Yes! Here’s a real life example
Pastor John Sakala leads the Faith Tabernacle Believers Church in Mangena Village, Chipata District Zambia. He helped set up the church over ten years ago, starting with just eight members. As the membership grew, there wasn’t enough space inside, so they had to move the meeting outside. They chose a big tree in the village to meet under, but when it rained, not surprisingly, the congregation would scatter. Soon, the outdoor setting posed enough of a problem that people stopped attending. Pastor Sakala explains, ‘I almost gave up because it was difficult for me as a pastor. People advised me to leave the community and move somewhere else but I still felt the spirit of God telling me to hang on and wait upon God.’
Then, a friend invited Pastor Sakala to a CCT training organised by Tearfund. There, he started to read Bible studies on subjects like ‘Resource Mobilisation’, and started to realise that the church had the potential to solve their own challenges using the resources and skills they had around them. They could change their own future!
Pastor Sakala explains, ‘We organised men and women to start moulding bricks, and that is how the church building project commenced. It was a coordinated project, some fetched water while others dug the foundations and utilised their building skills. It was amazing because it was like a dream seeing a community coming together like this. We did not receive anything from anyone outside the community. The CCT process brought such a oneness among us.’
His church is now a shining light to the community. Membership suddenly grew from 28 members to 135 members – who are now involved in different activities in the local community such as local savings groups, setting up new businesses, delivering agricultural training and building new village toilets.
Pastor Sakala is now a Tearfund facilitator for this CCT process in his local area and he has led the process in seven churches and trained 21 church leaders.