Church Leadership Institute

JourneyPartners hosts 100-300 clergy, key lay leaders, and upper-level seminarians from all over Zimbabwe for a week of continuing education, pastoral support, and fellowship. Financial assistance includes room and board for participants for 4-5 days, usually housed at Baptist Theological Seminary of Zimbabwe in Gweru (Midlands) and Baptist Conference Center, Gweru (adjacent properties)

Formal classes are held in the mornings, with a long break for lunch; seminars and small group or panel discussions take place in the afternoons. Each evening includes worship, with local pastors, guest professors and others preaching.

Church Leadership Institutes are usually held in June or July, to accommodate the seminary holiday schedule as well as freer time for professors and other volunteers in the US. Professors' accomodations are at the seminary or conference center guest house, a comfortable brick-and-block ranch-style house. More traditional living opportunities are aslo available, including rural village experiences, as desired.

U.S. leaders in the CLI may arrange their stay in-country for a period of one to three weeks with a travel time of about two days each way. Additional opportunities for service may include a short-term cultural immersion, seminary lectures if in session, preaching in local churches, pastoral visitation if desired, meetings with denominational leadership, visits to local mission hospitals and outlying clinics, visits to mission and public primary schools and high schools, and some touring opportunities (Great Zimbabwe, game park, cave paintings, museums, Victoria Falls). U.S. travelers are invited and encouraged to participate in the annual ZimJourney work project; 2009 plans are to facilitate a new water system for the community of Chambuta, a remote area in southeast Zimbabwe, to provide clean and accessible water in that area. JourneyPartners may also be working at Nenyunga Clinic, the most remote of Sanyati hospital's six rural clincs to provide clean water and clinic renovations. In 2009, experiences may also include ecumenical meetings with leaders in Zimbabwe Council of Churches, and opportunities to meet with various local artists.

2009 -- Leading Women: Past, Present, Future: Leading Women in the Bible, Women in Contemporary Leadership, Leadership Principles from the Ground Up

2007 -- Bill Hardee, Vineville Baptist Church: Historic Baptist Principles and Baptist Polity Jim Wilson, Carson Newman College: AIDS and Faith (Youth Leadership Conference)

2006 -- Jack McKinney, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church:Ethics in Pastoral Counseling

2004 -- Bernie Cochran, retired, Meredith University: Biblical Interpretation Marian Berky, Vanderbilt Divinity School: Feminist Interpretations of Biblical Stories

1999 -- Tracy Hartman, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, VA: Preaching from a Narrative Perspective Furman Hewitt, Baptist House of Studies, Duke Divinity School: Pastoral Counseling, Ethics from a Case Study Perspective