19 leaders from Ethiopia, Tanzania and Norway were together at the tentmaking leader forum in Kenya in November.  

60 new tentmakers mobilized within six months. This is the aim as the world’s two largest Lutheran churches are gearing up to equip and send professionals, workers, businesspeople, and students to new places as ambassadors for God’s kingdom. 

“I have never read news like this with any interest before. Our days together here have made me see things with new eyes,” says one of the participants at the leader forum that was held in Nairobi, Kenya in November. He holds up his phone showing an article from a national newspaper in Tanzania. The Tanzanian government has signed a contract with the authorities in one of the nations in the Middle East about recruitment of workers for one of their industries. 400 young men from Tanzania are to be hired to make the business in the Middle Eastern nation run well.  

“We have these men in our churches. Now we can train them to go as ambassadors for Jesus as soon as opportunities like this one are offered again, says the pastor. 

Have you ever considered why God made a workplace such a crucial part of the Christmas Gospel? 

The Christmas gospel, as it is given in Luke chapter 2, is usually the one being read in our churches and families at Christmas. Most often we refer to it as the story about when Jesus was born. There is nothing wrong with that. But if the birth of Jesus was the only point in the story, the Christmas gospel could have ended already in verse seven of the chapter. It does however continue for 13 more verses. So, the main part of the story is played out among workers in a workplace.   

Mobilizing all West Nigeria, Liberia and Niger are working together with Tent International to arrange a tentmaking conference for all West African nations by the end of this year. The aim is to mobilize more tentmakers from West Africa. 

“There is a great, unused sending capacity in these nations. Through this conference we want to mobilize churches to send more people to strategic areas,” says Tent Nigeria’s director, Victor Agbonkpolor. He is one of the key planners of the conference that will take place in Lagos, Nigeria in the beginning of November. Detailed plans for the conference will be shared by the end of this month.