Episode #86—Côte d’Ivoire Debrief: Reflections on a Preaching Workshop in Abidjan

What does it look like to invest in the preaching health of the church in West Africa? A recent visit to Abidjan, Ivory Coast, offered some insight into that question.

Tommie and I travelled to Côte d’Ivoire—a French-speaking country on the west coast of Africa—at the invitation of Keith and Zach, missionaries based in Abidjan who had previously attended an Imprint Weekender in 2023. That visit had brought Ivorian pastors into contact with Imprint’s ministry, and the relationship had continued to develop. This year, the purpose of the trip was to explore the establishment of a Charles Simeon Trust preaching workshop in the country. Anton joined as a travelling companion and participant, and what follows are some reflections on the experience.

Stepping off the plane in Abidjan is an immediate assault on the senses. The heat and humidity are the first things one notices—a dense, close warmth that feels as if one is breathing second-hand air. Everything is in French, the traffic operates by its own improvised logic, and the smells of a busy African city greet you the moment you step out of the vehicle. It is, in short, a long way from home.

The country itself carries the weight of a difficult history. Like many West African nations, Côte d’Ivoire has experienced coups and civil conflict, and the poverty is visible. Yet there are also signs of resilience and vitality—not least in the local church.

We were already acquainted with a number of the pastors who attended the workshop from a previous Imprint Weekender. The fact that they had remained engaged since the Weekender was itself an encouragement. In ministry contexts like this one, sustained commitment is not to be taken lightly.

I was particularly struck by the humility and hunger of the pastors, who were willing to learn, willing to have their current practices examined, and willing to acknowledge where those practices had fallen short. That disposition made the workshop unusually fruitful.

The pastoral context in Côte d’Ivoire reflects a challenge common across much of sub-Saharan Africa: a near-total absence of expository preaching. Most of the pastors present admitted to selecting a theme for the year and then searching for Bible passages that could be made to fit that theme week by week. The burden this creates is significant, and the spiritual consequences serious. Without expository preaching, congregations are fed the preacher’s own thoughts rather than the word of God, and the gospel is frequently absent or disconnected from the text.

For those formed in Reformed evangelical churches in Southern Africa, it can be difficult to appreciate just how genuinely revolutionary the concept of expository preaching is in contexts like this one. The realisation that the Bible itself sets the agenda—that the preacher’s job is to discover what the text is saying and then say that—was, for many of these men, a significant shift in understanding.

The Charles Simeon Trust model is built on three interlocking elements: instruction, small groups, and preaching. Each played a distinct role in the week.

Instruction focused on giving the pastors tools for interpreting Scripture faithfully. Central to this was the principle of staying “on the line”—neither saying more than the text says nor leaving out what it does say, but rather seeking to identify the author’s intended meaning and making that the emphasis of the sermon. Closely related was the principle that structure reveals emphasis: By analysing the logical flow of a passage, a preacher can identify what the text is actually stressing, rather than importing emphases from outside. A repeated phrase throughout the week—“the long way around is the safest way home”—captured the patience required. Careful textual analysis does not come naturally, particularly for those who have never been taught to read Scripture this way, and the instruction sought to encourage the pastors that the hard work is genuinely worth it.

A further element of the instruction addressed gospel connections—how to relate any given text to the person and work of Christ in a way that is legitimate rather than forced. Even experienced preachers can fall into the habit of tacking the gospel onto the end of a sermon as an afterthought, loosely related to the passage. Learning to identify what in the text itself points forward to Christ, or reflects the benefits of his coming, makes the gospel not an addition to the sermon but integral to it. This matters for believers as much as for unbelievers: The gospel is not simply an entry point into the Christian life but the ongoing basis of it.

Small groups were the most impactful element of the week, even if also the most demanding. Working through worksheets in a hot room, sometimes without power, and always through an interpreter, the pastors applied what they had heard in the instruction sessions—presenting their analysis of a text, receiving questions, working through the passage together at the whiteboard. It is in these sessions that understanding is genuinely tested and deepened, mistakes identified, and growth displayed. Despite the linguistic and logistical challenges, there were moments where the interpreter and the participants ran ahead on their own, debating the text with evident engagement and enthusiasm.

In one moment, a pastor who had arrived at the workshop as the face of a conference whose theme verse had been taken entirely out of context gave a heartfelt and unprompted expression of gratitude at the end of the week for what he had learned. The reach that such a man has—and the difference that faithful handling of Scripture will now make in his ministry—is difficult to calculate.

Preaching rounded out the week. I was privileged to handle one of the preaching slots, my first experience of preaching through an interpreter. It was a stretching experience—requiring significant simplification of my manuscript, and imposing a slower pace than I would naturally adopt. Both were valuable lessons for my preaching at home. Being forced to simplify and slow down revealed tendencies in my own preaching that were worth examining.

Beyond the workshop itself, the trip prompted broader reflection on the nature of cross-cultural gospel partnership. Keith, the organising missionary, worked throughout the week, largely in the background—not seeking recognition, simply doing good work and creating the conditions for others to serve. There is something quietly exemplary in that posture.

The trip also reinforced a note of gratitude for the theological inheritance that many South African evangelicals benefit from without always recognising it. The ease with which I was able to work through a passage structure—doing in ten minutes what took the Ivorian pastors days—was cause for deep gratitude. Good churches, faithful preaching, sound theology encountered from an early age are genuine gifts, and not universally shared.

At the same time, the experience was sobering in its reminder of how much remains to be done. West Africa is a field white for harvest—but one in which solid theology is rare, churches are often unhealthy, and the tools for faithful ministry frequently absent. The work being done by Keith, Zach, and those they have gathered around them is slow, patient, and important.

The Côte d’Ivoire visit was a reminder that investment in preaching—particularly in contexts where expository preaching is new—bears fruit that extends far beyond the individuals in the room. Pastors who learn to handle the word faithfully will feed their congregations, congregations fed on the word will grow and be strengthened, and the gospel will be heard where it is currently, in many places, absent.

That is worth the long way around.