Simeon Trust Preaching Workshop in Kitwe
Three key men from REACH-Zambia and I attended the Simeon Trust Workshop for Expository Preaching in Kitwe hosted by the Faith Baptist Church of Riverside, Kitwe. This was a valuable opportunity for us as preachers and Bible teachers to practice and sharpen our skills in expository preaching. We were immensely blessed and have grown in our ability to preach better.
Just as professional sportsmen (footballers, athletes, racing car drivers, etc.) spend many hours practicing their skills, so also preachers benefit massively by practicing essential skills. The Simeon Trust Workshops serve as a practicing arena for preachers to not only practice preparing to preach particular texts, but also to receive valuable constructive feedback from colleagues.
Our instructors at this Workshop were Chopo Mwanza and Andrew Butterworth.
Preaching from the book of Romans
This Simeon Trust Workshop was focussed on preaching from discourse (text type) passages in the New Testament. The book of Romans was used as the example and all our text assignments came from Romans. This was super helpful because we all got a much deeper understanding of the book of Romans.
Four brothers journey together
As one of my roles at REACH-Zambia is to grow and develop leaders in the church who can preach God’s Word faithfully, I gladly took three brothers with me. Rasford Zulu, Paul Ngoma, and Felix Mulenga are dear friends, brothers in Christ, and mentees whom I have the wonderful privilege of mentoring. We had such amazing fellowship during these four days together. This was one of my highlights of the trip.
We left Lusaka early on Tuesday morning at 04:00 and started off on the seven-and-a-half hour journey to Kitwe. It was great to be on the road so early as there was not much traffic (as there normally is) in Lusaka.
Since I was serving as a workgroup leader at this workshop, I needed to attend the Pre-workshop sessions. These sessions started at 12:00 on Tuesday which is why we left Lusaka so early.
I left Rasford, Felix, and Paul at the Rosevilla Lodge and rushed off to attend the afternoon sessions.
These Pre-Workshop sessions helped me to get a command of the passages that we would be looking at in the Workshop. Andrew Butterworth led these sessions and helped us also to get a grasp of the Simeon Trust pedagogy. This really gave me confidence to lead my workgroup well.
Preparation Pathway for preaching
Sermon preparation is hard work. We must apply ourselves to the hard work of sermon preparation. To be faithful as a preacher, we must not only be accurate to text but also relevant to the audience. Our sermons must make sense to the people we are preaching to. In order to be accurate as well as relevant, there is a proper sequence to sermon preparation.
“We must follow a proper sequence to studying the Bible and preparing to preach.”
Andrew Butterworth instructed us on the Structure of a passage. He stressed the need to discover the structure of a passage in order to discern the author’s emphasis.
“Every text has its own divinely inspired organisation that provides the intended emphasis”
“Just as every song has a unique melody, so too every book of the Bible has a unique message.”
Because this was a workshop, it meant that all participants had to do work in preparation for the workgroup sessions and present their work to the other participants. Each participant prepared a worksheet on two different assigned passages in Romans.
Crossway publishers donated 100 book-sets (6 books in each set) to our church. These books are intend to be distributed to pastors. We picked them up from Imbila Publishers in Kitwe.
During our three nights in Kitwe, we had our supper at the Hungry Lion. We had such great fun together and really learned to love one another deeper.
Please Pray
pray for us all (Paul, Felix, Rasford, and Michael) that God would continue to to grow us not only in our love for Him and for each other, but also in our ability to preach sermons that are accurate and relevant.
Would you consider helping?
The cost of attending this Simeon Trust Workshop together with my 3 brothers has cost me R13700 (US$750). This has put a serious strain on our finances. We are trusting God for support to help us cover these costs. Please will you consider helping us.
Please see our Support Page for options of how to send your financial gift to us.
Thank you for reading this post and for praying for us.
If you would like to sign up for our monthly newsletter, please follow this link: Sign up for our Newsletter.