an end-of-conference group photo; we'll blog more pictures at a later time."

ANESA REPORT

Well, praise the Lord! The ANESA conference was great and we'll give you some quick highlights of it before we go to bed this Saturday evening.

On Friday morning, Regional Education Coordinator Dr. Fili Chambo ( blue shirt in front of screen) led us in singing "Come Let Us Adore Him" and "He Is Lord."

In his addreess, Regional Director Dr. Eugenio Duarte called for a "culture of

spiritual accountability" and "extraordinary prayer" on the Africa Region. He called for ordinary people doing extraordinary work because they make themselves available to the Lord.

Howie Shute (at lunch in red sweater) gave some thoughts about developments in the Horn of Africa:

• We need representatives of each of the people groups in Africa to be trained as theologians capable of contextualizing theology for each group.
• Great story about the Jesus Film being shown in a particular Ethiopian village with a large Muslim population. Across several weeks after the film, many Muslims were saved, the Imam's children became Christians; the Imam's wife became a Christian. A few days after this, the Imam came to the Nazarene pastor and dangled the key to the mosque in front of him. "Take it," he said. "The mosque is yours." The Nazazrene pastor was astonished but accepted the key. Right now there are three mosques in the Horn of Africa being used as Churches of the Nazarene.
• On the darker side, Christians in general face tremendous danger and persecution in the Horn of Africa. 15 of our Nazarene leaders have died because of their faith in the last 8 years, but of these 15, 7 have been killed in 2008 alone. We need to be in passionate prayer for these brave pastors who are literally giving their lives for the spread of the gospel.

There was a very lively discussion of the relationship between multiple, contextualized versions of the Nazarene Course of Study used for training of Nazarene pastors in Africa and the idea of a centralized, unified course of study to be used by all areas. Dr. Fili Chambo mentioned the cost of development of multiple versions, and a desire to pursue accreditation with the Accrediting Council for Theological Education in Africa (ACTEA) as reasons for moving toward unification. More senior Field Strategy Coordinators remember the old days when the Region sent what they often saw as irrelevant, unified materials for them to use. At the end of the discussion--which extended across the tea time--there was an agreement to talk about a "consolidated" course of study (meaning fewer models but not a single model).

Last night, we interviewed Ermias Choliye, the Field Strategy Coordinator for the Horn of Africa (standing and gesturing during the theology conference), for the NMI book we're working on--what a privilege to hear his story of faithfulness to the

Lord. We'll do a blog entry on him at a later date and he will be one of the interviews in the book, but just a kind of funny highlight of his perseverance and faithfulness: He had been an officer in the Ministry of Education in Ethiopia, and a life-long Christian who made the decision to become a Nazarene after meeting Al and Kitty Jones. He quit his job and came to ANU to begin ministerial training. He was housed with a very young student who played loud music and was doing his first studying in many years. He wrote

his wife a letter saying he was

discouraged and coming home, but before she received it, three things happened: He heard a sermon by Dr. Jim Diehl about how he overcame discouragement and frustration as a pastor, his wife sent him an encouraging letter and a picture of herself and his children smiling broadly, and--the Lord "piling it on"--he visited an elementary school as part of a prayer campaign at ANU and the welcome song the students sang was the Christian song "No Turning Back." He laughed and

said at that point he knew he had to stay and see it through! And now the Lord is using him to lead the "Book of Acts" movement in the Horn of Africa. Praise the Lord!

This afternoon, ANU presented some of its plans for distance learning and did two sessions on entreprenurship for Nazarene pastors and congregations. There were presentations by our Dry

Land Natural Resource department, by our lecturer in entreprenurship, by our director of distance learning and by Rod Reed of the Religion Department, talking about how we might help some of our diploma colleges with short courses in accounting, land management, as well as theological subjects.

We just got back from the first evening of a "mini-theology conference" attached to the two main conferences. Two great papers offered:

• Rev. Joseph Llilema, a Zambian working at NTC-CA in Malawi (standing at podium in gray suit), presented a summary of his excellent MAR thesis research regarding attitudes toward polygamy in the Central Africa District (Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. His research showed that Nazarene attitudes toward the treatment of polygamists in the church were all over the board and called for the region to establish a clear policy toward polygamy. He cited the Manual statement regarding divorce (saying it is outside of God's plan for marriage but that people can and should be redeemed after divorce) as possible language regarding polygamy and called for the full acceptance of redeemed polygamists as members of the church to be offered the sacrements. As you might imagine, lively discussion followed.
• Rev. Gift Mtukwa, a faculty member at ANU (gesturing at microphone in blue mock-turtleneck and suit), delivered a portion of a paper he and Dr. Rod Reed, Religion Department chair, had delivered at Wesley Theological Society meeting at Anderson University earlier this year. His paper examined the idea being discussed in some academic circles in Africa of the idea of "Christ as Ancestor." He concluded that this was not a good alternative to Western Christology because by definition ancestors are tightly connected to family or clan, meaning the idea of Christ as ancestor would encourage rather than calm African ethnic tensions.

It's getting late and we'd probably better close for now, but we'll give you at least one post from the Leadership Conference that begins on Sunday morning. Thanks for your prayers. We can feel their impact!

Request for Prayer and Promise of News

Hello--This will be a bit of a different blog post. We're asking for prayer for a set of two back-to-back conferences we'll be having at ANU beginning this evening, and promising you some pictures and information from each of them.

The first of these conferences is the two-day ANESA conference. ANESA is the Nazarene organization that oversees education (primarily pastoral education) in Africa. This conference will be led by Regional Education Director Dr. Fili Chambo, and will feature discussion of the successes of the education strategic plan, how to do the current things better and what new strategies may be needed. This conference will include two evenings of papers presented by ANU masters students about topics including polygamy, hunger, the church's role in encouraging peace in Africa, etc. This conference will involve 45 educational leaders from all over Africa.

The second, larger conference, beginning on Monday, will involve an additional 250 leaders for a total of 300 people. It's the Africa Region Leadership Conference, led by our Regional Director, Dr. Eugenio Duarte. Taken together, it may be no exaggeration to say that these two conferences are the most important formal meetings the denomination has had in Africa. They will involve progress reports regarding regional goals, discussions of evangelism and leadership strategies that are working and what additional things can be done.

Soooo--we would appreciate your prayers about these meetings, and for Dr. Duarte, Dr. Chambo and the other global, regional and field leaders who will be presenting and/or participating. We'd ask you to pray for Professor Marangu as conference host and for the many staff at ANU who will be working to assure that visitors are housed, fed, and otherwise made to feel welcome. Most of all, we want the presence of the Holy Spirit to break through in these meetings, for the Lord to guide the discussion and the decisions that are made.

We'll plan on taking our cameras to some of the meetings and jotting down some notes, so at least once for each meeting--more if possible-- we'll send you a report.

Blessings on each of you. Thanks also to Spencer, Indiana; Zion Bloomington Indiana; Highland Avenue, California; Hemet Califormia; and Indianapolis District who have responded so warmly and quickly to our announcement of deputation dates. We still have a few dates left, but our calendar is filling up fast! We look forward to seeing you soon and delivering some of this information in person!