National Director of Vision International Christian Ministries (VICM), Rev'd Francis Olubambi, whose organisation is hosting African Leadership Development Conference in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt between March 15 and 19 explains how VICM plans to train thousands of leaders to reach millions of people.

Teaching Theology to New Disciples

Christianity as we know in this country is growing and is seeing an incredible expansion and I guess one of the reasons for that is the obedience of the church to the commitment of Christ. Without doubt fulfilling this commission cannot be restricted to evangelism alone; that is why the Church needs to explore another commission that commands us to make disciples of the world. Thus making disciples implies evangelism and discipleship. VICM exists to come alongside with the church in providing excellent teaching materials that will help the church in her bid for disciple making. In fact we have the slogan that says “we exist to serve the church by training thousands of church leaders to disciple millions of church workers in fulfilling their goals and missions.?We have two major ways of operation. The first is through seminary network. We are aware that so many pastors don't have theological education or formal biblical training in any Bible or theological institute and are out there handling sacred jobs without theological training; so in VICM, we seek to make theological training affordable and available to all pastors. We do this in 'in-service training' where we give weekend courses.

Ground Programs

At present, we run this training in Owerri, Imo State and Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. We strategically locate places that we observe don't have the access to theological training. We have also flagged off a diploma program in Christian Ministry for Women. In this program, pastors' wives and Christian women leaders are trained as to enable them to actively assist their husbands in the ministry and this is yielding a wonderful result.

We also have the Church Leadership Institute. Through this institute, seminars, conferences and workshops are organized for pastors, Christian leaders and church workers. The institute started about three years ago when we had the Prayer of Jabez and the Purpose Driven Church conference where about 9,000 Christians - Pastors, Evangelists and Workers gathered to be equipped. We have received incredible testimonies from church leaders and Christian workers alike, that program was a blessing to the church and the country at large; since then, we have been teaching the Purpose Driven Church and Prayer of Jabez and other edifying topics.

Pastors from America

In pursuit of our vision to equip and disciple leaders, VICM will be able to bring for the next four years two remarkable Americans who have excelled in the areas of Church growth and leadership training. They are Dr. John C. Maxwell and Rev. Rick Warren. Dr. Maxwell is an internationally acclaimed preacher, teacher and an authority on the subject of leadership; his target in ALDC is to raise one million leaders in Africa. In this first edition holding this month, he will be discipling forth thousand leaders who will raise twenty five leaders each. Rev. Rick Warren is the pastor of the fastest growing Church in America and his team also will be teaching on 40 Days of Purpose which is designed to help every believer to discover why he is here on earth, that is, the purpose of his life. Warren is not coming for this month's program but his team will be here to teach purpose driven life while Maxwell will be around to teach leadership concepts which are concepts he developed over the years.

Source: Vanguard (Lagos)