Adoring Jesus, Loving People & Equipping the Church
International Missions: Africa
Ministry Name: African Leadership
Location: Franklin, TN
Leadership: President, Larry Warren; Vice President, Eddy Messick
Numbers Served: Currently serving over 8,000 pastors and church leaders in training and several more thousands in the physical needs area including famine, HIV/AIDS, orphan feeding and education in over 20 African countries. Also minister to hundreds of African refugees in the mid-state area.
Ministry & History: African Leadership started training African pastors and church leaders in the early 1990s using the Bible Training Centers for Pastors curriculum, a 10 course, 2 year seminary type education. African Leadership has now trained over 20,000 of those church leaders on that curriculum plus a continuing education curriculum which includes HIV/AIDS, Islam and Poverty issues. We are in 21 African countries and our training is in-class and the teachers are Africans who have graduated from Bible Colleges and/or our pastor training program.
We strongly believe in Africans training Africans. In addition, to the pastor training, our mission statement also includes meeting physical needs in those same areas where we train church leaders and we have many projects in those 21 countries that meet needs for children (AIDS, education, feeding, etc.), for HIV/AIDS health support, orphanages and orphan care, famine relief in drought stricken areas of Africa. We, also, provide a chaplaincy and reintegration ministry for the over 5,000 African refugees in Middle Tennessee.
Through African Leadership, we’re supporting the Village of Hope in Gulu, Uganda. This is a safe village for women who were abducted at very young ages and forced to be wives, concubines, soldiers, and servants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. Once they escape or are rescued, they and their children have nowhere to go. This village, once completed, will have a school, church, job training center, medical clinic and huts for the women to live in.
Information on village of Hope: www.AfricanLeadership.org/mission/10/Village_of_Hope.htm
Mailing Address: Eddy Messick, African Leadership, P.O. Box 682444, Franklin, TN 37068
Phone Number: (O) 615-595-8238; (C) 615-594-8238; (H) 615-377-5933;
Email Address: eddy@africanleadership.org
Web Address: www.AfricanLeadership.org
Quote from Eddy Messick: "When some people talk about the African church, they often use a sentence that says "The African church is a mile wide and an inch deep." The key point in this is that in the 20th Century, missionaries did a great job evangelizing on the continent, which now has over 380 million Christians, and church planting organizations followed behind that to plant thousands of churches. What has been lacking is the depth of leadership in the Christian church. African Leadership’s main mission is to train church leaders in such large numbers that it impacts the depth of discipleship and understanding in the church. As 2 Timothy 2:2 says we are trying to “train trustworthy men and women who will, in turn train many others."
