Mombasa Preaching Workshop
Pastor Charles Karuri shares the following report for their recent preaching workshop held in Mombasa, Kenya.
This past month we had the joyful opportunity to run a Swahili expository preaching workshop in the coastal city of Mombasa. Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city is an urban center that dates back all the way to the 12th century. In all these centuries, Mombasa has been a predominantly Muslim city with the first notable Christian presence if one might call it that, being the arrival of the Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama around 1498.
Very much in line with the history of the city, the workshop took place at the Manna Bible Church located within a Muslim neighbourhood in the Likoni area of Mombasa. Manna Bible Church led by Pastor Dalmas Nzai is a literal beachhead from which gospel influence has been flowing into the Likoni community and beyond. This preaching workshop conducted in Swahili is a strategic step for the Neopolis work in East Africa as we position ourselves to serve the local church through training built around our 3 P’s: preaching, pastoring, and planting.
We desire to partner with and to strengthen churches such as Manna Bible Church which is engaged in faithful gospel proclamation and the training of pastors and church leaders in the greater Mombasa area and beyond.
When the workshop began, the plan was to bring the curtain down at lunch on day three, which was a Friday, in order to allow those who had come from afar to travel back home and get some rest before resuming their various duties on the Lord’s Day.
To our amazement, the workshop attendees unanimously voted to extend the workshop on day three! The lively interaction in the small group sessions, the very direct, real life application questions in the Q&A sessions, the eye opening instruction in the teaching sessions, and the crown jewel, seeing it all come together in the model expositions, made for a most fulfilling and wholesome experience for the workshop attendees. The 50 participants went away instructed, encouraged, challenged, and equipped with each person receiving a locally printed copy of Dave Helm’s Expositional Preaching.
We in East Africa are grateful to our partners whose faithful giving makes it possible for us to do this most necessary work. Such giving enabled this workshop to happen and for a helpful book to be placed in the hands of each participant. Our prayer is to hold four such other workshops in 2026 and to be able to place in their hands two locally developed Swahili resources by East Africans writing for East Africans.
- Pastor Charles Karuri, Neopolis Regional Director for East Africa & South Africa
