We’re excited to share news of a fresh invitation that has landed on SOMA’s desk — one with the potential to shape the ministry of an entire nation for years to come.
A soon-to-be-formalised SOMA Uganda office has invited SOMA National Directors to partner in a teaching mission from 25th to 28th January, and the invitation itself tells you something of the vision behind it. National Directors have been asked to teach the professors of a Ugandan Bible college on the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Think about what that means. We are not simply being invited to minister to a congregation for a weekend, or even to a single diocese for a season. We are being invited to stand in front of the very people who will spend the coming decades forming Uganda’s future clergy. Whatever is planted in those Bible college classrooms — a hunger for the Spirit, a confidence in praying for the sick, a willingness to prophesy, a theology of renewal grounded firmly in Scripture — will be carried by their students into pulpits and parishes across the nation for a generation. Few invitations offer this kind of multiplying reach. It is, quite simply, a tremendous opportunity to influence an entire nation through the very people who will be shaping its clergy for years to come.
There is a further opportunity we’re excited to extend to you directly. We’ve been invited to participate in a short mission within the Diocese of Kampala itself, lasting approximately one week. This extension will take the same ministry of teaching on the Holy Spirit into local parishes, inviting both clergy and lay leaders into a deeper understanding and experience of the Spirit’s work. If the Bible college is about equipping those who train and lead others, this week in Kampala is about seeing that teaching take root among the people already serving week by week in parish life — a wonderful complement to the wider mission, and a further door for those who sense a call to go.
This is exactly the kind of mission SOMA exists for: not simply visiting to encourage, but equipping those who will go on to equip others — caring for the nervous system of the body of Christ so that the whole body might minister in the power of the Spirit.
We need in two ways …
First, prayerfully consider whether you might participate directly — if you’ve always dreamed of ministering in Africa, this may be the transformation experience you’re after. We are looking for missioners with a heart for Spirit-led ministry, and a willingness to serve alongside the diocese taking its first steps with a newly forming SOMA office. If that’s you, we would love to hear from you.
Second, prayerfully consider financial partnership. Missions of this kind carry real costs — travel, accommodation, resourcing — and as a new office, SOMA Uganda will be relying on the wider SOMA family to help make this mission possible. Whether you’re able to give directly, or simply hold this mission in prayer as we seek God’s provision, both matter enormously.
Please pray, too, for the emerging SOMA Uganda office itself — for wisdom and favour as it formalises its structure and relationships, for the Bible college professors and students who will receive this teaching, and for the Diocese of Kampala as it discerns its part in this mission. We sense the Lord opening a significant door here, and we don’t want to let it pass by underprepared or under-prayed-for.