They walk the dusty trails from every direction—their faces revealing both weariness from the past week’s labor and gladness to be gathering to worship God. They sing a song. Someone prays. If there’s a reader in the crowd, he or she reads some verses from the Bible. If there’s no reader, they simply leave the way they came.

What! No teaching from God’s Word? How can this be a church? Sadly, this is reality for some remote churches in Ethiopia.

No Trained Pastor

In the “Western Zone” of the Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church (EKHC), hundreds of churches—in fact, more than 75% of them—have no trained pastor. Moreover, within this zone live many ethnic groups that have never heard of Christ. The training of rural leaders who can help their church members grow strong in the faith and evangelize their unreached neighbors remains an urgent but often overlooked need.

That’s why we’re passionate about grassroots leadership training. Tim and I live in Jimma, where the EKHC has a training school for future church leaders from all around the zone. Tim enjoys teaching at the school on the campus. But even more gratifying is the ongoing program to train church leaders who can’t go away to school in Jimma because of responsibilities of work and family and the care of their churches. Each leader commits to two years of studies in Old Testament, New Testament and biblical doctrine, and attendance at seminars on issues the churches face.

Careful listening helps Tim know how to tailor the studies to their level and their greatest needs. The students come together in a central location for three days every nine weeks to review what they’ve studied on their own and to hear teaching by Tim and others. Tim has written more than 20 study books which are used in these courses, in prison ministries, and in Sudanese refugee camps inside Ethiopia.

Grassroots Leadership Training

Attending the seminar is a sacrifice for these subsistence farmers who walk for hours to the seminar sites and study late into the night after a hard day of work. In one area, the sacrifice became extreme: Local officials passed a law requiring every farmer to work in his fields every day or pay a fine equal to two days’ income. That’s a high price to pay! At the next seminar, Tim asked the group what they wanted to do. It was not possible to reduce the length of the seminar and still cover pertinent issues well. One student spoke: “This is the only opportunity I might ever have to deeply study God’s Word. I would rather pay a fine than miss this chance to learn how to lead God’s people.” The rest of the church leaders quickly agreed with him, and all determined to continue to attend the seminar no matter what it might cost them.

In the seminars, Tim often team-teaches with Ethiopian church leaders. At one seminar where Tim and Ato Urgessa taught on marriage and God’s view of women, they divided the men according to their ethnic identity—Kaffas here, Oromos there—and assigned this question: If Jesus were from your tribe, how do you think He would treat women, especially your wife, in areas like eating, getting married, handling money, and work?”

Never before had these men considered that Jesus would have something to say to them about their treatment of women, and the idea of a woman’s equal value in God’s eyes was shocking. One man said, “We have to change how we are living.” Another promised to call the church elders together to examine cultural practices that need to change and then develop plans to teach the whole church.

Shared Cost

Tim travels over long rough roads, sleeps in a tent, eats the staple food (which is similar to a sour pancake eaten with spicy stews), and drinks “coffee” steeped from coffee leaves. While he’s in the seminar locations, he also shows Bible story videos after dark. Although there are no phones, the news flies fast and far that the foreigner has come. Up to 4,000 people representing all the local religious groups walk as long as four hours to see a video. When Tim returns months later, he finds children who can re-tell the Bible stories error-free! Best of all, the church leaders spend hours discussing lessons they learned from the Bible stories. “Look at Moses,” they exclaim. “Leadership wasn’t easy for him either.”

Tim estimates that 5,000 rural churches in Ethiopia have leaders with little or no biblical training. They love God, but they lack understanding of His Word and practical skills in how to shepherd their people. Tim says, “We must find a way to train these church leaders, or none of our strategies will be effective.”

Pray