Winning Ways: A Goodman in Africa

On June 18, I leave for 5 weeks in Africa.

I’ll be teaching a course in the Baptist Seminary in Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka. It’s a small school: my class will be made up of eleven men in their second and third year of a three-year residential program. Most of them already serve as pastors. I will also have many preaching and teaching assignments outside of class. I’ll stay on the seminary campus in the apartment of a missionary who is currently on stateside assignment.

It’s actually a return trip for me: I led a mission team to Zambia for a 10-day trip about 12 years ago. While the main purpose of that trip was to expose my church to international missions work by partnering with the missionaries on the field, I was also invited to lead a one-day class at the seminary. I enjoyed that small, small part in the school’s work of equipping Zambian pastors, and I’ve hoped to return ever since.

The seminary has asked me to teach a course on Christian worship. I’ve organized my seminar around a “pledge” that we pastors should make, no matter what part of the world we serve in:

We will lead our worship services so that

God is magnified

in Jesus Christ

by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit

through the faithful use of music,

scripture,

public prayer, and

the ordinances

so that all who gather

might know God’s grace,

cherish God’s presence, and

live for God’s glory.

That pledge also serves as my seminar outline: I’ve created one-to-three lectures for each of the lines. If anyone’s read Bob Kauflin’s Worship Matters you’ll see how much his excellent book has influenced my seminar outline.

Stay connected with my mission trip at my weblog, Get Anchored, where I’ve already posted some links to photos and information about the work I’ll be joining. And, while you can stay connected to my trip, I will stay connected to everything at Hillcrest by means of the internet and Skype.

I have some excellent speakers lined up while I’m gone, but I’ll be in the pulpit one more Sunday before I leave. Join me @ 10am this Sunday, June 14, as I bring the last message in the series, Bumper Sticker Wisdom.

(P.S., the phrase, “A Goodman in Africa” is from a somewhat obscure Sean Connery film from 1994 called, A Good Man in Africa. The only connection between my trip and the film is the name, a tidbit that may be of interest only to me!)

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