Michael Durant, a church worker in the UK writes: In September I had the privilege of joining the BUILD team in Kenya for a training week in Mombasa. It was a joy to be there and see so many young students engaging with the Bible, learning how to understand God’s message of salvation in Jesus Christ and how to teach and preach that message to others.
The training week was held at the Bishop Hannington Institute in Mombasa, where the BUILD modules are used to form the foundation for the Theology students. BUILD’s training is used at the beginning of each semester, as the college likes the students to start their studies for each term being equipped to understand the Bible and develop their picture of godly, biblical leadership.
The team were running Module One for the first years and Module Three for the second years – and unexpectedly we also had some third year returning students too, so the ever-adaptable team ran an extra Module Five, printing out the booklets for them on the first day!
It was a privilege to be part of the team and to see so many students at the beginning of their ministry being equipped with life-long skills that will benefit them in their personal walk with Jesus as well as in their service of their churches. A lot of the students were in their early twenties and had come from a mix of different churches – the impact of all these students taking the skills and lessons learnt from the course with them as they go on in their Christian lives and serving in churches for the next 40, 50, 60 (or more!) years is a thrilling prospect! It will be so good to see the fruit God brings from these principles of handling the Bible and godly leadership being taught at this early stage of Christian life and ministry.
The students actively participated in each of the units, working hard to understand the Bible passages for themselves and thinking about how they would best communicate the message of the text to others. Each morning, one of the students preached for 10 minutes to their peers before receiving feedback – no small undertaking, especially for the first years who were new to the college, didn’t know each other, and were making a first impression as they stood up before their classmates! The feedback was both positive and constructive, as the students helped each other to think about whether the message was faithful to God’s message, relevant to the listeners, and clearly communicated.
At the end of the week it was great to hear from the students about what they had learnt and appreciated from the BUILD training (as you can see in the videos below). Each student was left with practical lessons to take with them for their own ministry and personal relationship with God.
For me personally, it was a joy to be able to facilitate some of the Module One units. Before starting work for my church, I used to be a secondary Geography teacher in the UK, so being in a classroom was a familiar experience for me but it was very special to be part of teaching people about Jesus and how to meet him in Scripture, and then how to communicate clearly about him in teaching and preaching. And although the classroom atmosphere was familiar, the classroom itself was quite different to my old school in south London, with monkeys outside the windows, birds flying in and out, and battling to be heard over the Islamic call to prayer being periodically broadcast – all new experiences for me, even if the students didn’t think twice about it! It was another good reminder that although our contexts are different, and we should make our teaching and preaching as contextually appropriate as possible, our God is the same no matter where in the world we are and his love and care are unchanging.
It was an honour to be part of the team and to see the great work they are doing in Kenya.
