HOW WE BEGAN 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, 248 Training Centers for Church Planters have now been established  in Africa and Asia. Training centers are now operating in twenty countries and have 4,485 students. From 2008 to midyear 2010, TCCP students made 117,712 gospel presentations. Of these, 44,846 became new believers. The students of the training centers discipled 30,579 of these new believers. They established 3,105 new cell groups/churches.   To establish training centers in a community, key leaders of evangelical churches invite other church leaders from a full range of evangelical denominations 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, obtain local trainers and mentors, recruit student church planters, and start classes.
An example of an Omega Course student in Nankoma, Uganda doing the ministry of starting a new church was given by Richard Okowi, who is the National Coordinator for TCCP in Uganda. The Omega Course students did spiritual mapping of the areas they were targeting for starting new churches. They were amazed to find that there were no Christian churches. A few areas had mosques, but most of the people were demon worshipers with many shrines scattered about. One of the students in the Nankoma TCCP class was Mukisa Jacob. Like his classmates, Mukisa began to do evangelism in his target area using the Evangecube (a cube covered with pictures that help guide the presentation of the gospel). As people began to receive Christ, Mukisa started to disciple them individually. After a few became new believers, he gathered them into a small group for Bible study, worship and prayer.  Before long he had trained someone to take over this cell group while he started another cell.  These cell groups continued to multiply until people began to urge him to bring them together as a church.  As Richard Okowi wrote, “Mukisa Jacob managed to plant a very huge church through the discipleship method. . . The different ethnic groups managed to come together, which could not have been easy to put together in the usual church.” But despite their tribal differences, Richard noted, “The people are committed to each other.”
	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.