DLPDI trains pastors on Bible interpretation and disability inclusion

Participants follow presentations during the DLPDI two-day workshop on biblical interpretation and disability inclusion held from 9th-10th July 2026 (Photo Credit: Joshua Namwanga).

[Nairobi: 13th July 2026] From 9th to 10th July, the Daystar Leadership and Professional Development Institute (DLPDI), brought together students, faculty, and church leaders in a two-day training on biblical interpretation and disability inclusion in the church. 

On the first day, Prof. Bernard Boyo and Brian Lebash took participants through hermeneutics.  Expounding the science and art of biblical interpretation, enabling participants to appreciate how believers read, understand, and apply the words of Scripture in context. They cautioned about the danger of exegesis — reading personal assumptions, biases, or outside sources into a text rather than drawing meaning from it. Prof. Boyo urged that every passage should be understood within its own context of discussion rather than filtered through inherited ideas.

The session also explored various tensions in biblical interpretation, pointing out that Scripture is divine yet expressed in human form.  God's commands are absolute yet they emerged from specific historical contexts.  Rather than resolving these tensions by favoring one side, the speaker argued that the unifying principle in biblical interpretation is resisting the urge to eliminate such tensions all together, but rather, to hold them together in balance. 

Expounding on the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation, the facilitators emphasized that because many passages remain ambiguous, it was important to rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance so as to keep the message of the Bible clear.

Participants examined how the Spirit guides believers without offering new propositional revelation — meaning the Spirit's ministry sharpens perception of truths already present in the text rather than granting special insight unavailable to committed students of the Bible. A case study on Isaiah 7:14 and its citation in Matthew examined the identity of "Immanuel" and unpacked the difference between the words "fulfilled" and "to fulfill" in tracing Old Testament references through the Gospel of Matthew.

Disability Inclusion in the church was also a shifted focus for the day’s training. It was structured around themes such as Reimagining Humanity, The Church's Blind Spot, The Leadership Audit, Emotional Intelligence, a Holistic Disability Framework, Reimagining Church Operations, and Becoming an Inclusive Church.

Grounding the conversation in Genesis, speakers affirmed that every person bears God's image and that disability does not diminish that image. The discussion challenged congregations to examine why people with disabilities often suffer more because of how society organizes itself than because of the disability itself, calling on the Church to become a place where every person discovers, "I belong."

In a segment titled "The Church's Blind Spot," the presenter questioned the number of people with disabilities who typically sit in front during worship, lead worship, preach, serve communion, become elders, chair committees, or handle finances among other roles in the church. The session noted that while many churches have disability ministries, very few have disability representation in actual leadership, underscoring a meaningful difference between ‘service to’ and ‘leadership by’ persons with disabilities.

He further provoked participants to consider that disability may not expose the limitations of individuals but rather the limitations of the systems churches have built — reframing inclusion as a structural, not just an attitudinal challenge.

The forum terminated with a call to action for churches to move beyond token gestures toward genuinely inclusive practices in worship, leadership, and church operations.