Africa – Inspire Action

Developing a Relevant Curriculum

September 5, 2012

Along with a few other men from ACC — Kurt, Truman, Lynn, Bheki, and Luke — I spent the weekend in Nelspruit, South Africa at an annual men’s retreat. Coordinated by Dennis Malepa of the African Centre for Theological Studies (Botswana), the retreat moves locations each year and brings together Church of Christ men from Southern Africa (though predominantly black South Africans).

[Don’t tell them, but I also took my wife and family. We made a little vacation out of the two days before and the afternoon after, and they enjoyed the lodge while I attended the retreat.]

A major theme was repeated by the 80+ attendees of the retreat: our Bible colleges need to be relevant and actually graduate people who are equipped to do something worthwhile. To my surprise, many of the practical suggestions they offered were things we were already (unknowingly to them) doing at ACC. This reveals a different issue: lack of communication about ACC rather than lack of (complete) irrelevance. This may help explain why so few of our students are currently from Southern Africa (only 1 from South Africa, 1 from Lesotho, 5 from Swaziland of our 35 students; 13 are from Kenya).

Despite this communication problem (which we’re working to address), we must design an appropriate, relevant, practical, and thorough curriculum for our students. This is no easy task.

Africa is a large, changing continent

Poverty is improving in Africa, but not as fast as other continents. By 2015, Africa is expected to be home to 60% of the world’s poverty and poverty will be seen as primarily as an African problem (Brookings Institute, 2011). One in every four Swazi adults is infected with HIV/AIDS. Urbanization is increasing which also means that traditions and families are being torn apart. Yet witch doctors, animism, and ancestor worship continue to play a prevalent role. Divorce is increasing. And the Church of Christ is largely unprepared for any of it (not sure yet about the other Christians in Southern Africa).

The short list above is simply that: a short list of challenges facing our graduates as they return home as leaders in congregations, communities and families.

What are we doing to be relevant?

Earlier this year, we took a hard look at our curriculum and made many difficult choices about what we could include and could not include (we can’t do it all — especially with one bachelor’s program). Despite our limitations, we came out with a stellar plan (though I’m admittedly biased).

Our Core Curriculum includes 27 courses that provide a solid foundation for graduates in the Bible, theology, math, English, computer skills, entrepreneurship, and spiritual formation. From there we added 13 courses in each of three majors:

Ministry – for those desiring full-time work with a congregation as a minister or leader
Counselling – for those preparing to become proficient as counsellors in churches, schools, or with organizations
Leadership – for community, church, and business leaders learning effective, holistic community development and organizational management

Our majors get deep into the heart of these areas to prepare for a variety of situations and gain thorough knowledge. But, we’ve tried not to stop there. We know that keeping our students in the ivory towers of academia will not adequately prepare them. So, we continue to seek effective ways for Contextual Education.

Contextual Education includes practical coursework and hands-on learning as well as co-curricular and extra-curricular learning opportunities for our students. Students take classroom theories and immediately practice them in local congregations, communities, and within the ACC community as project leaders and Student Representatives. Here’s three important areas of Contextual Education added to our curriculum.

A unique and exciting partnership with World Christian Broadcasting that will be intentionally integrated into numerous courses. Rather than simply writing an essay or paper, students will write and record audio lessons for radio broadcast across Africa teaching the concepts, lessons, or principles they are studying themselves in class. They’ll be teaching Bible lessons, strengthening families, and providing practical lessons to prevent the spread of HIV to Africans across the continent through this partnership.
We’ve added internships and supervised practice of ministry to our graduation requirements. Our students have always been extremely active in local congregations, but this change is an attempt to ensure that practical, skilled learning is taking place while our students are serving. Experience working with congregations better prepares relevant leaders.
Since the beginning (when African Christian College was deep in the bush and was called Manzini Bible School), students have been active in evangelistic programs in Swaziland. This continues today. As I said at the retreat this past weekend, “We’ve been talking about the need for planting churches with new believers. Well, right now while we’ve been sitting here ACC students have been out doing evangelism in a neighborhood in Swaziland where there is no church. They are actively planting a new congregation in cooperation with the Matsapha church and Brother Mamba. Our graduates will leave with experience and know-how.”

At one point, a well-respected leader in the group said, “I want to thank ACC for being relevant.” In the midst of discussing many of the challenges facing these leaders, this was a compliment not taken lightly. We are certainly striving for relevance and attempting to do the best we can to honour God and prepare visionary leaders who are led by the Spirit to face the many challenges before them.

If you have a chance to review our curriculum and Contextual Education plans, I’d love your feedback. Other eyes are extremely helpful as we strive for excellence and relevance. What’s missing from our curriculum? What stands out to you as excellent (or at least on the right path)? There’s always room for improvement and your feedback can help us accomplish God’s dream in Africa.

Is a Zero-Waste Campus Possible?

August 10, 2012

As a boy, I was involved in several environmental projects. I counted the trees in our neighborhood (then sold seedlings to neighbors who didn’t have ‘enough’ to boost our numbers). I gathered my neighbor’s recycling (then delivered it to the recycler a few towns away). I wrote letters to public officials (then received a helpful packet about the environment from my senator, Al Gore.) I joined Global ReLeaf (then distributed their materials to neighbors).

In Abilene, though it was inconvenient, we recycled our plastics, paper, cardboard, and metals. And, though inconsistent, we also composted for Rachael’s garden. In reality, though, I’m more ‘environmentally aware’ than I am an environmentalist.

Around Swaziland we’re seeing a little talk of ways cities, businesses, and people are trying to go ‘green.’ Realizing we don’t have a good way to dispose of our trash on campus (we burn it like most people around us), we began seeking other options. (Giving credit where it is due, this has been done almost entirely by Rachael).

As a guest speaker in a class recently, Rachael asked students what was in their trash and options for disposing of it. Soon everyone realized that almost everything could be recycled, repurposed, composted, or fed to livestock. (See her post about class)

Could our little college campus in rural Swaziland eliminate waste? Certainly we can reduce it, but by how much? A quarter? Half? Three-quarters? Progress in this area not only helps the environment, but saves us resources used in disposing of waste.

Is this even possible (or feasible)? Here’s why I think it is:

Though done inconsistently, there is already composting on campus. To manage this better would not only reduce waste, but help the gardens.
Questionable is whether our current livestock (cattle, goats, chickens) would have any interest in scraps. Our current chicken system won’t allow for scraps.
The paper, plastic, metal, and cardboard accounts for the vast majority of the remainder of the trash. Much to our surprise, it may be more convenient here than it was in Abilene. The local recycler in Matsapha is willing to provide us with large collection bins and regularly come to pick up all types of (mainly unsorted) recyclables … at no cost. Not to our surprise, he keeps failing to follow-through on the promise of bringing the bins “tomorrow”.

The hardest part — as with any change in behaviour — will be getting students and staff to follow through on actually recycling and composting their waste. (With the promise of these bins tomorrow, our house has piles of recyclables ready to go out and the girls make daily runs out to the compost).

The students in class today, though, appeared excied about the idea and even said, “I’m not just thinking about how to help make this happen here; I’m starting to try to figure out how to do this when I get home!”

The students shared some ideas about how to motivate others for a behaviour change. What ideas do you have?

Sustainability Lessons from Tree of Life

August 8, 2012

Thanks to African Christian College’s Tree of Life Project (our 14,000 macadamia trees), my dad is presenting at the Africans Claiming Africa for Christ Conference in Lusaka, Zambia today. The topic assigned: sustainability.

Sustainability is a word plagued with ambiguity. Depending on the context, the idea of “enduring” takes on its own life. Usually when I talk about ‘sustainability’ I am thinking about organizational sustainability in regards to finances. To be more specific, I’ll provide a definition:

sustainability – the ability to secure stable and sufficient long-term financial resources, and to allocate them in a timely manner and appropriate form, to cover the full costs of the organization.

To be clear, ‘stable and sufficient long-term financial resources’ include revenue generating activities (like selling macadamia nuts), fees (like tuition), reducing expenses (like growing our own food for the cafeteria), and fund raising (like churches and individuals committed to current and future support). Sustainability and self-sufficiency are not the same.

Yet, African Christian College seeks to be a truly African college – not totally or primarily dependent on outside funding. To accomplish this aspect of our vision we must focus on sustainability with a variety of strategies (and we are making good progress).

The Tree of Life Project provides ample content for exploring the move toward sustainability. So, as part of dad’s presentation today, I helped by putting together a handout on sustainability lessons using ACC’s experience with Tree of Life as a case study.

The two-page handout includes an abbreviated history and description of some of our challenges I think you’ll find interesting. But here are the 8 lessons we highlighted in encouraging congregations and ministries seeking sustainability:

Secure local resources before it’s too late — We should seek stable and sufficient long-term resources from local sources before the threat of losing funding from the outside.
Use your assets — Identify resources (expertise, land, labor, time) you already have and find ways for producing revenue.
Do what works — Find things that earn money and are needed in your community.
Plan carefully — Major, long-term investments in a project should be researched and may need expert help (if not expert leadership) to be successful.
Prepare for threats — The unexpected will happen, but many costly mistakes can be avoided with preparation.
Invest in success — Equipped staff, adequate tools, and commitment from the leadership are essential for any strategy to work.
Evaluate and improve — Don’t keep doing the same thing; look for ways to improve efficiency, increase income, and reduce costs.
Remember the mission — The strategies exist to accomplish the mission. Find ways to integrate the strategies with the mission or remember the goal is funding the mission.

I’m sure there is more to be learned even out of the Tree of Life case study. What are we missing? What did we get wrong? What stands true in your experience?

| Download TOL Sustainability Lessons handout (pdf) |