On this episode, we're joined by Aaron Laura. Aaron serves as the vice president of Zambia Christian Ministers Association, Chairperson of the Town Ministers Fellowship, and Vice Chairperson of the City Community Development Committee there in Zambia. We're located in Luantra, Zambia, which is in the Copper Belt. So we're talking Central Africa. For those of you who don't know your geography, Central Africa, kind of northern Zambia and southern Congo, and that place known as the Copper Belt, one of the largest, if not the largest, copper producing part of the world. He's an entrepreneur and a lecturer on the subject of entrepreneurship. And for the past few years, he's been involved in training 200 ministers of the gospel in entrepreneurship across Zambia. He's a new friend and uh has quickly become a dear friend. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01Well, tell us about your ministry to business professionals and pastors in in Zambia and to the surrounding countries. Because there's eight surrounding countries, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we're surrounded with eight countries. Uh and and uh we we've been able to train a lot of people within our nation. And uh we intend to move out. We've got already contacts outside our nation. But let me begin by saying that uh the whole thing started, especially when we looked at the ministers, the experiences, the financial experience the ministers have been going through in our nation. And uh also the foundations that we have had in the past where we were told that we don't need to mix business and change, and especially uh ministry and the business and all that. So as a result of that foundation that we were, we we came up with, uh I think it uh distorted a number of things and brought us into a situation where we have found ourselves uh in a situation where we needed to lift up ourselves and get to a place of uh understanding that we can actually do business, but whilst we are actually doing ministry.
SPEAKER_01And and so you're working with a lot of pastors and helping them not only teaching the the nuts and bolts, as we say, uh, of entrepreneurship, but you're also helping them to first understand that look, God wants you to be involved in business, to support your family, to help have enough left over to help other people in your community. How is how are you helping to kind of reframe the view of business in your area?
SPEAKER_02What we we we did was we first of all we started by meeting some of the pastors' chairpersons in in different towns, and we explained to them as according to the way, and we were now we took the model of Paul, and Paul was a minister, and at the same time he was involved in business. And uh after we discussed about it, and a number of them felt it was right for us to begin to gather the pastors first of all before we actually went to their members. So we had to gather the pastors first of all, and then they started talking. And the example we were giving them was an example of Paul, that even though he was in ministry, but he was also involved in business. And we also were trying to explain to them that Paul was uh we are reading most of his books now in the Bible. And I don't think there was any one of us that could say we are so busy and we are more busy than Paul. And so we said if Paul could do that, then we can also do the same. But at the same time, we we were able to confront our fellow ministers with the situations that were real in their lives. And especially that we have churches that uh some of them can't meet the needs of the pastor. And uh so we said if the church cannot meet your need, you still have an option, you still have something you can do and even help the church itself to continue running as it is supposed to run. So we that was the first groundwork that we had to do to mobilize the pastors and talk to them, and then we had uh they agreed that we needed to start that. So we started as we started with the first group of people that we trained were over 50 pastors. And uh so when we trained them, we brought in some of the people that are in business. They talked about business, and at the same time, we're bringing in the aspect of the Bible itself and all that. So the first group of 50 people, after they were trained, they discovered that this was real good, and they started telling the other pastors. So it was easy now to be able to get more pastors trained in entrepreneurship, and because others were able to see and hear the testimonies of those that had come in for the first time and they had launched into business and how they were doing financially, even as their own uh even as families. So we from that we were able to launch in and begin to move from place to place and find pastors and uh and see how the Lord has been able to bless them.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. And so these pastors, they not only have Paul as an example in the Bible, but they have you as a living example right in front of them, somebody that is uh actively uh uh a minister to ministers and leading uh leaders of, you know, these are the ministers of the gospel. Uh and you're also you have a business. You have a couple of businesses. Why don't you tell our listeners about some of the uh what what what type of business are you doing personally?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, personally, um first of all, uh I I I did have the good background in the sense that my father was a pastor, he's late, and he was not only just a pastor, but he was also involved in business. So he was so I was able to get that, that's my biological path. So I was able to get from him that uh I can actually be able to run businesses. So in the process, I I am actually working with network companies, network marketing companies. Uh, one of the first ones that I joined, which I was a distributor and I've continued to be a distributor that's that's for ever-living products, which sells uh aloe vela products. And uh that also helped us so much because that brought in a testimony that has helped a number of pastors. One of the testimonies is that we were right now, as I'm speaking to you, I'm speaking to you from our own home, uh, a house that we have built with the finances that have come from our own businesses. And that self also has been a very big testimony to many of our pastors because for them to build a house it's really difficult, especially when we look at the hardships that the pastors go through. And when they look at uh what we've been able to achieve in the area of business, but at the same time working with them, mobilizing and training them, it has really been a testimony to them. And not only just network marketing companies that I've been working with, uh we are also we also have our own our own farm. We do, we haven't done, we we we we we are not on a commercial level, but we've been able to do crop farming at our own farm, which is about uh 15 hectares. And uh and and uh the other thing is we are also doing pottery.
SPEAKER_01I just heard the rooster in the background. Perfect timing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we we we we're doing the pre-range chicken uh at the back of our house. So we we we are involved in business ourselves, and they can see that we're not just talking, but we're actually doing, we're actually working in the talk itself.
SPEAKER_01And what are some of the examples? Because these pastors are following your example, they're following the Apostle Paul's example. What are some of your favorite uh stories and examples of ministers who are getting a hold of this and are starting businesses?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we have a number of them, and I can pick a few of them just to be able to help our listeners understand what's what God is actually doing here. We we we have one where when we trained the pastors, uh one of the pastors had his own vehicle, and uh then after we trained him uh with training, he was one of those that we were training. And after the after the training itself, he decided to put his one vehicle on the taxi run. And uh out of that one vehicle, he's been able to get about six more vehicles, and which means he's actually employed six people. And uh not only that, but he's been able to make an impact in the drivers themselves and be able to disciple them. That's another, that's uh that's one example. And uh, and so financially, as a household, they are also doing very well. They are also supporting the work. Uh, remember at one time he was talking about the church, the church is pastoring that they are actually building, and he was the first one to give an offer towards the building of the church itself, which was a great test among his members to see that uh their own pastor was able to do that, which wasn't the case before he actually went into business himself. So that was a testimony, that that's a great testimony in itself. We also have one who was an auto mechanic. Uh with him, he when he went into full-time ministry. Of course, I'm using full-time ministry. Uh, in our teachings, we have we we have now said there's nothing like full-time ministry. Uh, but he went into full-time ministry and he was an auto mechanic, but he decided to forsake the auto mechanic, the garage was he was working on and all working with and all that. But after the training itself, we decided to get back and get back into business alongside the church, alongside the ministry. And uh there's a great testimony because he says now I've been able to lead a number of people. He's been able to lead a number of people to the Lord. Secondly, he's been able to disciple them and is touching many lives. And not only that, financial as a household, they're doing very well. And he is also supporting the ministry now, because the whole idea is to get them to a place where they don't become a burden to their members, they are leading, and at the same time, they can support the work of the work of the Lord themselves. That's uh that's that's another one. Then we've got another one which is very, very interesting. This one is just one of the pastors also who came for the training, and he decided he had no money to start business. And uh, so he decided to go to an Indian shop, a shop that is run by an Indian person. And he went there and he talked to him and said, I just want to be your outlet where you can bring in some mattresses. I sell the mattresses on your behalf and give me a commission until at a certain uh until we reach a certain level where I can now do my own business. And uh he took a board stage, and uh this Indian looked at him and said, Okay, I can let me trust you with the four mattresses. And so he was trusted, you he was given four mattresses, and from four mattress, as I'm talking to you now, he ran his own big shop in one of the towns on the Copper Belt. And and uh and so he's been able to help his family, and at the same time, he's also doing discipleship in the marketplace and also financing the kingdom of God and financing some of the projects that the church is actually doing. We've got a number of them that are actually doing very, very well, but they were not doing very well when before they entered through, before they went through our training session. We have another one who is um is been uh this one also started the hardware shop. And uh he at one time he he decided to he was in business, but when he went into full-time ministry, he decided to sell off his business and start full-time ministry. But when he came to uh uh uh some of our training, he decided he had to get back again. So he opened one shop, hardware shop, where they spare where they sell spare parts. And then from there, as I'm speaking to you, he's been able to buy about two tracks, which he's using now. And uh they're using those tracks now to ferry uh maize from the farms to the depots where they're supposed to be selling the maize. So that that's another testimony that we've been able to see from the training that we we have had.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And you know, something that excites me about what you're doing and and how you're targeting and really focusing on pastors, and I know that you also provide this entrepreneurship training and marketplace ministry training to those who are not uh in pulpit ministry, they're not they're not preachers and at pastors, uh, but but the impact of the pastor setting the example and then the people in the church getting excited about starting their own business to go out and make money to provide for their families, to make an impact uh among people who don't know the Lord uh out in the in the business world, people that might not come to church, but but this really uh starts to to shape the culture uh for the church to where they don't uh they don't they they stop viewing business as something that's a necessary evil, but that's something that is a tool in the hand of God. Is that the kind of uh shift that's happening in these churches?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. That's that's the you are right. That it's it's that's the kind of a shift that is taking place in the church because now we as as you rightly say it, we we we started with the pastors and we still continue training the pastors, but because the mindset of the pastors has changed, it has now gone to the members. And uh and and now we have also incorporated members and members that are also doing business in the churches. Uh, the last two meetings we held were with uh members, some some of the church leaders that are not really full-time pastors or full-time evangelists, but they're just members and they're just leaders in the church. And we started bringing the same teaching to them now that uh they need to understand that uh uh whilst they spend a lot of time in the marketplace, so they can actually be influential in the marketplace. And so that's what is happening. There is a shift, uh a mind shift that has really taken place, which is very exciting, because at the end of the day, one of the things that has happened is this when we are doing, when churches are building, different denominations are building, what happens most of the time is that we normally invite politicians to come. And when we invite the politicians, I mean those that are in government and all that, when we invite them, the intention is that when they come to our function, we call them fundraising functions. They are supposed to donate some money for our building, for our church building. But now we're changing that. We are saying we don't need to invite them for that purpose because we ourselves, we have the money in our churches. We have the, we, we, we, as long as we're doing businesses, we can raise this money. And it is now us to begin to help in the communities and build uh projects or like you're talking about schools and clinics in the community that will have an impact on the community itself because we are the ones that are actually doing that. Wow. So we we're moving into those areas. It's not been very easy, and it will not be very easy because uh we fight against all these other mindsets, these strongholds in the minds of the people and all that. But the Lord has uh given us victory, and uh we trust him that we have a lot of victory.
SPEAKER_01That is a profound thing that you just said there. Uh, because one of the problems we have in the in the church here in the United States is this this idea that, well, we need to grow our churches so we can have uh and it's not dead explicitly, but let's let's get bigger so that we can build bigger buildings and have bigger programs inside the church and hire more staff and and all of that. And that that's what ends up happening. But you're saying the shift is we're not uh we're not seeking new members of uh people that come to our churches just so that they can give more money, but so that we because we already have the money, we're we're focusing on on helping our people prosper so that they can then uh have the resources not only to sustain the church, but to then go out and build schools and to go out and make an impact in the in the community, you know, build bigger forces and employ more people. All of those things like you talked about the pastor who now has an opportunity to disciple these thicker uh taxicab drivers on a daily basis, and their livelihood is linked uh to to the calling on his life. And what a what an that is such a shift that we need to have uh here, uh especially in the United States.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and uh you see, because one of the things that we we have seen, uh, you know, especially in Africa, and uh probably when I say a village setup, you may not fully understand what a village setup or a raw area setup, you may not fully understand it. But uh it's a place where you find that there are no schools, there are no clinics. Probably people walk uh like the five, six, or maybe 10 kilometers to find the next school or the first school, or maybe a clinic or a hospital and all that. And and so what this is doing now is trying to focus on these communities as businessmen, Christian businessmen. How can we contribute to the transformation of our community? And the only thing we can do is be able to put our money together, put our monies together, build them something, and come in, probably by God's grace, bring in Christian teachers that will begin to teach even in those schools, or Christian doctors that begin to work in those or in the in those clinics, and as a result, they begin to have an impact on the entire village itself, or on the entire community itself. So that's the transformation that we are looking at, and uh we're praying that God gives us the grace to accomplish the dream itself.
SPEAKER_01Wow, it's you know, things that many of our listeners take for granted. We have listeners all over the world, um, but the the idea often here and and at least in the US, we're looking to the government to build the school. schools or uh not to the churches to build the schools, uh which is uh on one hand, it's uh you're in a great position to be able to influence your culture because the government hasn't taken over those responsibilities. And and we still do have private Christian schools here, but they're they're very they're very expensive to operate because in many cases they don't get the funding from the government that the schools have become so dependent on uh but that that the churches would be the ones to have to come together and have the resources and not wait for the government uh to to do everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01One of the whenever I talk to pastors about going into business uh one of the the uh Bible passages that they will go to is there in Acts six where the labor there was a this division of labor where the apostles were to be devoted to prayer and to the word and then they were to appoint deacons to handle this very specific responsibility of of helping the widows and and so of course they appoint Stephen and others which by the way Stephen evidently was he was very devoted to the word as well and to prayer you know you just listen to his sermon um there but how do you do you ever get that pushback from pastors to say oh no no no the you know the the people in the congregation they're supposed to go and I'm supposed to be devoted to prayer and to the word that means I don't do anything except to read the Bible pray and come and preach on Sundays.
SPEAKER_02Do you ever get that kind of pushback and that justification from that specific passage of the Bible yes we we we've we've come across some that have really strongly quoted that portion of scripture but most of the time what we have said is uh are you pastor in 2024 talk seven 353 do you read the Bible like that or are you praying the whole 24 hours you are not praying the whole 24 hours you're not reading the Bible the whole 24 hours so there will always be time for you to do something because you can't spend the whole day praying or the whole day reading the Bible so there's a you you you have a schedule that you're putting place where you can actually do some do something. Some of them we have actually told them we said okay if you want to do that you want to spend time praying and devoting yourself to the word and all that how about making a garden outside your house how about a garden a vegetable garden outside your house because you still need to relax so at the time when you are relaxing you can actually do something that can help bring in some in some income so we have had that but I think most of the people here what has really confronted them with their experiences when we point at their experiences and then we also point at the people that are involved in business but they're also in ministry and how successful they are and how they can actually overcome some of those uh issues that they are they're cleaning to yeah I mean I think a lot of it comes down to a a a different because Peter and Paul didn't agree on everything you know as we know uh and and that might have been one of those those issues that they didn't agree on and because you look at Paul and the idea that Paul was just going to go and sit in a room and pray and read the Bible and then come and preach on Sunday morning um is just not in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01It's you know he was very much engaged not only in business but in in hiring and uh providing for the people who are with him for and he actually says follow this example uh he says it over and over again follow this example of the way that I'm doing engage in the marketplace to meet my own needs so that I don't have to be dependent on uh donations. I mean the only time I see him even collecting donations is when he's in prison. I mean when he can't actually go out there and do business um or he's requesting funding to support uh poor you know the the the financially needy churches and um and so if I I think it also depends on are you in the are you going into a gentile world or a um or a Jewish world you know of course Paul going into the the gentile world and just like me in the United States and you there in Zambia I mean we're we're in the lost world.
SPEAKER_02I mean we're we're where people need um they don't understand this idea that you just donate to your church and your pastor uh just prays and reads the Bible and comes and preaches on Sundays um but it it sounds like some of that is is so much more clearly understood by you and the pastors uh that you're working with than it would be if you were to come over here and try to try to share this with pastors here in the US it would be very difficult um it would be very very difficult yeah yeah you know one of the portions of scriptures that we you have read time and again it's the 2nd Thessalonians where where where Paul actually says you know when you read different versions where he actually says for uh he says uh for your for your for you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example and in one of the versions he says we were not we were and we were not and we were not undisciplined meaning that uh by them by Paul himself doing the work and doing what he needed to do it showed that he was actually disciplined himself yeah and then he goes on he says nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it so so you that that's that's one of the portions of scripture that we have read time and again that how many times as as ministers have we have eaten things but we have not paid because we we we we think we are anointed to receive only and we have anointed to eat things from our members and and Paul says it's our right but we don't we did not use that as our right but we we had to show an example and and you know it's very profound especially that he says in order for me to meet also the needs of the people that were around me so we we we brought these portions of scripture to our people and we still have others that are still not really sure about all this because of these doctrinal issues that we have different denominations and all that but um but when we look at the way the trainings have been going and the people that we have we have had in our in our workshops uh they've gotten the vision and uh we have seen the results as we mentioned wow and so you've you've already trained hundreds of pastors in in this uh in this teaching and and but you have another important meeting coming up just this week right what's what's going to happen there yeah we we we the first phase uh of our training we we we we are calling it as the sensitization where you you're moving from place to place and you're you're you're bringing up this uh this sensitization to the people this to the pastors and all that but now we we're getting into what we're calling phase two where we're sitting with the pastors the key people now and we are saying this is now what we want to do the discipline in the in the marketplace itself and not only just the pastors but the businessmen in our churches and those that are not in business but they want to come into business how do we raise money for them how do we finance them to be part of the the whole team so that they are in in business so we have some key people in different towns that will be having meetings and we're starting with this Sunday we have a we we manage to get our own place now where we can have meetings twice in a in a month and uh where we sit down with the leaders we have a round table discuss and then see which way which way forward and uh because we we we're looking at how we can also help those that are not in business but get them into business. And so that's the first meeting that we're having this coming Sunday.
SPEAKER_01Excellent and I'm I'm just so encouraged to hear well what your the work that you're doing and and how you're discipling these pastors and discipling these business people to go make an impact uh for because in many cases they're already in the business world just just recognizing that where they are is a place for for ministry and and um what would be your parting piece of advice or for those who are listening today uh and and specifically if you could speak to to pastors and and those who who really sense a calling to be a pastor uh maybe they're thinking well I just need to leave business and go to seminary and go you know raise support to go start a church.
SPEAKER_02You know people that are more in that kind of traditional mindset, what would you say uh to to those people yeah my my my word of challenge to them would be especially when you look at the challenges we have and uh there are those that want to get into church planting those that want to get to the Bible colleges and after being trained they want to get into full-time ministry but in most cases what we have discovered is that the real thing is that the churches that we are planting may not be able to help us may not be able to finance us as we would love and the burdens we have we have the same burdens pastors have the same burdens even with the same burdens as the members do have we have to get our children to school we have to have food to eat we have to all these are issues that are day-to-day issues and if we depend so much on the church itself that they will out they'll be able to give us all these necessities we may end up being frustrated and we may end up getting out of ministry and sometimes we have seen even other pastors that just come just get in the front of the flock and then they just start uh captigating them. No, you're not feeding me you're not giving your tithes you're not giving your offerings as you're supposed to be giving but because he himself also is not doing what he's supposed to be doing. So I've been encouraging a lot of them and I encourage a lot of them that if your church can support you that's well and good and if you feel you can't get into business and the church is fully supporting you that's well and good. But those that feel they can't the the church is not fully supporting them and they can actually get into business there's nothing wrong with that. We can follow the example of Paul that he was able to finance his own ministry and finance those that were around him. And it becomes a bigger it becomes a greater blessing even when we look in the Old Testament we see people like David and and where in terms of offering they were the first people to actually show an example that they would give what they had and and and then they would ask the people to give now after they have given which is not the case in our which is not the case as we see it now. Mostly we're looking at a past they give at the end and I've been I've worked with pastors and ministers for a long period of time even in some of the gatherings that we have when we talk about an offering it is the least amount of money that you get in a in a minister or in a minister meeting why because there's that struggling pastors and financially so the the the best way or the the the God's way is for us to begin to do business alongside ministry and and we have tremendous examples of people that are actually doing business and they are actually ministry. Some of them are running some of the big churches that we have even on the copper belt itself they are running these churches but they're also doing business so I would encourage them to think and pray over it and see how the Lord can actually lead them to do that. Excellent excellent and if somebody says they want to get involved with what you're doing specifically there in Zambia in the copper belt uh what how how could somebody get involved potentially at the present moment what we're looking at is um already we've got this place that we are we'll be meeting uh we'll be meet we'll be having these meetings twice in a in a month uh and uh the the whole thing is to get our own place where we can build a place we are calling a model and this place is more to do with the training of other people coming through from different from different provinces different towns and come and see and it will run on a business it will be run as a business center uh where businesses are being uh people are being trained in different skills uh pastors being trained in different skills uh uh because believe me most of the Bible colleges i i do guest lecturing at one of uh one of the bible universities here okay and and they don't have they don't have the subject of entrepreneurship and it's recently that I've been pressing for that to say no we need to have this subject as one of the subjects as we train these ministers to go out into the field they need to be trained so we're looking forward to have a center where we can do these things they can be trained in other Bible colleges but they need to come and also be trained in entrepreneurship and then be released from there. So that's what we are praying for and and and if we can have partners in that that we will be grateful to God but we pray we we're looking forward to have that as our model not only in Zambia as I say we've got already contacts in Tanzania we've got contracts already in Malawi in South Africa Botswana and we want this to be a model because we believe that God has placed us here in Zambia to be a model to these other neighboring neighboring countries and and we feel that what God is doing here it can be taken into the other nations and we can see God at work.
SPEAKER_01Excellent Aaron thank you so much for your time and for sharing your passion for what God is doing in the business world and in the churches there in your area and and around the world and and I believe that this is going to be a lighthouse and uh an example in the way that Paul has been an example of of believers working in the business world to make an impact uh for the for the kingdom and your training and setting an example there in your area this is going to be a model uh to be used across the world because there are so many I mean I I totally uh see the same issue in our Bible colleges here in the United States uh where there is a lack of entrepreneurship training or even just teaching the theology of business uh to uh to these future pastors and and so what you're doing is is so important and and I appreciate you appreciate your time today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much that you gave me to share thank you we hope you've enjoyed the episode that we greatly appreciate if you want a quick reading and review for the Christian Vitals podcast on iTunes you can get more information about P for Christianity Bitcoin at Christianity Bitness podcast and remember to keep the value of your podcast