Distinctive Elements of the Centre for Urban Mission

There are a number of distinctive elements of the Centre for Urban Mission’s programmes:

Contextualisation
Moving the urban mission course into Kibera enables us to more effectively contextualise our programmes so that they connect with the realities of ministry in the poorest parts of the city. By inserting part of the college in the slum we provide the space for students to explore the relationship between the gospel and the context of the slum. Here, away from the more familiar surroundings of a typical theological college, courses are developed and taught through an engagement with the faith, struggles and experiences of churches and communities living beneath Kibera’s iron sheet skyline.

Constituency
The urban mission course is designed primarily for pastors and church leaders who are engaged in ministry in the slums. However, the student body is made up of men and women from a variety of churches within and on the borders on Nairobi. Students share a context of urban poverty as the focus of their ministry. Importantly, students on the urban course all remain in ministry whilst on the programme. In this way students are encouraged both to apply their learning within their ministry and to bring their experience of ministry to the programme.

Community
The community of Gatwikera, the village in Kibera where the Centre is located, is a key resource in the development of training. Students spend significant amounts of time talking and engaging with the local community and later reflecting on that experience. Students approach the community as learners and this relationship forms a model for their practice of ministry. We aim to develop urban ministry practitioners who enter a context with the goal of understanding the culture, needs, agendas and issues of the community and how the gospel can be lived and proclaimed in that context.

Curriculum
Our curriculum is built around an engagement between content and context, between the unchanging truth of the gospel and the ever changing context of the city. We seek to equip Pastors and Leaders to reflect both on scripture and on their experience and that of their community. The Urban Mission course utilises core modules from Carlile College’s existing theology programme, particularly in missiology and biblical studies, and combines them with courses developed specifically for the urban programme. In this we aim to inform students about their faith and the application of that faith in life and ministry in the realities of their context; to form church leaders who will minister effectively in the city and specifically in the slums; and to develop ministries which will transform churches and communities.

Collaboration
Isolationist models of ministry do little for the growth of God’s kingdom in the city. Consequently we have developed the urban mission course through a process of collaboration and we deliver the course in a way that promotes collaborative models of ministry in the city. Our courses involve pastors from a wide range of denominations and this process of learning together from different perspectives and experiences is central to the aims of the programme.

Staff Team
Your colleagues at the Centre for Urban Mission will be your fellow students and the teaching staff team. The teaching team at the Centre for Urban Mission currently includes:

• Rev Colin Smith, a CMS Mission Partner, is Director of the Centre. Colin’s Masters thesis compared three different models of Christian ministry within informal settlements in Nairobi.


• Rev Meshack Okumu is a Pastor from the Pentecostal Church who teaches classes in holistic discipleship. Meshack worked with World Vision Kenya before joining the team at Carlile College.


• Mrs Lavender Katenya is a development specialist who teaches formal and informal courses focused on the church’s response to HIV/AIDS.


• Rev Richard Mayabi is Vicar of St Jerome’s Church, an Anglican Church in Kibera that is a close neighbour to the Centre for Urban Mission. Richard not only teaches a number of courses at the Centre, but seeks to demonstrate at St Jerome’s what this teaching looks like in practice.