When TDI started in 2009, the aim was to mobilize local churches in Chitipa to work together in finding solutions to challenges affecting the local communities. TDI used the Transformational Journey Curriculum as a training tool for church leaders and pastors. The Transformational Journey curriculum focuses of understanding the Theological foundations of the church, Christ centered leadership style, gift based church ministries and planning among other things. By 2015, 2,086 church leaders and pastors had been trained from 483 local churches. TDI achieved its target in mobilizing the church for action but the mobilization had just created a challenge at another level: (Expectations). Most church leaders complained that their churches and members were very poor; could not afford a decent church building, could not raise enough money to support church ministries and meet community needs therefore they expected support and funding from TDI with which to use in addressing the identified needs in their communities. This was far from reality. Much that TDI got funding from its partners like Willow Creek, it was never enough to meet all the identified needs. That was when TDI realized that it was using the wrong approach in engaging the churches. Actually TDI was using the NEED BASED approach which exposed community needs but solutions were expected to be provided by TDI and other donors.

It was in 2017 when TDI adopted the ABCD concept and started using it in training church leaders and pastors as well as zonal network leadership teams in 2018. By 2019, a total number of 438 church leaders and pastors had been trained using the ABCD curriculum. As opposed to the Need Based approach, the ultimate goal of Asset Based Church Development(ABCD) is to empower and mobilize the local church to utilize their skills and assets to transform their communities. The concept helps church and community members to gain a real sense of their potential capacity and an understanding of how to make the best use of their assets. Since then, some remarkable achievements have been registered on how local churches are using locally available assets to transform their communities.

Special to note is that the ABCD concept has deeper transformational effects since it is facilitated not taught. It changes the mindset from memorizing to practicing therefore it is sustainable. It abolishes the dependency mentality because through the facilitation process everyone discovers that he/she is endowed with gifts, churches and communities are as well able to see the assets which are within their disposal with which they can use to meet the needs.