Gathering Leadership

As one of the evangelists was trying to teach me the greetings in the language of the migratory herding people that he is working with, another tall, tan-skinned man with a scarf hanging across part of his face came up and stood uncomfortably close to us. Soon he smiled and started adding in other greetings in this, his own language, before he introduced himself as the evangelist to the town the furthest north that our partner church has ever reached. I had heard a lot about what he was doing and had even told stories about his success myself, but had never met him until now! I had this great opportunity because the vast majority of pastors and evangelists from all over the country descended on our city almost a month ago, as our partner church had their first ever “national leadership summit.” 

 The meeting was much anticipated and proved to provide the kind of synergy and reconnecting that the church was hoping for. Many of the pastors got to catch up with people they went to Bible school with, but hadn’t seen for 10-20 years! I was a little skeptical when I first heard the plan, because it’s very expensive to have this scale of meeting for around 200 people, and I wasn’t sure what would be accomplished. But after attending the full three days, I saw three big benefits that made it seem worthwhile. Good teaching on good practices for evangelists in a community, feedback on practical matters, and a comprehensive explanation of the new-ish national structure, which generated more buy-in from the participants. You can read more details about each of those topics in my next blog.

Video of the beginning of the skit.

A final highlight was that the CHE program was asked to present the basics of CHE and our plan for training to the whole group, so that people could understand what they’re hearing bits and pieces about, and so everyone can see its intention and usefulness. I was very pleased with the way the National CHE Trainer that I work with was able to explain CHE clearly and concisely, and we had fun presenting one of the foundational CHE skits about villagers crossing a river.  We also had some great testimonies from the evangelists that we’ve already trained and a fair amount of encouragement from all parts of the church.

-- El Padre