Building Up the Next Generation:
Seminary teacher's gray hair and hands-on training
inspires students

By Emily Peters

On the first day of class at Ghana's Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, the main thing the aspiring pastors notice about their new American professor is the top of his head.

Ghanaian culture has taught them to respect gray-haired elders like Pascal "Pat" Ozment. Tradition teaches those silvery strands are frosted with wisdom and experience.

So they are ready to listen, even when Ozment's teachings blow their minds.

Like when he says, "God doesn't need any more pastors in Ghana."

Their mouths drop open. Really?

Ozment explains: "We already have enough seminary graduates to pastor the churches we have in Ghana right now. We need people to start new ones."

The students have never considered being anything but church pastors. Church planters? His surprising lesson continues …

To start a church, he said, you don't need a building, an ordained pastor or a bunch of Bibles.

"And I'm not just going to tell you how to do it. I'm going to show you."

Surrounded by the mission field

Ozment, 64, started teaching at the seminary not long after he arrived in Ghana in January 2007 with his wife, Peggy.

After 20 years of pastoring and planting churches in the United States, the Alabama natives decided to postpone retirement so they could share their experiences with future missionaries. They signed up with the IMB's Masters Program, which enlists those over 50 years old to serve overseas for 2-3 years.

But not long after he started teaching in the modest, non-air-conditioned classrooms of the seminary, Ozment got restless. His wife was transforming the once defunct seminary library into an excellent resource, but Ozment still hadn't yet tapped the most valuable instructional tool -- hands-on experience.

"I needed to be on the frontlines," he realized, and he wanted to take his students with him. "... It's great to tell these guys what to do, but what a bigger impact when I can show them I'm doing it, too."

He didn't have to go far to find the mission field.

The seminary is located off a dirt road in Tamale, a town that is about 80 percent Muslim. The horizon is laced with crescent-capped mosque spires, and on Fridays, men can be seen in flowing white robes riding their bicycles to afternoon prayers to Allah.

Tamale is also surrounded by dozens of tiny mud-hut villages that don't have access to the teachings of Jesus.

Ozment knows his students can change that.

A new way of thinking

First, Ozment realized that in order to help his students reconsider their calling to be pastors, he would first have to challenge their idea of a missionary.

Emmanuel was surprised at what he heard.

"He said we need missionaries that are not foreigners," Emmanuel said. "That has touched my heart. He said if I go as a missionary, the people will understand me much better."

Then, Ozment shared a simple church-planting strategy called Training Rural Trainers, or TRT. The key is to empower local believers to share their faith with oral Bible stories intended to appeal to everyone, even non-literates.

Then, based on the response to those stories, gather seekers and new believers in groups that will become churches. The groups might have four members or 40. They might meet under a tree or in a mud hut. Then, inspire those new groups to multiply into untouched areas.

"We had never heard these things before," Emmanuel said, ready to put the new theories into practice. "We were surprised. We thought you would need a building and money."

Putting it into practice

To model this method, Ozment accepted the invitation to preach at the church of a former student, Makafui. He taught the church members about TRT and challenged them to go out and share the Bible stories.

"The church embraced this method," Ozment said. "It empowers them within their lifestyle, where many of them don't read and have little money."

Within a few days, the Ozments and the church members had used the oral Bible stories to lead dozens to Christ and start three new churches in surrounding villages where there were none before.

Makafui now travels to these villages each week to teach more stories to the faithful new believers who meet in homes or under mango trees. The young churches continue to grow and are making plans to start even more groups.

And Ozment's students see that the model works.

That's why these days, they are willing to spend their Saturdays going with him to rural areas so they can watch, learn and help him empower village believers to plant churches.

Samson is one of the students who recently accompanied Ozment to a church in a village called Tarikpaa. He helped Ozment teach the Tarikpaa believers the oral Bible stories they can share to start new groups.

Samson said it was a Saturday well spent.

"We wanted to learn practically," Samson said. "When you see something but don't touch it, you don't feel it. This, we have been a part of."

Emmanuel agreed.

"He is teaching us things we have never heard before," said Emmanuel, who started out at the seminary wanting to be a pastor. "Now, by the help of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of Pastor Pascal, I am praying about if God wants me to be a missionary instead."

And now Ozment is confident his students are prepared with some experience and insight they will need to be the missionary force of the future -- even if they don't yet have the gray hair to show it.