Earlier this year I attended a conference where the hosts highlighted their organization’s desire to further their discipleship efforts by “casting wide” with large-scale events and then “going deeper” with a smaller group of individuals who attended those preceding events. This was their hope in sharing the Gospel across the continent of Africa. It was an exciting approach and one that I hope our friends find highly successful, for in so doing, God’s plan of salvation and redemption is made known to more people.

East Mountain’s Breadth and Depth
East Mountain’s plan for developing and discipling leaders and strengthening ministries in South Africa does not involve this same stated tactic. However, as I have reflected on our work over these past six months, I realized our community actually has had a similar approach in developing leaders who will, in turn invest in, disciple, and share the Good News of Jesus to countless others. Our ministry activities have involved an aspect of both reaching a larger number of Christian leaders while also spending significant time investing in a smaller, selected number of growing leaders.

Breadth
This year, our staff and residents have hosted workshops and theological training in Stellenbosch, Port Elizabeth, and Butterworth. We have travelled across South Africa supporting churches and denominations in training pastors and lay leaders. We have equipped these leaders with a deeper understanding of the Bible, an increased theological knowledge and awareness, and methodologies for teaching and discipling the people under their leadership. We have hosted two teams from the States providing ministry involvement, leadership training, and cross-cultural exposure. We hosted and helped guide one of our ministry partner’s annual retreats, helping them come together as a group and prepare for the future. We have also participated in ministry activities at the local, partnership level. Just a few examples of staff and residents involvement are that we have given sermons, mentored teachers, led home Bible studies and prayer times, worked with at-risk children in a school environment, coached children through sports, equipped coaches helping them in their own ministry, and worked with weekly street evangelism efforts.

Depth

We have not just gone wide, though. We have also sought to go deeper with a smaller group of individuals. Through Summit (and Matt Thurgood’s six weeks with us in January) we have spent time going deeper with people from three different continents in mentoring, discipling, and training them for whatever lies ahead in their walks with Christ. (It could be argued that six weeks is not enough time to go deep. Even if this is true, many of us at East Mountain have continued to maintain contact and mentoring-type roles with those who have since left the immediate surroundings of the EM house, thus continuing to impact their lives for the better.) As a staff, we have spent time mentoring and discipling the residents and other individuals within our ministry partnerships helping them grow as leaders. As residents, we have spent time mentoring and discipling those people who are in our assigned ministries. We have developed relationships and bonds that have continued to help these people grow in their understanding of Christ and themselves. For some of the people our residents have discipled, they have equipped our ministry participants for and involved them in active ministry roles themselves.

Developing Christian Leaders For Global Missional Service
What is exciting is that while our ministry work continues to remain focused on our mission statement of “developing Christian leaders for global missional service,” there has been a natural consequence of those efforts. That is, the more we have sought to develop leaders, the more the Gospel has been made more real and understood. This is true not just for the small, immediate community of East Mountain, but for so many more people who may not even know what East Mountain is. May it continue to be this way for however long God allows East Mountain to remain in South Africa.