Develop a Discipleship System
International Ministries
Our International Ministries
PUBLISHING TEAMS IN THE CENTRAL CONFERENCES
When the church grows, leaders and churches need resources to nurture the faith of newcomers and current members. The challenge, however, is that these resources are hard to come by in the Central Conferences, particularly in Africa. One African leader put the dilemma this way:
"We are growing wide but not deep, for we lacked learning with the help of United Methodist resources. Up until now, the Christian resources our people found to read were likely to be Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, or Baptist instead of Methodist or Wesleyan in outlook and balance."
Pastoral leaders find themselves asking: "What does it mean to live and to lead as United Methodist Christians? How are we to fulfill the United Methodist mission and form people as Methodists without Methodist resources?"
Since its inception in 2009, Discipleship Resources International (DRI) has made it possible for Central Conferences to expand access to key resources for learning and leading in the church. DRI has walked hand-in-hand with leaders in the Central Conferences in developing small-scale publishing operations meant to develop local, contextual resources and provide a platform for budding local ministry thinkers and practitioners.
Publishing Team Partners
There are ten active publishing teams in Africa and one in the Philippines. Collectively, these teams have produced close to 200 local, contextual resources for the use of the church in their setting. The resources they produce are shared among the publishing teams, leading to cross-pollination and wider use of these resources. DRI brings these teams together for peer learning and mutual encouragement.
|
Publishing Team |
Team Leader & Coordinator |
|
Central Congo Episcopal Area |
Rev. Jonathan Mutej Ditend |
|
Cote d’Ivoire Annual Conference |
Rev. Philippe Adjobe |
|
East Congo Episcopal Area |
Ms. Judith Osongo Yanga |
|
North Mozambique Annual Conference |
Rev. Eurico Gustavo |
|
Sierra Leone Annual Conference |
Mr. Phileas Jusu |
|
South Mozambique Annual Conference |
Ms. Benedita Penicela |
|
Tanzania Annual Conference |
Rev. Upendo Likondi |
|
Zimbabwe Episcopal Area |
Rev. Gift Machigna Rev. Paul Mazumba |
|
Discipleship Resources Philippines |
Ms. Jay Cunanan-Canlas |
Global Conversations on Discipleship Podcast
Through this podcast, which is hosted by Mighty Rasing, Director of Central Conference Relationships at Discipleship Ministries, ministry leaders, thinkers, and practitioners from the Central Conferences share their stories as they live out their mission in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Click here to watch or listen to the episodes, access notes and highlights, and learn more.
The podcast is also available at:
The UMC eReader Project
The eReaders for Theological Education Project, a partnership between Discipleship Ministries and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM), is committed to providing electronic libraries on e-Readers with important theological texts to libraries of United Methodist-related and sponsored theological schools in Africa.
Between 2016-2019, the eReader Project distributed more than 2,000 eReaders (Kindles) to twenty-three (23) theological schools located in ten (10) countries in the African continent.
To learn more about this project and read stories of its impact, please visit umcereader.org.
Contact Information
Mighty Rasing
Director of Central Conference Relationships
[email protected]
615-340-1707