The Future…???

Scott and I (Shane) had a very good meeting with some of the Ankole church leaders last week, a meeting that may well provide a glimpse into some of the practical “how to’s” of this mission, at least for the next few years.  I’m going to try to summarize it here in this post, because I think it gives a good picture of the direction we believe God is leading…

We met with these six leaders in order to form a group of “Advisors” (“Abahabuzi”) that will, along with the missionaries, serve as a kind of “steering committee” for this movement of churches.  The two major topics of discussion for the day were:  1) Churches that are struggling and need help, and 2) Setting a “movement ministry budget” for 2008.

(1)  Struggling Churches…  We identified four churches that are having some particularly difficult struggles right now, and discussed how we could be used to strengthen and encourage them.  Scott and I were very pleased with the plan that these guys came up with:  Over the next few weeks, we will visit each of the four churches during the week, dividing up the visits with Shane or Scott driving two from the Abahabuzi group.  The purpose of these mid-week visits will be to meet with the church leaders (in most cases to work through some leadership problems) and to make house-to-house visits.  Then, on the following Sunday, two of the Abahabuzi will visit the church in order to give some teaching and encouragement to the congregation as a whole.  In fact, the four struggling churches are in two separate “clusters”, and these visits are going to be held on “Super Sundays”, or meetings of all the churches in that cluster.  (To learn more about church clusters, go to:  http://www.ankolemission.com/village-clusters.htm.)

(2)  2008 Ministry Budget…  Another big topic was the very practical issue of how the various ministries of the Ankole Mission will be funded over the next year.  (As American team members depart, their working funds go with them.  However, one of the purposes of the town building we are constructing is a source of income generation to fund the ongoing ministries of this mission.  To learn more, go to: http://www.ankolemission.com/town-building.htm.)  Here are some of the ministries that were given a high priority (and top funding) for 2008:  Ankole Bible School, Leader’s Meetings and Advisor’s Meetings, Church/Cluster Visitation, and Benevolence in the Churches/Clusters (including financial help for roofing new church buildings).

Friday’s meeting also provides a nice example of how all this works together.  The income generated from the building’s rental shops provided the funds to transport these leaders, the “Advisors”, to and from the meeting.  It will also provide the funds to pay for their Sunday visits to the struggling churches mentioned above.  And getting together with these men to discuss and pray about the future of this mission is definitely time and money well spent!  Finally, as we go with them to these villages over the next few weeks, it will be an invaluable time of working together and increasing the effectiveness of the partnership between missionaries and national leaders.  (I was going to write that this is a good “fringe benefit” of the whole plan, but as I think about it, that might be the best thing of all!)

It was a good day, and a great meeting.  We look forward to the next few weeks, to see how it all fleshes out in real life… and we look forward with great hope.  It is our prayer that we can meet together in a true partnership, and work together to do the things that will best build up this movement of churches!