And the things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will be qualified to teach others.
(2 Timothy 2:2)

Training local leaders has always been a part of the mission to the Watchi people. An essential principle of our strategy has been that local churches are led by local leaders. Missionaries serve as teachers, trainers, and models, but responsibility for local church leadership rests in the hands of the Watchi Christians.

Train & Multiply® (www.trainandmultiply.com) is the primary tool that we are now using in training these local leaders. Train & Multiply®, originally developed by veteran missionary George Patterson and now distributed by Project WorldReach, is a leadership training curriculum that effectively communicates the principles that we have found to be most effective in working among the Watchi. It also provides a structure for continuing leadership training which requires only minimal, if any, subsidy following missionary phase-out. The curriculum is already available in English and French, and the majority of the 63 training booklets are available in a preliminary Ewe (eh-vay) translation. Ewe is the written language used by the Watchi.

Train & Multiply® provides leadership training that is:

Biblical
• This approach embraces principles adopted by Jesus in training his disciples, and emulated by Paul in his training of Timothy, Titus, and others.
• The curriculum teaches essential doctrine as well as practical ministry skills.
• Train & Multiply® stresses obedience to the basic commands of Jesus as a way of measuring spiritual progress of trainees and churches.
• Most of the trainees are well on their way to possessing the biblical qualities of elders. Fully biblical elderships are already emerging in the areas where the principles are being put into practice.

Relevant
• Only those already involved in church or small group leadership are trained.
• Training requires active participation in evangelism, church planting, maturing new Christians, and training new leaders.
• Training is adapted to the leaders’ church situations and ministry challenges, and can be immediately applied. This guarantees relevancy and reinforces learning.
• Leadership booklets are simple, easy to follow, well-illustrated with black-and-white graphics, and are being made available in the local language.

Sustainable
• Leaders are trained in or near their home villages on a part-time basis, and are not required to leave their families or sources of livelihood.
• Training follows a culturally-appropriate model of a mentor training an apprentice in workshop as opposed to a more Western model of a teacher instructing a student in a school.
• The approach requires only minimal physical infrastructure, such as facilities for printing, storing, and distributing materials.
• Because of the multiplying effect of leaders training other leaders, this approach can supply training for an increasing number of leaders as the movement expands. The team began using Train & Multiply® in 2003. At the beginning of 2004, fifty local leaders were being trained, all by missionaries. By early 2005, 63 leaders were receiving training. Of these, over twenty were being trained by other Watchi leaders.