In the Muslim-majority country of Senegal, the task of church planting is immense. Christians make up less than 0.1%, so for the Church to really grow, a large number of pastors need to be equipped to do the work of church planting and church ministry.

In the past MTW’s ministry in West Africa has trained pastors through one-week intensive theological education courses offered every three or four months throughout the year. The problem MTW missionaries and national pastors noticed is that it takes a long time to get men across the finish line of ordination to be deployed to various locations. So the team started the Timothy House ministry.

The problem MTW missionaries and national pastors noticed is that it takes a long time to get men across the finish line of ordination to be deployed to various locations. So the team started the Timothy House ministry.

The Timothy House ministry is a two-year, intense residential church-planter training ministry where four men and their families move into a community to live with each other, work alongside an existing church plant, and share responsibilities in the home together. They discuss what they’re learning and learn to be preachers together. It’s whole life and pastoral education—a place to talk about theology, but also about their families and about how they’re going to support themselves in ministry when they leave the program.

Now that others have seen the fruitfulness and the effectiveness of this model, it’s starting to be replicated across West Africa. Our hope would be that in every country of West Africa where MTW is working, we could start a Timothy House program to train men and send them throughout their countries to plant churches.