DAYBREAK MISSION

Spiritual Formation. 

 

This first-year program is designed to facilitate spiritual growth and character development of the student.  Before we train leaders in ministry and Bible, we believe it is essential that we first develop the moral and spiritual character of those who desire to be ministers and community leaders.  Knowledge with character is dangerous since knowledge can be used for personal exhaltation and selfish ambition. 

 

Bible and Ministry. 

 

Although the primary focus during the first year is Spiritual Formation, the Bible (knowledge of God's word) and ministry (putting knowledge into action) is also essential to the development of spiritual leadership.  The Bible is the fuel for the fire, but it is not the fire.  The fire is one's spiritual life and relationship to God.  And, just as the fire depends on wood to burn, so also does spiritual growth depend on a growing knowledge of the Word of God. 

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In the same manner, fire does not grow hotter (larger) without ample supply of oxygen.  The purpose of DBC is to fan the flame into a roaring fire.  This is accomplished by means of prayer, worship, mentoring, communal life, and practical ministry (putting the Word into action).  These activities are all part of the training program at DBC.  Every student is assigned a mentor who pastors them during their three-year training and every student is assigned to a small group with whom they engage in practical ministry and mutual edification (as community). 

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Based on the above premise, Bible classes and the training program itself is designed specifically to facilitate the spiritual growth of the student.  While worldly leaders might be born leaders, spiritual leadership does not come naturally nor easily.  It requires hard work doing the right things.  One does not become a great football player without much practice and good coaching.  The same applies to the development of spiritual leadership.  One might be born with natural gifts or abilities, but that is not sufficient for spiritual leadership.   

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DBC is quite unlike most Bible Colleges where the focus is primarily on teaching students the Bible and the doctrines of their denomination and training them to teach and preach the knowledge to their churches.  Ministry training focuses primary on training students to be church leaders and produce church growth.   This is not the focus of DBC.  The goal of DBC is not to produce paid preachers whose purpose is to teach denominational doctrines and serve as church administrators.  The goal of DBC is to develop spiritual leaders who call men to follow Jesus and become like him.  We believe the Bible should transform lives, beginning first with the student.  This is the focus of our Bible classes.

 

DBC also differs from most Bible Colleges in how we teach ministry.  Our ministry classes are not designed to teach men how to plant, organize, and operate a church.  The focus of our classes is to teach students how to minister to people holistically (both spiritually and physically) in a non-institutional way.  Ministry is something that people do, not churches (institutions).  This is because ministry is about making disciples whose lives are being transformed by faith in Christ.

 

Agriculture Training.

 

Because our goal is to develop self-supporting, spiritual leaders, agriculture is a central component of our training.  Students are taught the skills necessary to achieve sustainable food security.  It is about teaching students how to achieve a better quality of life by remaining where they are as rural farmers.  We teach students how to grow food year-round using drip-irrigation, composting, and crop-rotation.  We also teach students how to raise chickens, along with marketing and the basic business skills our students will need to succeed as farmers.

 

Our agriculture training incorporates both classroom and practical training.  Upon arrival, students are given a house, a small garden plot on which to grow vegetables, and use of our chicken houses.  The primary focus during the first three months at DBC is about teaching students how to grow their own food as all financial assistance (siphons) are stopped after three months.  Thereafter, students are expected to generate enough income from the gardens and chickens that they are able to continue at DBC as self-supporting students.  This is to ensure that students master all the agricultural skills that they must learn to be successful farmers upon graduation.  With our training, students will discover that they eat better at DBC than they did before coming to DBC.  Obviously, students who do not want to do agricultural work should not enroll in our program at DBC.

 

Community Schools and Teacher Training.

 

Providing a good education is becoming a serious challenge for Africa.  Half of the population is under 18 years of age and the challenges of building enough schools, training/hiring enough teachers, and providing enough educational materials has become too great for most African governments to deal with adequately.  The solution is to teach villages how to start and operate their own Community Schools. 

 

Our goal is to train our students (and possibly their wives) in how to serve as a Community School teacher and/or how to start, organize, fund, and operate a successful Community School in their local villages.  In fact, Daybreak has its own Primary School that provides students with practical training in teaching schools.

 

Training: Widows, Orphan, and Vulnerable Children.

 

Caring for widows, orphans, and vulnerable children was one of the things for which the early church was known.  The Bible clearly emphasizes the need to care for widows and orphans.  It is for this reason that we teach all our students (and their wives) how to organize and fund a ministry in their local villages and churches to provide assistance to widows, orphans, and vulnerable children. Daybreak operates an Child-care ministry that provides students and their wives with practical training in caring for vulnerable children.

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Training: Basic Medicine and Preventive Healthcare.

 

There are many facets of this training: nutrition, sanitation, food-preservation, HIV-AIDS prevention, Malaria prevention, preventive healthcare, and basic health-care (which will provide training that may enable students to serve as the Village Healthcare Officer).

 

Marriage & Family Workshops. 

 

The transition from arranged marriages in the rural village to "love marriages" (marriages of choice) in the modern city (township) has been a difficult one.  Such marriages demand new relational skills that few Zambians have been taught or observed from their family of orgin.  Marriages of choice have proven to be less stable as the power of choice can be used to disolve marriages.  Expectations for love marriages are much higher and when these expectations are not met, couples often experience great disappiontment that can lead to divorce and abandonment.  DBC is committed to teaching our students new skills for marriage so that they can create healthy, functional marriages and, in turn, teach these skills to others.  DBC also periodically conducts Marriage & Family Workshops (both on and off campus) to help strengthen local marriages.