Jem leads the UK charity BUILD Partners, which helps to nurture the BUILD training initiative. BUILD stands for ‘Biblical Understanding for In-service Leadership Development’ and is designed to equip church leaders who have limited access to traditional training.

The programme began in the Church of Uganda, where it is an integral part of the Education Directorate. But it has also spread to surrounding countries and Anglican provinces, with varying degrees of presence in Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan and Tanzania, and others engaging with it from further afield.

BUILD uses an in-service model with in-built multiplication to deliver its training. Its more formal training-of-trainers course equips leaders to go on to train others at the grassroots in local, non-formal BUILD groups. It does that by teaching them to use the modular BUILD curriculum, which is biblical, theological, practical and thoroughly contextual.

Jem joined Crosslinks in 2000 and lived in Uganda until 2007 before a move to South Africa. He returned to the UK in 2013 but continues to serve BUILD remotely and through regular trips to East Africa. Jem is an honorary Canon of St Stephen’s Cathedral in Shinyanga, Tanzania, has permission to officiate in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, and serves in his local church.