Escape from the office

Myles enjoys the more strategic work that keeps him working away in his office most of the time, or buried in meetings. However, every now and then he manages to escape from the office and indulge his passion for training local church leaders.

So, a few weeks ago Myles jumped at the chance to join Pastor Ijalasi and his J-Life team at Mwanza‘s Living Waters Church to help out as a trainer at a Learn 2 Serve seminar.

Mwanza L2S Day 1, trainers and students

Learn 2 Serve is a powerful training program for Malawi church leaders that is spread across several week-long seminars, usually held some months apart so participants get the time between seminars to put into practice what they have learned. The program’s contextual relevance and theological depth comes from the fact that it was developed by an unusual partnership between Pastor Connex Ijalasi from Malawi and Dr Jonathan Groves from the UK.

Connex is the Director of J-Life Malawi and brings to the partnership decades of experience in ministry and denominational leadership within ZEC, together with a track record in discipleship programs. Jonathan is the Mission Director of Kerusso Trust, and brings theological rigour and a real passion for training Malawi church leaders after researching aspects of church leadership in Malawi as part of his MTh studies.

Both gentlemen have become our firm friends, and Mwanza gave Myles another opportunity to experience how keen the church leaders of Malawi are to absorb this very practical biblical training that addresses the need for greater depth of Bible knowledge but also the need for greater depth of practical Christ-like character.

The seminar was also an opportunity for the denominations to join together in fellowship and song.

The regular task for ‘Dr Myles’ (as he tends to get introduced here in Malawi) is to train on the topics of ‘Integrity & Consistency’, ‘Criticism & Weakness’, and ‘Forgiveness & Understanding’. However, this time he also taught on the topic ‘Biblical Basis of Marriage’.

Myles training at an earlier L2S seminar.

The modules were as well received as ever by the 50 or so leaders, in what are always very interactive sessions that at times ended up quite rowdy – in a constructive sort of way! This was especially the case during the session on marriage, given the challenges on this matter in Malawi culture and the predominance of very vocal women at this particular centre 😉

Let’s see what happens on Thursday this week when Myles is back with Connex and his team of volunteers, this time at Luchenza.