The day’s schedule
1. # 3 [above].
Over the last 5 years, I had observed that many of my Christian brethren longed to personally know Jesus better, but a lot did not have a pattern of how to read the scriptures for personal edification. So, in an effort to begin to solve #3 above, we began in the classroom at 6am. A book of the Bible had been chosen to ‘study’ for each course, with each day’s reading clearly indicated. The students would sit in pairs, and in a note book each would write down [individually] their answers to the same questions. These I had borrowed from the Scripture Union.
Questions such as
- What does this passage say about God, Father Son or Spirit ?
- Is there any command here which I should be obeying ?
- Or something which I should be avoiding ?
- What can I take with me personally into the day from this reading ? |
When each had answered the questions for himself, then I would ask them to exchange their note books with the friend next to him, and encourage them to discuss what had been written and why.
The final 10 minutes were then allocated to prayer. Their choice whether they prayed by themselves, or shared in prayer with their study ‘partner’
This meditation or so called ‘quiet time’ usually took 35-40 minutes.
In the couple of week’s break between courses, I used to go and visit various students in the villages to see how they were getting on. On one occasion one student asked me to be with him at 6am !! On arriving, the village drum was beaten and to my amazement the whole village assembled in the church. I wrongly presumed that the catechist had called them together so I could address them. How great is the sin of pride. ‘No no’ said the catechist ‘we do this every day, and we follow the exact procedure which you taught’. I observed people reading the bible together and endeavouring to answer the same 4 questions which I had required the students to answer. I humbly thanked the Lord.
2. The day’s schedule then returned to the classroom after ‘breakfast’ of uji.
With a break in the middle, we spent from 9 to 12.30 in the classroom.
3. After lunch and an hours ‘break’, we aimed to do at least an hours manual work – we had more than 100 cashew trees, which we had grown from seed. They had to be watered, and ‘cultivated’. We remade internal roads, and early on, we made lots of mud bricks as we purposed and actually built a house for an assistant – and how glad we were when Pastor [later Canon], John Ndahani, joined me on staff the following year.
4. Later in the afternoon we had compulsory ‘sport’. This was aimed to create team spirit, and so we set up a volley ball court, and although most had never played volley ball before, it soon became a lot of fun. Later we were to challenge the girls school [who were experts at the game], to some competitions.
5. After the evening meal, as we had between 3 to 4 hours of electricity in those days, we would reassemble in the classroom sometimes for additional work, sometimes for personal review and assignments, sometimes for Q and A.
The curriculum
I tried very hard to make the curriculum interesting, informative, always having the objective of 2 Timothy 2.15 in mind.
Each course, I choose an OT book, portion of a gospel, and a NT letter to look at in a little depth.
I interspersed teaching on these with working through the Apostles Creed, [as a basis of some systematic theology]
church history,
as well as practical subjects such as ‘how to evangelise’, ‘how to lead an enquirer to the point of commitment to Christ’.
Then we had sessions on preaching, not only how to prepare sermons, but the whole craft including illustrations, delivery, application etc.
As one of the purposes was to give the men a greater love of the scriptures, and a greater ability to begin to know their way around them, each week I would choose part of a Biblical book [or the whole book if it was a small one]. Then each Saturday morning we would have a contents exam.
I would give 20 or 25 short limited quotes from the selected book, which they had to identify. 3 marks per question. One mark if they described briefly what the quote related to, [i.e. its context], and a further two marks if they gave the actual reference. Of course they were to use their bibles which they had with them. it was great to hear the rustle of pages. I usually would give them their marks on Saturday evening, together with the part of the Bible on which they would be examined the following Saturday.
2 or 3 times in a 3 months course we would all go on an evangelistic ‘outing’. Sometimes to several villages, and do ‘door to door’ talking to people about the Lord Jesus. Sometimes we would go to the local market, and in pairs would try and engage people in talking the gospel.
Most Saturday afternoons would be ‘rest time’ but I found that the conscientious ones had their heads in the Bible.
Everyone would be given at least one sermon to preach in the course, and an hour would be allocated sometime during the day for the whole student body to say what they considered to be the good and bad points. I would then give further teaching on the skill and art of preaching.
We always had Holy Communion on Sunday Mornings, followed by further teaching on the ins and out of the prayer book. Sunday afternoons were usually free again, and those who were so inclined would hold a ‘revival fellowship’ meeting.
I was delighted when some folk from Dodoma agreed to come to augment the breath of teaching. For example Mrs Stanway regularly came and taught on Islam, and how to present the gospel of Christ to Muslims. This was greatly appreciated. Missionaries such as Max Morris and Max Corbett were also regular visiting teachers. It was also important to welcome overseas visitors such as Bishop and Mrs Chambers, Archbishop Marcus Loane and Bishop Jack Dain, [who officially opened the Bible school. At that time he was the Federal Secretary of CMSA], all who shared with the students.
Most of the courses lasted 3 months, but I did have a 6 month one, and then after 3 years, one which lasted for 9 months – to which I invited those students who had done well in previous courses to come back for further concentrated study. I think this was quite a success.
After a time we had students from many areas, students of different tribes, including Wakaguru and Masai.
I thank God for the immense privilege of being able to start this work in the original Diocese of Central Tanganyika, and on reflection, I have no doubt that these 4 years 1960 to 1964 were some of the most exciting of my whole life.
By way of a foot-note. In 1991 I was chairman of the CMS Federal Executive of Australia, and was asked to represent the Society at the consecration of Simon Chiwanga, and the formation of his new diocese. Later, I was to count at least 40 ex-students of my time at Msalato, who having been ordained were in pastoral ministry. The joy which was expressed from both sides at such a meeting was quite overwhelming.
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