Key points:
- Bishops, communicators and United Methodist Communications staff gathered in Tanzania to address major communication challenges in the Mid-Africa Regional Conference.
- Poor roads, unreliable internet and the presence of more than 450 local languages create barriers to effective communication for church leaders in the region.
- Participants agreed on a multichannel strategy rooted in African realities, combining Starlink connectivity, radio and mobile apps to build communications capacity and support evangelism.
Faced with impassable roads, villages without electricity and more than 450 languages spoken in the Congo region alone, The United Methodist Church in Central Africa refuses to let silence gain ground.
At a roundtable in Dar es Salaam, bishops, communicators and leaders from United Methodist Communications laid the groundwork for a creative communication strategy that leverages both Starlink high-speed internet and local radio to carry the Gospel message to even the most isolated communities.
Organized by United Methodist Communications with participation from the five episcopal areas of the Mid-Africa Regional Conference, the April 11-12 meeting aimed to assess the region’s communications landscape, identify shared priorities and strengthen collaboration between the local church and its global partners.
From the outset, participants emphasized that communication is not a technological luxury, but an essential tool for making disciples of Jesus Christ, building peace and supporting communities facing conflict and poverty.
The Mid-Africa Regional Conference’s episcopal regions span some of the most geographically complex areas on the African continent. In many of these areas, roads become impassable during the rainy season, power lines are nonexistent or unreliable, and communities can remain cut off from the rest of the country for weeks.
“Given the poor state of road infrastructure, internet connectivity is the top priority, using Starlink where possible,” said North Katanga Area Bishop Mande Muyombo, who serves as president of the Africa Colleges of Bishops. He is also president-designate of the denomination’s Council of Bishops.
Without a reliable connection, he said, it becomes impossible to coordinate teams, disseminate messages in real time or share training resources among the various episcopal regions.
“In some rural districts, pastors still have to travel dozens of kilometers to find a network connection and send a simple worship report or a crisis alert,” Muyombo said. “Without the internet, our communities remain isolated from one another, yet we need to share our stories, pray together and bear witness to the world that the church is alive and growing in Central Africa.”
Linguistic diversity poses a second major challenge. Central Congo Bishop Daniel Lunge noted that Congo alone has more than 450 languages and dialects — including Swahili, Lingala, French, Kikongo, Chiluba and Kilubakato. The same sermon often must be translated successively into several languages to be understood by all.
“The diversity of languages and dialects often poses a communication problem among us. Translation is sometimes biased. Often, the terms we use do not effectively convey the message or the truth of what we wish to communicate,” Lunge said, noting also that “tribes and their different languages even give rise to conflicts” when they are not put at the service of unity.
This reality requires United Methodist communicators to develop a “United Methodist Christian communicational language” capable of weaving unity across tribal boundaries, by combining local languages, national languages and French within a common Gospel grammar.
“We must invent a way of speaking about Christ that respects every language, yet reminds everyone that they belong to the same United Methodist family, from the most remote village to the largest cities,” Lunge said.
East Congo Bishop Antoine Kalema Tambwe recalled the legacy of traditional African communication systems such as the tam-tam and gongs as the foundations of communication rooted in local cultures. Referring to these instruments that once set the rhythm of village life, he invited the church to draw on this collective memory to proclaim the Gospel using codes that communities recognize as their own.
Citing the Ubuntu philosophy popularized by the late Nelson Mandela, Tambwe emphasized the role of The United Methodist Church as a force for unity in the face of tensions related to linguistic diversity.
“Ubuntu reminds us that, ‘I am because we are.’ The church must embody this vision by becoming a space where every language, every culture and every people know they are recognized, but never pitted against one another,” he said.
Radio reaches rural areas
In rural areas where the internet remains inaccessible, radio remains the preferred means of communication. Radio Lokole, based in Kinshasa and affiliated with the Central Congo Episcopal Area, serves as a model. The station is a founding member of the United Methodist Broadcast Network.
Muyombo urged that this model be replicated across all episcopal regions.
“I echo Bishop Lunge’s call to say that we, as United Methodists in Central Africa, must really work hard on how to use radio,” he said. “And I think this is an area where we can consider how to expand what already exists in Central Congo with Radio Lokole to other areas, because it is a powerful means of communication, even of evangelism, and also of education for peace, reconciliation and Ubuntu values.”
Muyombo said he hopes to see an exponential increase in the formation of disciples of Jesus Christ through the exchange of experiences.
Henriette Kumakana, Radio Lokole’s director, said the impact is evident.
“In some communities, catechists are already reporting that Radio Lokole’s programs help them prepare their lessons and address sensitive topics such as violence, social cohesion and environmental protection with their communities,” she said.
Christian Kasweka, communications director for the South Congo and Zambia Episcopal Area, pointed to frequent power outages, a lack of stable funding and the need for ongoing training as daily challenges faced by his teams.
“Many of our communicators are highly committed volunteers, but they lack tools, training and sometimes even the means to travel to the most remote villages,” he said.
For Poonam Patodia, United Methodist Communications’ chief marketing officer, one of the greatest opportunities lies in “contextual and multichannel” storytelling that reaches people where they are.
“In Central Africa, this means prioritizing radio, WhatsApp and other mobile platforms alongside traditional digital tools. Annual conferences can amplify their ministries — peace, education, women’s empowerment, humanitarian action — through locally produced radio content, short-form audio and easily shareable messages that circulate from one network to another,” she said.
She sees these simple formats as a way to amplify the voices of those who are often marginalized by mainstream media, particularly women, young people and grassroots community leaders.
Building a communication plan
At the roundtable, Dan Krause, United Methodist Communications’ top executive, summarized the agency’s support as a true “comprehensive package” for communication in Central Africa. This commitment begins with infrastructure: installing solar systems to provide sustainable power to communications offices and deploying internet connections — notably via Starlink — to bypass the limitations of traditional networks.
Next comes investment in people: providing phones and computers for communicators, ongoing training at the district and local community levels, and allocating budgets for travel and gathering stories in the field — an essential condition for ensuring that the stories of local churches are heard.
The communications agency also is committed to content and distribution channels, supporting the creation or strengthening of studios for radio, television or music production, as well as the development of professional institutional websites for each regional entity.
Finally, the agency provides strategic communication support by assisting churches with communication regarding regionalization, as well as marketing support to increase the visibility of The United Methodist Church, both locally and in the international public sphere.
Krause said the challenge is to support each episcopal area according to its own specific context.
“There is no one-size-fits-all solution,” he said. “Our role is to be a collaborative partner, responding both to the specific needs of each conference and to common needs in training, messaging, web presence and multimedia tools.”
For Jennifer Rodia, United Methodist Communications’ head of partnerships, news and production, the Dar es Salaam roundtable represents a meaningful step in deepening the relationship.
“This gathering is part of a long-term commitment to walk alongside our partners in Mid-Africa — not just to solve immediate communication challenges, but to build lasting capacity together,” she said. “That same spirit is driving our training partnership with Africa University, where we’re working to equip a generation of skilled communicators across the continent.”
Beyond the new commitments announced in Dar es Salaam, several concrete initiatives are already underway in the Mid-Africa Regional Conference.
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Over the past two years, targeted grants have funded livestreaming coverage of the 2025 Kitwe Conference, supported an awareness campaign on regionalization in Central Congo, and provided communicators in North Katanga with laptops and a printer to strengthen fieldwork.
In the area of connectivity, United Methodist Communications covers internet subscriptions for the five episcopal regions and has launched a gradual transition to Starlink, which is already operational in Kalemie. Domain names and website hosting have also been set up for most episcopal areas (eastcongoumc.org, umcnorthkatanga.org, centralcongoumc.org, tanganyikaumc.org), as well as for Radio Lokole, although many platforms still need to be updated and South Congo does not yet have an institutional online presence.
Each episcopal region has received a livestreaming kit through the United Methodist Broadcasting Network, and significant church mapping work has been carried out in Central Africa, with 2,263 United Methodist congregations already geolocated across 14 annual conferences and missions — a tool designed to facilitate mission planning and communications coordination.
“Central Africa offers a unique opportunity for authentic storytelling centered on mission and community transformation,” Patodia said. “By strengthening local storytelling capacities, using simple and replicable formats, the church can not only share its story more effectively but also consolidate its unity and identity in a region that is both highly diverse and rapidly growing.”
Krause said the goal of the partnership is to strengthen skills, infrastructure and messaging in order to better support existing United Methodist communities and to share Christ’s love and salvation more widely with new people throughout the region.
“If I had to sum up in one word the transformation we hope to see in communication in Central Africa by 2026, it would be ‘creative,’” he said. “We must be creative to multiply opportunities for communication, so that every church, even the most isolated, can make its voice heard and bear witness to Christ without interruption.”
Londe is a UM News correspondent based in Congo.
News media contact: Julie Dwyer at [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
