| Vol. 1, No.7 |
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If you have been following these letters this summer, you will know that I have been traveling in Britain and have been in search of various resources for the Baptist Union and attended the Baptist World Alliance in Birmingham. On August 1 my wife Kerry and I flew to Kenya to prepare for teaching at programs sponsored by Canadian Baptist Ministries and Carey Theological College. When we arrived we stayed with Malcolm and Patty Card, CBM coordinators for the region. The Cards have very helpful experiences to share and are most gracious hosts. Kerry (who has a counseling practice and degrees in physio, occupational therapy and counseling) team-taught with Drs. Carla Nelson and Sophie Parkins a ten-day counseling course to 40 teachers from all over Kenya. Caryn and Brian Stelck and I team-taught a course on Ministry and Spirituality to 36 pastors, deacons and teachers–a course that Caryn and I suggested would have been better entitled Spirituality and Ministry. By the way, Kerry and I were guests in the Stelck’s home in Mitaboni and I was deeply touched by these gifted and kind people. CBM offers a Diploma of Christian Teacher Education and Counseling using Carey Hall as the institution of record. Carey offers a Certificate of Ministry course and has offered several of these over the years training hundreds of students. The students come from two denominations both of which are about 60 years old. The African Brotherhood Church has 750,000 attendees in about 800 churches, about 150 "preaching points" and operates 700 schools. The African Christian Churches and Schools denomination has 250,000 adherents in 175 churches, several "preaching points" and operates 38 schools. Kenya is a country which has just recently begun to experience some political stability under President Kibaki and is experiencing some economic renewal as well. The two churches we are partnering with are also in renewal and growth mode. I preached at Kangundo and George Matheka, the minister, (also an area minister for 49 churches) reported that the Kangundo church alone had started 6 new churches in two years. Mischak Mukwilu at Kwale church (also an area pastor in charge of 19 churches) had reported that his own congregation had begun 7 new churches in 3 years. The ABC denomination will not list a new church as a church until it has 100 members! Wonderful stories. I learned a great deal from these two denominations. There are three main areas of note. First, these churches have a strong sense of identity with one another. This identity begins with a unity in Christ and it "morphs" into a keen sense, shared by all the churches that one of their main collective purposes is to start new churches. Wouldn't that be incredible if that was our stated purpose? How do we declare our unity in the Baptist Union? We assume our unity is in Christ but how do we express that together? What do we share as a focus amongst ourselves? We are beginning to experience common purpose in several things; camping, youth, Carey programs both locally and globally, CBM, "God sightings" at Banff and beyond, our new affinity groups and finally the new resources and story telling on our website later in the Fall. What I have just listed describes some of the things we do together, but how do we build community over such diverse geography and church experience? The Kenyan churches taught me that our unity is founded in our common Lord Jesus—more of that as the Fall progresses. Secondly I was struck by the Kenyan churches’ commitment to social concerns and justice. After their personal and community worship, after their common goals in church planting and that people would come to faith in Christ, these people are vehemently concerned with everything from HIV and Aids, education, the addressing of orphans, widows, the treatment of women and economic development. They are a church that looks out for one another and those in need in society and have a plan to implement those activities. We in the Union have a myriad of wonderful stories in the area of social concerns to share. In the months ahead we will be telling some of our own stories. The last thing that I learned from our African partners was a sense of joy; joy in worship, joy in greeting one another and joy in an expectation of what God will do. How do I experience joy personally and how do we do that as churches and as a Union? Next week we will look at some of the more complicated topics that come out of our partnerships; cross cultural issues, the use of money, evangelism and social concerns in balance amongst other things. This has been a long letter. Thanks for reading! Warmly, In Christ, Jeremy Bell |
