We received the vision for training church planters in 2003. Our initial work was in alliance with CESI (Spanish acronym for Centers for Training Church Planters), which had begun work to establish training centers in Latin America in 2000. e3 Partners was involved with CESI and Plan Mil Dias in establishing training centers in Latin America from 2003 to 2005.
In 2005, TCCP began work in Africa when Joe Michael Kamau, National Director for e3 Partners in Kenya, and Jerry Wofford, President of TCCP, brought together leaders from a diverse group of evangelical churches. They trained leaders in Eldoret and Nakuru, Kenya in how to organize a training center, how to teach the Omega Course, and how to mentor the students. In each city, a local administrative team formed to operate the training center. In 2006, the National Coordinator for TCCP of Kenya, Emilio Gichuru, assumed responsibility for establishing training schools there. His vision is to establish seventy centers across Kenya.
WHAT WE ARE DOING
In partnership with local church leaders, Training Centers for Church Planters were established in Uganda 2006 and 2007. This ministry was extended to Ethiopia and Tanzania in 2007. By the end of 2008, 79 training centers were operating in nine countries with 1496 students. These students made 27,545 gospel presentations. Of these, 10,216 became new believers. The students of the training centers discipled 8,450 of these new believers. They established 384 new cell groups and 264 new churches.
To establish training centers in a community, key leaders of evangelical churches invite other church leaders to attend a workshop conducted by the TCCP staff. This workshop is designed to identify those who are interested in starting a school and to train them in how to establish and operate the center, how to teach the Omega Course, and how to mentor the student church planters. At the conclusion of the workshop, those who have volunteered to be a part of the leadership team begin to organize the new TCCP.
In the weeks following the workshop, the TCCP local leaders establish budgets and student fee rates, obtained local trainers and mentors, recruited student church planters, and started classes.
BIO FOR JERRY C. WOFFORD
Dr. Jerry C. Wofford is Adjunct Professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, Associate Member at e3 Partners, Professor Emeritus at The University of Texas at Arlington, and President of TCCP. He served as chair of the Management Department at the University of Texas at Arlington where he taught courses in leadership and organizational behavior for 36 years. After obtaining a Ph.D. in industrial psychology from Baylor University, he joined The Mead Corporation where he became the supervisor of the corporate managerial development unit.
He is author of Transforming Christian Leadership: 10 Exemplary Church Leaders, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999 and is co-author (with Kenneth Kilinski) of Leadership and Organization of the Local Church, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973. He has written five books and 62 professional articles and papers. Click this link, Transforming Christian Leadership, to view the full text of Jerry's book.
Joe Michael Kamau speaks at Eldoret workshop
Emilio Gichuru leads the workshop to establish a TCCP
