Pastor Matthew Gonkerwon lives in Monrovia, Liberia, where he has been involved with Langham since 2008, and is now the Preaching Movement Coordinator. When Matthew first heard of Langham, he was working at a church as the missions pastor. Even though Matthew went to seminary, he was still struggling with the idea of how to approach the Bible and preach it biblically. But he had a thirst for biblical preaching, and a desire to help other pastors understand the word of God. Langham Preaching made all the difference.
Transformed Preaching
“Langham helped me to actually understand how to move from the text to the sermon. And that’s been great for me.” Matthew explains. “One of things I learnt was to stay in the text, not just read it and go straight to application. To stay in the text and understand the context before you move from the passage to the sermon. But you have to understand the text first, and it takes time to do that.” Matthew saw a positive response to this approach from his congregation, describing them as now ‘glued to the Bible.’
The impact Langham made on Matthew’s life and how he approaches both the Bible and preaching has been so transformative that he is passionate about making that happen for other pastors in Liberia and beyond. “Training pastors, being able to help them understand the passage and be able to preach biblical messages, is making an impact on all the congregations those pastors are working in,” Matthew says. In 2009, he stepped into his role of coordinating Langham Preaching in Liberia.
A Need for Biblical Training
Liberia is a small country in the west of Africa with a population of about 5.8 million people, mostly concentrated in urban areas. Many pastors in Liberia have been to seminary, particularly those based in urban areas, but like Matthew, may not have been taught to preach in a biblical way. Langham is working to partner with Bible schools and seminaries so that Langham can bring their programs into those institutions and improve the training in preaching students receive.
But most pastors in rural areas of Liberia do not have access to any theological education. They have had no formal training, but they are eager to learn. Matthew’s work focuses on these smaller churches in less resourced areas, and he finds the enthusiasm to learn more of those he is working with to be a particular joy of the job. There are many challenges, though. One is the quality of the roads to many of these rural areas, and the time and difficulty it takes to get to some of these village churches. Even just getting Bibles into these locations is a challenge, so when pastors become equipped with biblical knowledge and resources like study Bibles, the impact is enormous.
Joyful Hard Work Ahead
After almost seventeen years of work, Matthew is convinced that there is still more to do in training pastors in all areas of Liberia to preach the Bible clearly and faithfully. But he is joyful and eager for the work ahead. “People are waiting, especially in the rural areas. They are waiting to be taught. That’s a great joy for me, that they are saying, ‘Come! We are ready. We don’t know how to teach and preach the Word of God correctly, so come and help us.’ That’s a joy for us to do that. That’s a joy because we want to see a new generation of pastors and teachers who study the Word of God and preach it biblically for growth in their own context. That’s a joy for us. I’m so joyful for what Langham is doing. I want to see the church in Africa, in Asia, in Europe, growing in maturity. That’s a joy for me.”
Matthew asks for prayer that God would open doors for Langham into the seminaries in Liberia. There is also a constant need for prayer for safety on the roads as the team travels to remote areas. Currently, Langham works in ten of the fifteen counties of Liberia. The last five have not been reached mainly due to the issues of transportation and unsafe roads. So Matthew asks for prayer for his team, for protection and safety, and for God to make a way for them to work in those unreached areas soon, so that more pastors may have the resources to preach the Word of God and more lives may be changed.