Training is equivalent to a foundational-level Seminary or Bible College degree. The two year program utilizes a 10-course, 2,500-page Biblical curriculum in 9 languages, with 2 additional translations in progress.  All classes are taught by indigenous African church leaders, in communities accessible to students, rather than central campuses. This accessibility is African Leadership's focus, so that Ministers may receive training they would otherwise be unable to afford, while living at home, continuing to work at their jobs or working their farms, to support their families.

Relief project partners work to provide children’s services, famine relief, medical supplies, and  emergency shelter, water, and food.  Developmental  project partners drill fresh water wells, build orphanage facilities, schools, operate job training centers, medical facilities, and organize youth sports programs.  

African Leadership was founded by AL President Larry Warren, who has been working in missions since 1986, and began by working in Haiti, India and Nepal. Since 1990, he has focused his efforts on the continent of Africa.  He began by recruiting and training National Directors to meet the enormous need for pastor and church leadership training in Africa, where 95% of all church leaders have no formal training.  He saw first-hand the lack of training available for the poor and impoverished ministers and church leaders serving congregations that could not offer support or salary.  So he formed African Leadership to serve Pastors and church leaders who are without resources for school and seminary, to equip them for ministering in their communities.

Warren was also impacted by overwhelming physical needs in communities of Kenya and Cape Town, South Africa, where AL was based from 1993-1997. He responded by directing and funding ministries to try to  meet some of these physical needs, including vocational training schools and child development programs in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, Cape Town, and Malawi. To increase fundraising, Warren and family moved back to the USA, to Tennessee.  

As of January 2008, 9,000 church leaders were training in 22 African countries, with over 30,000 graduates of the program. The essential cornerstones of African Leadership are the 20+ National Directors and their staff, all indigenous African church leaders, who plan, organize and implement local training programs.  African Leadership's Training Programs are possible because of  their dedication, usually traveling and working in extremely difficult discouraging circumstances.

African Leadership continues to expand their missions, addressing widespread famine in southern and eastern Africa, the HIV/AIDS  epidemic, and refugees displaced by war and political unrest in Darfur, Kenya, DRC and elsewhere.  African refugees in the Nashville TN receive assistance and aid  through African Leadership's Refugee Ministry, directed by William Mwizerwa.

Through the work and vision of the AL Board and Staff,  African Leadership curriculum has been recognized and used by many other schools and organizations.  Their Child Protection Handbook, developed by Gerry Wolf and T.K. Ilesamni, has been adapted and implemented by UNICEF for a National Child Advocacy campaign against child abuse and child labor in Malawi.