Greetings from Ghana in western Africa. It’s my normal day to post an article and this one is just going to be a little update on what’s happening.
Here’s a shot from my flight down from Amsterdam to Ghana. This guy nipped on a bottle of whiskey all the way. Several times I gently placed his head in his headrest, but it didn’t stay. Long flight!
I’m here for a beta test training of our new materials on New Church Dynamics (years 1-5). (This track was formerly called Growing New Churches.) This is the latest training to come from Dynamic Church Planting International, where I serve as VP of Materials.
The purpose of being here is to test train our materials since we want to make them the very best possible AND our western mindset can blind us to what is totally American and won’t work in other locations.
I’m with a wonderful team of trainers led by Emmanuel Donkoh, our Africa West World Zone Leader. About 35 pastors and church leaders from Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast are attending the training.
How’s it going? People in this event and the beta test held 2 months ago in Colorado are in agreement that this training is desperately needed and will be in great demand. There is MUCH written on how to start a church. There is very LITTLE written about how to develop a dynamic church once it is launched.
Thus, many churches die in the first 5 years–often 50%.
We want to help dramatically lower that percentage AND instead help new churches thrive and become truly dynamic churches.
So that’s my 9 day mission Africa, June 11-19, 2015.
Say a prayer please.
Pastor Ken Eze from Nigeria leading one of the sessions.
Here I am with Dr. Emmanuel Donkoh. I had the pleasure of speaking in his church on Sunday morning.