African Leadership’s primary focus is Pastoral and Church Leadership Training. This year, AL is training approximately 9,500 students in 21 African countries. Since they began in 1993, African Leadership has trained over 35,000 alumni, in over 30 countries.

    The Training Program provides comprehensive training in all phases of church leadership equivalent to a foundational-level Seminary or Bible College degree. The two year program utilizes a 10-course, 2,500-page Bible-centered curriculum, developed by African Leadership, and has been translated into 5 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 and Church Leaders may receive training they would otherwise be unable to afford, while living at home, continuing to work at their jobs or working their farms, and supporting their families.

    African Leadership also funds Relief and Development ministry partners in many of the communities where they train church leaders. Relief Missions provide Children’s Services, Famine Relief, Medical Supplies, and  Emergency Shelter and Water Supplies.  Developmental  Project Partners  drill fresh water wells, build Orphanage Facilities, Schools and School Dormitories, operate Job Skills Training Centers, Medical Facilities, and Youth Outreach 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.

Warren 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, who often serve congregations that cannot offer support or salary.  African Leadership then grew to focus on serving Pastors and church leaders who were without resources for school and seminary, to equip and train them for ministering in their communities.

Warren was also impacted by overwhelming physical needs in communities of  Nairobi, Kenya, and Cape Town, South Africa, where AL was based from 1993-1997. African Leadership 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 South Africa, and Lilongwe, Malawi.  

In 1998, realizing that funding was needed for further expansion, Larry and his wife,  and their four sons,  moved back to the USA, to Tennessee.  Their donor base includes foundations, churches and individuals throughout Tennessee, the Southeast and around the world.

In 1999, African Leadership trained 3,000 Church Leaders.  As of January 2008, 9,000 church leaders were in training in 22 African countries, with over 30,000 graduates of the program. The essential cornerstones of growth for 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 and Relief and Development programs, are possible because of  their dedication, traveling and working in extremely difficult and often discouraging circumstances.

African Leadership’s Training Program continues to add to their curriculum, most recently adding courses to address the rapid expansion of Islam, and courses on HIV/AIDS awareness.  African Leadership has also expanded their missions to address 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 find assistance and aid at African Leadership's Refugee Ministry, directed by William Mwizerwa.

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