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The Mission Society hosted a cross-cultural training conference April 23 – May 4, 2012 in Nakuru, Kenya. Mission Society staff members  who provided leadership for the event included the Rev. Frank Decker, vice president for member care and development, Dr. Darrell Whiteman, vice president for mobilization and training and resident missiologist, and Richard Coleman, director for mobilization and candidacy.

More than 70 people attended the conference, representing 28 different denominations and non-denominational movements and 10 different tribes. 

Kenya’s more than 43 million people represent a diverse population of ethnic groups and languages. While 45 percent of Kenyans are Protestant, 33 percent are Catholic, 10 percent are Muslim, and 10 percent continue to practice their African traditional religions.

“The purpose of the conference was to join with Kenyan ministries in training Kenyan nationals in mission service to remote parts of Kenya and beyond,” said Decker. “We also wanted to help Kenyans realize that there are still 22 unreached or  least reached ethic groups in Kenya, and to give them some cross-cultural and discipleship tools and perspectives to engage these people groups,” said Whiteman.

“Our prayer is that God will use the training, not only to greatly accelerate outreach to the least reached in Kenya and beyond, but to increase the effectiveness of the precious servants of Christ who are pouring their lives into reaching the unreached with the Good News of Jesus,” said the Rev. Dick McClain, president and CEO of The Mission Society.

Whiteman taught sessions on the Incarnation as a model for mission, transforming your worldview, understanding the difference between form and meaning, overcoming culture shock, and knowing our belief systems. Decker taught sessions on building trust and growing disciples, spiritual warfare, and Christian-Muslim relations. Decker team-taught with a Kenyan pastor for each of the sessions. Coleman led experiential activities for the participants that accompanied each lecture. Daily inductive Bible study in the gospel of Mark was provided by Eric Miller, who has served in Kenya with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students.

One participant said to me, "You have completely changed our minds on how we should approach Muslims" said Decker. “Others who serve in very difficult places said they came to the event discouraged and even ready to give up, but now they are refreshed and encouraged to go back.”

“Throughout the week I would ask participants what they were learning, and over and over again they would say, ‘Incarnation. I never heard this teaching before and now I realize I have to change the way I'm relating to people in my ministry.’ At the end of the first day, one of the bishops said to me, ‘Well, we can go home now. The idea of the Incarnation as a model for ministry changes everything. I'm going to meet with all my pastors and we're going restructure the entire way we go about doing ministry,’” said Whiteman.

Plans are being made to offer another cross-cultural training conference in Kenya in April 2013.