I'm very happy with how God handled the first day. Dad, I'm convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that this is what I was made for, training and equipping these wonderful people of God (pastors and church leaders)
Before the Training;
The day started with a blessing of lots of rain in the morning, at some point I was wondering if pastors will make it to the meeting only to be surprised by them coming through the rain dripping with water. This was a bit emotional for me, to see the determination, preparation and some what the hunger in these people.
I know we had planed for 10 pastor but they came 16 the extra facilitating themselves. I was shocked because it's hard in Africa for people to facilitate themselves.
Training;
;) Remember the delivery strategy we brainstormed when you were at my home office? I modified it a little bit to fit this particular group. Below is the 5 step strategy;
1. Opening (Safe Place); This was simply an interactive question that I asked them before any lesson. They turned in groups and would discuss and then share their thoughts.. :) The questions were just simply the ones we already have leading into every session like "Now that we know we want to be part of the mature bride, what do you think the bride will be doing?" etc...
What they didn't know is that this was intended to Intentionally letting let them know that this is going to be a conversational class and very engaging session, and so it's okay to discuss and talk to each other and at some point I'm gonna need you to talk back to me.
The other thing is that this was also aligning them for the session we were going in.
2. Intro; This is simply to get every one read for the body. So in the notes I have it was sectioned well.
3. Body: Here is where we go deeper...
4. Review: This is where it got fun. In this part I Introduced creative ways of how these people will remember what they have been taught in a fun way. So I did some games. So the first game was, I divided them into groups and gave them ropes tied with a knot. Every group had its own rope held in a circle with every person in the group able to touch the rope. Then I would play music and when the music stops, the person who has the knot will tell the people in the group what they have learned.
With this I was hitting two birds with one stone. I was psychologically preparing them to be able to share with other by them starting to share it in the groups. This was also helping them remember what they have learned as individuals and as a group.
5. Questions: Since the end goal was not for them to go back with alot of head information but no heart change, this area is where no I was moving them from just remembering what they learned but not to ask them selves, what is God telling me now that I have heard this?
What I'm I going to do different.
In every one of these steps, God manifested himself. I also did a couple of other things different below.
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Explore, Discover and Experiene Vs. Explain: I was taking these pastors to a discover journey. So in most cases I wasn't explaining a lot for them but helping them discover these wonderful scriptures.
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Facilitate Vs. Teach: I was balancing very much with the two leaving room for the Holy Spirit himself to touch these pastors with the word they were discovering. This was amazing.
The testimonies and how these people where able to remember what they have learned was over whelming. Amazingly God was doing different work in each and every individual with the same scriptures.. When the over day over veiw video gets done rendering, you will hear their testimonies.. I cut off some of those testimonies in the editing, but I'm thinking I will need to give you individually the long versions of these video testimonies..
We thank God, thank you for your prayer.
