Pioneering & Discipleship in Liberia : Pastor’s Training

In May 2017, Ps Brendan visited Liberia to conduct a seven-day intensive training for the local HIM pastors. He challenged each pastor to plant one church in the next 15 months. Hoping to see the local church increase from 13 in 2017 to 30 churches by 2020. Ps Sonny shared about the faith journey of one small HIM group that planted a church in Gbarnga in late 2006 and after a decade, began to see more churches planted in four countries in Africa. He has faith that HIM will see another 10 more countries added to the list by the next decade, citing that each pastor’s success is his success too. Hence, the focus in the near future will be to establish central Hope churches within16 countries in West Africa to provide training, equipping and support to the local HIM pastors.

During the training, Ps Brendan taught the local pastors on foundational topics like “What is a Church” and “What is Faith” to evangelical strategies like “First Field – Entry Strategy”, “Second field – Scatter the seed”, “Third field – Reproducible Discipleship” and finally “Fourth field – Church Formation”. These are essential for equipping the local pastors to build up a church’s health and outreach. Additionally, pastoral topics were taught including “Making Disciples”. Ps Brendan challenged pastors to devote their lives to the Lord’s work and not to give in to temptations of higher paying jobs in the city. He also addressed their need to regularly study the Bible to know God even more.

In the last few days, Ps Brendan preached a five-hour long sermon in their Sunday service on the topic of “Faithfulness and the Fruit of the Spirit” and celebrated Liberian Mother’s Day with a dinner with the local women and pastors. He also gave a sermon on “Faith to Overcome Failure and Regret”, a lesson on self-control and building a good marriage and lastly, “Leadership Multiplication”. Leaving the pastors with a prayer outline from Matt 6 and Luke 11 to teach their members how to pray and about the “Enemies of the Nine Fruit of The Spirit”. All of the pastors and leaders who attended, received their Certificate of CP Training at the end of those seven days.

Throughout the training, the team saw numerous re-dedications, salvations and healings take place. Over 50 locals gave their lives to Christ and more than 25 came forward for deliverance and healing. lady who had stomach pain for a year was healed by God. There were even miracles and testimonies of God’s power among the local witches community. God is moving in Liberia. Ps Brandan concluded the training with detailed church planting plans with the local pastors for eight new house churches in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Gbarnga, Voinjama, Foya, Bilebinde and hopefully more in Benin, Togo and Monrovia.

Nicola Song, HIM Communication