Lesson 1: The Importance of Local Ministry Training

The church must teach. Jesus told the church to go everywhere teaching his commands (Matthew 28:19-20). Paul said that a pastor must be able to teach (1 Timothy 3:2). This teaching is part of the work of discipleship. The church teaches people how to live as believers, living for the glory of God. This teaching should occur everywhere that believers exist. Strong churches are equipped with biblical truth and practical methods to purposefully teach their people.

The church must train.

And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2).

The necessity of teaching creates the necessity of ministry training. Paul told Timothy to train men who could teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). Training is not just the teaching of information. Training is not just teaching believers for their own benefit. Training equips believers to help others.

Jesus demonstrated the priority of ministry training. At the beginning of his ministry, he chose a few men who would guide and extend the church. He did not spend all his time preaching to crowds of people; instead, he often took time to train twelve leaders. He extended his ministry through those that he trained.

Acts 8:26-31 tells the story of Philip being called by God to leave Samaria and travel along a certain road near Gaza. There, he met a man from Ethiopia sitting in his chariot and reading from the prophesies of Isaiah. “Do you understand what you’re reading?” Philip asked. The African responded, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

How can I, unless someone guides me? This sentence shows us that people need human teachers sent by God to explain biblical truth. The Holy Spirit had been doing many supernatural things, yet God was still using human teachers. This is God’s normal response to the need for training. Shepherds Global Classroom puts curriculum in the hands of trainers who can guide men and women into the truth of God’s Word.

Shepherds Global Classroom provides a transferable training program to be operated by local ministries.

To Train Pastors

Pastors should be trained in doctrine, Bible interpretation, preaching, and discipleship methods. Yet, thousands of churches around the world are led by pastors with few printed resources and no purposeful training. Because many pastors have not been trained, they feel unable to train others.

David Livermore has said,

The expansive growth of the church around the world is producing a shortage of theologically equipped pastors and church leaders. There are approximately 2.2 million evangelical churches in the world. 85% are led by men and women who have no theological training. 7,000 new church leaders are needed daily to care for the growing church.[1]

Most potential pastors around the world cannot attend Bible college. It is not practical for them to leave their families, employment, and ministries to attend classes somewhere for several years. They need local training.

Shepherds Global Classroom exists to provide biblical, theological, and practical training to these church leaders who have no formal education in theology or ministry.

To Train Witnesses

Any person who has experienced God’s saving grace is qualified to evangelize. People can tell what God has done for them. Their testimonies can be convincing, especially to people who know them and see the change in their lives.

However, sometimes a person is not able to explain the essential points of the gospel. If listeners are in a condition that seems different from that person’s testimony, they may not understand how they can experience the same transformation.

Even a person who has been a believer for years may feel unable to evangelize his community because he is unable to answer questions about Christianity. This believer knows his or her own experience of conversion, the feelings of worship, and what it is like to fellowship with others in the body of Christ but is not able to explain these things.

Sometimes the people of a community are of a religion hostile to Christianity. They may learn to respect followers of Christ who live a good life, but they also need to hear explanations of the Christian faith.

A person can become a more effective witness by learning the principles of the gospel and the basic doctrines that support the gospel.

To Protect the Church

Pastors are responsible to protect their churches with good teaching (Titus 1:9-14). False churches and false religions use ideas to confuse and deceive people. It is sad that many people who were once converted were later led into a false church.

The pastor must teach people biblical doctrine so that people will be established in their faith. Teaching must be purposeful and systematic and provided at different levels in order to reach all the people of the church.

Richmond Wandera, an influential pastor in Uganda, Africa observes that many Christians are following practices from false religions. “On Sunday people raise their hands and worship God, and on Monday if the child falls sick, they’ll go to a witch doctor. And that’s what keeps me awake at night.”[2] He observed that the practices of false religions seem normal in many African churches. This problem takes various forms in churches around the world.

► What are some false beliefs that seem to influence believers in your country?

To Extend the Ministry Team

A sports team has a bench with players who are not always in the game. They may be younger and less experienced than the leading players, but they are in training. Some of them have special abilities that are needed at certain times.

A healthy, growing church should have a “bench.” It is a mistake to think that because the leadership positions are filled, the team is complete. A ministry reaches its limits and does not continue to grow unless there are leaders to help start new forms of ministry.

A healthy church should have people on the “bench” who are developing and practicing. That requires local training. Therefore, ministry training is not just for people who hold ministry positions.

A job of the pastor is to make local training happen. The pastor will not be able to do all of the training himself, but he should arrange it and encourage it. He needs a team of people who serve in various roles.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ (Ephesians 4:11-15).

God gives people of the local church the gifts and abilities needed to fulfill the mission of the church. The church must take responsibility to purposefully develop people.

To Strengthen the Indigenous Church

An indigenous church is locally led, locally supported, and locally owned. It does not depend on foreign support or direction. Local strength is important to the health and growth of churches.

An indigenous church is at home in its culture. It is not a foreign church.

A healthy indigenous church has many advantages:

1. It effectively evangelizes and disciples in its culture.

2. The congregation matures and functions as the body of Christ without foreign dependency.

3. Leaders develop to their full potential.

4. Local participants provide support and accountability for the ministry.

Some indigenous churches are not healthy because they lack doctrinal stability and biblical standards of Christian living. They fail to influence their communities with a powerful, consistent witness. They are vulnerable to leaders who have talent but lack character. They lack a program for leadership development. They need a program for local ministry training.

Sometimes a church is started by foreign missionaries with the goal that the church eventually become indigenous. Measurements of progress include the increase of local support and the increased responsibility of local leaders.

Local training is necessary for the development of local leaders who teach doctrine, apply faith to practical living, and develop good ministry styles and strategies.

To Plant Churches

It is sad that many churches function for years without sending the gospel to other communities. Churches should train and send teams of evangelists to areas that lack churches. The goal of such a team is to form a new group of converts that becomes a church.

Some evangelists should be trained to help groups of converts become churches. They should be able to disciple new believers by teaching them how to live a Christian life. They should be able to train converts to evangelize and take ministry responsibilities.

Most new churches will be led by a local person, not by a pastor who comes from somewhere else to live in the community. Most pastors with academic training are not willing to pastor a new church or serve in a small town. We must provide ministry training to the local believer who is called by God to lead a congregation.

To Prepare Missionaries

A missionary is a person who is sent somewhere by the church for the purpose of advancing the influence of the gospel. The term missionary is especially used of a person who goes to another country and/or another culture, but sometimes it refers to a person who goes to another community in his own country.

The gospel is spreading rapidly in some areas of the world, mostly by missionaries who go to another region of their own country. Training would increase their effectiveness and doctrinal stability.

The 10/40 Window is an area from 10 degrees south to 40 degrees north of the equator, spanning northern Africa and southern Asia and including the countries of China and India. The 10/40 Window includes 2/3 of the world’s population. More than 80% of the people in the 10/40 Window have not been reached with the gospel.

Some countries of the world are mostly unreached by the gospel though their large cities have had churches for many years. A person may serve in a church for many years but still not know how to start ministry in a new place. He knows only how to speak to a group of believers in a church building. The church should train missionaries to go with the message of the gospel and the goal of forming a local family of believers.

► Which of these reasons for ministry training seem most urgent in the churches you know? Why?