Learning About Church Transformation from the Community in Uganda

The banner says: Church Transformed: a Story of a Pentacostal Community in Uganda
10 January 2024

Tim Monger, CEO Amigos Worldwide and formerly a missionary in Tanzania, explains in his book Transforming Church: Participating in God’s Mission through Community Development how churches everywhere can become Transforming Churches.


 “This is the church reaching the community,” exclaims Anna Okello, with a sense of joy that her church, Yahwe Pentecostal Church in Lira, northern Uganda, is now fulfilling its calling. Anna is the Director of Alyet Seed, a church-initiated vocational training centre. The church had partnered with Amigos Worldwide, a Christian NGO working in Uganda, and together saw the community provided with a clean water supply. The church was also training community members in conservation agriculture practices so that they would be able to sustainably provide their families with enough food.

Understanding How God’s Mission Works Through the Local Church

Amid all this activity, Pastor Patrick and church leaders received biblical training on the mission of the church and how to outwork that mission locally. Trainer Joshua explained, “You may wonder ‘Of all the vessels operating in the community, why use the church?’ We believe God in his wisdom has chosen to work through his people to bring his kingdom on earth. And when God’s kingdom fills the earth there will be a glorious new creation filled with life and goodness.”

Patrick saw the potential of the church, not just to reach people spiritually, but fully. “I have learned that the reality of poverty requires the church to develop the community. The church has a lot of work to do to transform the community, to help people to do work by themselves without thinking there is someone who could do it for them.” The training inspired him to think about the vulnerable young people in the community. “What could we do for those who dropped out of school, the young mothers and other vulnerable young people, just floating with nothing to do?”

Yahwe Pentecostal Church in Lira, northern Uganda

The Trainers and Local Council Leader of Alyet Seed Vocational Training Centre

Multi-Dimensional Listening

  • Listening to the Bible,
  • Listening to ourselves as a church,
  • Listening to the wider community,
  • Listening to the Holy Spirit.

Having listened to God’s Word and reflecting on the need he was seeing, Patrick began engaging with the church and hearing from them. Passion rose within the church members that this was indeed what the Holy Spirit was calling them to do. Patrick discussed the possibility of beginning a vocational youth training centre with the wider community and the local council leader.

Church Members Offering the Resources They Have

What resources did they have to make this happen? Five young people who had just returned from Amigos’ vocational training centre in Kampala became excited with the vision, and instead of focusing on building their own businesses offered to serve the school as trainers in building, carpentry and joinery, tailoring, conservation agriculture, and discipleship.


The church has a lot of work to do to transform the community, to help people to do work by themselves without thinking there is someone who could do it for them.


They even donated their own tools and sewing machines so that the new students could learn. Anna offered her house as the place for the centre. They had all offered to Jesus what they had and prayed that he would make up for what still lacked.

Beginning the Integral Mission Project

After much planning and organisation, Alyet Seed Vocational Training Centre was born. The first 16 of 60 students were identified, young men and women considered aimless, disadvantaged, and unskilled. But all this was about to change for them, in a transformation from the inside out. A few months later, proudly wearing her new Hope For Me T-shirt, Angella exclaims, “Through the discipleship, I can now stand, I have a strong faith.”

Tailoring trainer Loyce shares, “My prayer is that when they graduate, they will use these skills to earn a living and it will change their lives.”


“My prayer is that when they graduate, they will use these skills to earn a living and it will change their lives.”


The students of Alyet Seed Vocational Training Centre

The students and staff

Keeping the Bigger Vision in Focus

Church members are keen to convey that the centre is part of a bigger vision. “The existence of the school is not only to pass on the skills to the fellow youths but also to contribute to the development of the community,” Benard, the carpentry trainer, says confidently. Anna adds, “This is so exciting to us because we are reaching the community and the vision is to transform the lives of these young ones and the community at large.”

And Patrick reflects that “The activities opened for us the wider way to preach the gospel to our community. As I talk now, the church is now free to talk to the community, which understands what the church is now doing.


"All that the church is doing serves to enable us to be salt and light to the world.”


Drawing from Scripture and a wide range of Christian traditions – from the monastic to the evangelical – this book inspires its readers to integrate spiritual renewal and prophetic witness for the glory of God and the good of his creation.Drawing from Scripture and a wide range of Christian traditions – from the monastic to the evangelical – this book inspires its readers to integrate spiritual renewal and prophetic witness for the glory of God and the good of his creation.

In Transforming Church, Tim Monger draws from over a decade of experience working in integral mission alongside local congregations in East Africa. This book is an excellent resource for practitioners, students and Christian leaders involved, or seeking to be involved, in rural and urban community development, especially in Africa.