The conference tent in the early morning before everyone arrived
Organizing
by Eric Bosire • 31 August 2023
Recently a conference1 in Nairobi brought together church leaders from across East Africa. So many people were there! The venue was in a school facility that is near statehouse. As one entered the school compound, the sound of music that emanated from the large dome tent that was pitched in the playing grounds gave an indication that the equipment used was state of the art.
The attendees were well received as they entered the venue, they were registered and given name tags which they were required to hang on their necks at all times. Very polite ushers would guide the visitors to the dormitories where they would spend for the following three days. The pastors were made comfortable by being oriented about the surrounding so that they would be at the right place at the right time.
Security was high class; you could mistake the conference to be a big presidential meeting. In fact it had been announced in advertisements that the president would open the conference officially, but it seems he had other national matters to attend to. There was a VIP (Very Important People) area in the tent that was heavily guarded, accessing the main speaker and other special guests was impossible. The VIP ate separately and even after the meeting in the evenings, they were escorted to their hotel rooms, without interacting with the people.
Being a church meeting you would expect free intermingling of the attendees and the special guests, but due to the large number of people present, it would cause a commotion because everyone would want to talk to the special guests. This was the reason they gave for the stern security measures.
As the meeting progressed, there were breaks in between for refreshments and lunch, food points were strategically placed, because feeding over 3000 people is not easy. Food seemed to be enough for everyone and with the current price hike on almost all the commodities a lot of money must have been spent in that conference.
Clean portable toilets were also properly placed on the grounds. Cleaners made sure they are clean at all times. Sleeping dormitories were well arranged, there was space for everyone to sleep. Men had their rooms separate from the ladies, there was no sharing of rooms for men and women, even those who came as a couple had to be separated.
Organizing something or an event can prove to be cumbersome. There has never been a story told of an effortless preparation of something. A lot of work and hours is put towards achieving a successful result. From the look of things at the beginning, the conference was well orchestrated. From the beautiful dome tent with well-arranged seats to the state of the art sound system, it showed the organizer must have burnt the midnight oil to achieve what was being witnessed.
A Church conference can be of one denomination while others are interdenominational like this one. Some of the conferences held annually in Kenya are Word Explosion Conference organized by Jesus Celebrations Church Mombasa, Heaven’s fire conference by Highway of holiness ministry, Daughters of Zion by Jubilee Christian Church, and Rhema feast by The Purpose Centre Church, just to mention but a few.
This conference was by CTMI which means Church Team Ministries International, an interdenominational body that seeks to build the shepherd or the church leaders in ensuring that they carry out their mandate effectively. The organizers were busy making sure that everything goes according to plan, therefore getting one to explain how the planning and execution of the conference was achieved was not easy.
The conference coordinator was free at some points; her name is Pastor Lydia who is a pastor in Harvester’s Christian Church Nairobi, which is led by Bishop Stephen Gachengo who also doubles up as the CTMI leader in East Africa. Pastor Lydia started by saying that what led to their success is the clear vision from their leaders of the ministry, “you need to have a clear vision so that things fall into place well,”
She continued and said that you got to have a budget. “It takes a good budget to cater for the needs and wants of people. For example, food, transport and accommodation.” With the budget comes the finances which facilitate the budget.
According to Pastor Lydia, you need a good planning team which will help in preparing the conference so that all things will run smoothly. They appointed a task force whose mandate was to take care of everything that pertains to the conference preparedness. The task force would have some duties like searching some reasonable costs for the equipment to be used, checking the venue prior to make sure everything is in place. They also outsourced for the dome tent, sound equipment, portable toilets, and the seats.
She also mentioned prayers, “For any spiritual meeting to be fruitful, one has to heavily invest in prayers. The task force members would wake up every Tuesday at 5.00am to pray together through google meetings.”
And finally she said in order to successfully hold a conference you have Inform the government, “for such a big meeting, it is important to inform the government and so that they put the right security measures for the safety of those attending.”
Later, Pastor Benson Weru who is an associate pastor at Harvesters Christian Church in Nairobi also added on this aspect of organizing the conference. Pastor Weru is currently in Mauritius for his Bible College courtesy of CTMI.
Pastor Weru was a member of the organizing committee and was in charge of transport and logistics. “If you don’t mobilize well, you’ll find yourself alone in your metting”, he said that. What worked for them is early preparations. They started planning for the conference in April. They formed a committee that would spearhead in planning and coordination of the meeting. The committee came up with a budget for the conference that was well allocated.
They also secured the venue early enough and having held the CTMI conference at St. George's girls before, it was easy for them to be granted permission to use the facility. “We agreed on boarding fees and meals preparation, being a boarding school our work was cut out for us because all the facilities were available, the dormitories, kitchen and halls,” said Pastor Weru.
“We came up with an estimate number of people who would attend and embarked on a journey of mobilization because the number was too high,” said pastor Weru. One of their mobilization strategies was holding breakfast meetings country wide to sensitize people about the conference that was to come.
For example, there was a successful breakfast meeting in Kisii county about a month before the conference. Rev. Joseph Ondieki at Grace Revival Church, Kisii got over 150 pastors and Church leaders attend. Rev. Joseph went ahead and made sure that out of the 150 pastors, a few made the choice to attend the conference in Nairobi.
However, at some point they stopped holding such breakfast meetings, because some Pastors were given money to mobilize on the ground but were not able to bring together pastors in their area.
Pastor Weru also said that in terms of transport and accommodation, they were able to cater for those who could not afford. This saw so many pastors and Church leaders attending.
They used social media platforms to inform people about the conference and also used posters and fliers. “We partnered with Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, EAK which is a fraternity of many pastors to mobilize pastors countrywide to attend the conference. They really helped because it very easy for them to reach pastors under their body,” said Pastor Weru.
Finally, Pastor Weru said that for such a conference to be successful, you must invite a speaker who is famous for giving powerful and uplifting teachings. A cheerful speaker, who will relate well with a crowd.
Even in a properly organized event, there will be challenges. For example, the attendees exceeded the expected amount of people which brought issues especially in food distribution.
Next: Seating, by Eric Bosire.
Notes:
1 See https://missionfield.news/2023/15_Conference . back
About the author:
Eric Bosire is a Kenyan Journalist. He is based in Kisii.
About the image:
Photograph taken by Eric Bosire.
Suggested citation:
Eric Bosire: Organizing, MissionField News (ISSN 2813-2270)
https://missionfield.news/2023/16_Organizing
2023-08-31.