Church Ministry

The most northern province of Mozambique is Cabo Delgado. It has an area of 77,867 km² and a population of 1,650,270 (2006). For centuries it has been dominated by a non-Christian religion and animism (the practice of witchcraft and worship of spirits). Since roughly the year 2000, Iris ministries, spearheaded by Heidi and Rolland Baker and local Mozambican pastors have visited, and planted churches in hundreds of villages.

There are hundreds Iris churches in the large, stretched out province of Cabo Delgado. The province is led by a strong provincial pastor, who oversee the district pastors of the 16 districts. A district pastor oversee three or more zonal pastors who oversee 3 or more local churches. For example the district of Chiure  has 50+ churches and is divided into 6 zones with 5 or more churches per zone. Iris weekly has evangelistic outreaches throughout the province, strengthening and vising churches. The provincial pastor also visits different regions, pastoring and encouraging the churches.

There are many churches who do not get regular encouragement or visits, due to the sheer number of them in the province. Our heart and vision is to help strengthen and encourage this network of churches. We do this mainly through:
-holding mini-church conferences where 3 or more churches gather for teaching and ministry over a day and half (we overnight in the village)
-organizing discipleship programs in the province. We have a series of discipleship books (developed by the Brian Wood) that we train pastors to teach in their churches.
-encouraging pastors and leaders

In front of a local church with local pastors and their wives