The growth of the Church in the
Two-thirds World is staggering, something about which to rejoice
and praise the Lord!
There is, however, a serious problem: the church in the developing
world is growing faster than leaders can be raised, let alone
trained. According to Rick Warren's pastor.com site, "About 94
percent of ordained pastors in Africa have no formal training."
According to cybermissions.org, the figure for Asia isn't much
better at 70%.
Unlike in the West, where training institutions are readily
accessible, pastors in these regions simply look to the willing
members of their congregations to go plant and pastor new churches
in the next village or town. Unfortunately, the risk of syncretism
and acceptance of false doctrine is rife.
Many organizations work tirelessly to teach and train these lay
leaders in 1- or 2-week seminars. Others engage them in mentoring
programs. A few of the fortunate are privileged to study at a
seminary or Bible school. All possible means of training the vast
numbers of lay leaders in the developing world should be encouraged
and increased.
It is at the grassroots level where the Live School is able to
make a marked difference, by making the Live School curriculum
available to local pastors so they can sit in an office, church
room or even a hut with five to fifteen of their people and train
them.
After the 5-month teaching phase, those local people are sent to
plant or run a new church, under the leadership of that
pastor.
These Live School trainees are often far better equipped than any
of their counterparts, having more knowledge and a deeper
understanding. Apart from training those already in leadership, the
Live School has proven extremely effective in raising up and
training new leadership.
The curriculum and personal nature of the School lend themselves
to identifying and encouraging those with the gift of leadership,
raising up a new generation of men and women ready, able and
equipped to do the work of the Kingdom.
Real life examples
Lubango, Angola - One amazing consequence of the Live School is
its impact on other local pastors. The Lubango Live School
originally had an enrolment of twenty. About two weeks into
training, the pastors in the city literally came into a class and
asked that they too be trained. They had seen the remarkable change
in the members of their churches who were attending the
School.
The Lubango School ended up having two shifts: a day shift for the
original 20 students and an evening shift for 22 pastors. As part
of the outreach phase of their training, those pastors started 8
new cell groups in the city.
Kwa Ndebele, South Africa - A Live School was especially
established to train seven pastors in this community not far from
Pretoria. All the pastors said the School taught on topics which,
although relevant to their daily lives, they'd never heard covered
before, while other subjects went further in depth than any of
their previous studies. At graduation, they testified that they
were seeing both spiritual and numerical growth in their churches,
way beyond their expectations.
One told of the giving at his church increasing remarkably;
another told of teaching some of the principles he'd learned,
grounding his congregation better in the Word.