Training

Overview

The program is made up of 10 church trainings (modules) and 10 Facilitator Development trainings. We typically meet together with the Local Facilitators every 3 months and alternate between the two types of training.

Church Training

The 10 Church trainings are designed to be taught to groups of 10-40 church members (not just pastors) over five years. The goal of the trainings is to wholistically disciple church members so they are able to bring transformation to their community.

The first three modules (indicated below in black) focus on worldview and challenge churches to demonstrate God’s love to their community.

Five modules (indicated in dark blue) are skills based. We begin each training by introducing the biblical principles related to a respective skill, followed by practical guidelines on how to apply it in life.

The two trainings highlighted in light blue serve as a review of our ultimate purpose—to glorify God.

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A brief overview of what is covered in each of these trainings is covered here.

Training methods

Originally each module was written as a three- to four-day training. However, the training schedule can be adapted to fit different contexts. Some of the common adaptations include doing trainings:

Sunday afternoons after church for 5-6 weeks per module.
One evening a week for 10 weeks per module.
In place of the Sunday sermon (this works best in church plants in which the sermon is already highly participatory.)

All of these and more work fine. The two keys are to train as many people in the church as possible and to complete only two modules per year with time for application in between.

Facilitator Development Training

The Facilitator Development Trainings includes:

Prayer and Devotions: Acknowledging that it is God who changes people and places, we pray for each person and each of the areas that we are working in.
Sharing Testimonies: Often testimonies of what is happening in one area inspire other facilitators to try the same thing. Other stories reveal where things are getting stuck and help the group learn to problem solve together.
Teaching: The facilitator development modules are designed to build skills in effective teaching, leadership, problem solving, and addressing conflict.

Using the Materials

How we learn

The most important learning happens once the students leave the classroom. We view the lessons as ways to motivate people to try something new. Our measure for success in any training is whether the people try to apply the ideas. (See Key Practices: Change is Produced by what we DO for more details).

Participatory Training

The trainings include group work, role plays, games, questions, and personal reflection. We invest time in training Local Facilitators to teach in a participatory way because it leads to greater application and action later by the participants.

Materials Available

All materials are simple, easy to reproduce and shareable. (see Key Practices: Keep it Small and Simple)

Facilitator Materials

Teacher’s Books – Each module has a teacher’s book that provides detailed instructions.
Visual Aids – Each module has visual aids such as a poster, pictures and cards.

Student Materials

Student Guide – Each module has a student guide. This provides a place for students to make notes and worksheets to use for group work. In very low literate areas, or where printing costs are high, it is not necessary to use student materials.
Student Summary – This is available for skills lessons to review key ideas (for example: how to treat a fever).

Obtaining Copies of the Training Information and Materials

Copies of training materials are available in PDF format on the Materials page. If you wish to have copies in Microsoft Word to contextualize or translate, they can be downloaded from the members area.

Additional Languages

The materials are available in a number of languages. If you are seeking a particular language, please check here to see if it is available. If you are thinking of translating the materials, please do let us know so that we are able to make sure you are not duplicating someone else’s efforts, and so that we can share your efforts with others from that language group.

Contextualizing the Training

As you consider implementing TCT in your context, you may need to:

Make it applicable

You may need to adapt some pieces to suit your area. For example, in lesson six of Module 1, we include a case study of how to help a family whose house burned down. However, if you are working in an area where fire is not common, then the case study needs to be rewritten to reflect the problems your community faces.

Identify your lies

The key lies we face and seek to address are mentioned in the core principles, but each context varies. Identifying lies, especially within your own culture, is difficult. The first step, however, is to ask church members the following questions:

Why are some people poor?
Why are some people rich?
What is the role of the church in helping the poor?
Why doesn’t the church reach out more?

The answers to these questions will indicate some of the lies in your community.

In addition, observe if all believers are being challenged to walk in obedience to God in all areas of their life, especially giving and serving. Do the poorest believers still serve others? If not, why not?

It can be helpful to teach the first few lessons on serving others to a smaller group and then listen to their objections as to why it is not possible. In one country, for example, they shared they could never get people to serve because the trust in their nation had been destroyed through war. Therefore, we tailored their training to include additional lessons on forgiveness and God’s call to love.

Details

Training Continued

Simple practical training
to help churches
experience God’s
transforming power in
every area of life