The Importance of Church-centric Training

MissioSERVE Alliance is privileged to be part of a growing movement within missions, one that seeks to emphasize and develop the role of every local church in the work of the Great Commission. It is a vision that is gaining momentum in churches of all sorts and sizes, and we believe it will have a very positive impact on the health of congregations and missionaries alike.

However, there is an element of church-centric missions that often gets overlooked within this movement — the task of equipping missionaries to develop future church leaders in the exposition of the Word of God. It is not easy to pinpoint just why this is true, but such equipping of missionaries is often “contracted out” to para-church partners rather than done “in-house” by church leaders. Perhaps Western churches have too broadly accepted the secular model of education, acting as though only scholars or "experts" can be trusted to properly train church leaders. Perhaps some churches fail to properly appreciate the important role their missionaries will play in developing healthy churches around the world. Or maybe church leaders just feel ill-prepared to do this equipping, even if they are convinced that they should be doing it.

Whatever the reasons may be, this failure to properly equip missionaries for this work has had a profound impact on global missions. The goal of establishing new, mission-minded congregations is often never reached because the movement stalls out at this crucial stage of equipping church leaders for the preaching of God's Word. Most church-planting strategies attempt to meet this need by forming some sort of seminary or Bible Institute where church leaders may be instructed. In theory, this solves the problem and provides trained leaders for the new churches. In practice, however, this strategy often requires many years of planting numerous churches before sufficient structure and funding are available to open and operate a training center. Meanwhile, it may be a long time before the preaching in those new churches is faithfully and powerfully communicating God’s Word to His people. Spiritual maturity and church health are often casualties of the delay in training. An additional challenge is encountered in some difficult regions where there is little response to the gospel. In such tough areas of spiritual hardness, there may never be enough churches to sustain or justify an institute nearby. Prospective pastors in these regions are forced to travel long distances to attend classes. They might even need to “pause” their ministries entirely while they temporarily live at far-away schools where training is offered.

These common problems presented by the training model commonly practiced today largely dissipate when we follow the model of church-based training laid out by Paul in 2 Timothy 2:2. His strategy was to have current church leaders actively equip new church leaders. They were to do this in such a way that the new leaders would be capable of equipping other leaders in perpetuity. Judging from the tone and context of this pastoral letter, it seems clear that Paul saw this kind of leadership training as an essential part of what every local church should be doing. Unlike the prevalent model followed in the West today, he did not assume that each subsequent generation of leaders would need, in turn, to go “off to school” to be capable shepherds or teachers. Even if such “third party” training might sometimes be needed, he expected such an arrangement to be the exception rather than the rule. Instead, the churches themselves would develop their leaders from among their flock.

Pursuing this kind of church-based training is especially important in the work of missions and church planting. As noted above, leadership training is vital to forming stable churches, developing healthy disciples, and equipping future leaders. This means that effective training methods should be an essential part of every missionary’s preparation before they leave for the field. Furthermore, they should be equipped in ways that are most effective in the field and culture where they will be serving. For example, while assigned reading with book reports might work in some Western contexts, the bulk of our missionaries are going into contexts that present great obstacles to that style of training. In most places, leaders need to be equipped with techniques that not only communicate through lectures but also inculcate through “hands-on” practice. Our MoBiL training offers just that kind of tool for those who need it.

Another way in which a healthy structure of church-based training promotes missions is by reinforcing the relationship between missionaries abroad and their sending churches back home. When a sending church embraces its role in equipping its own missionaries, the church will tend to maintain this mentoring and advisory role, working side-by-side toward the mission objective. If they view local churches as the central cog in the training process (rather than an institute or seminary), they will be more likely to continue investing in both the missionary and the new churches planted by them. This will generally result in an increased sense of camaraderie and true partnership in the work of the gospel for everyone involved, including the congregations. Such a “connectedness” to missions will serve to plant and cultivate the seeds of mission work in the hearts of others within the church.    

MissioSERVE helps churches understand and evaluate their role in preparing their missionary for ongoing training of future leaders. Where needed, our MoBiL training ministry can assist churches in reaching this objective. We provide proven training methods that have been used around the world for many years. We can equip churches to free themselves from dependence on outside organizations or institutes in this essential task. Once equipped, they will be able to sharpen their own missionaries with effective methods of biblical study and prepare them to transfer those skills to others. As a result, new churches will be more readily supplied with leaders who know how to study and proclaim God’s Word, and the transformative truths of the gospel will sink deeper into the hearts of believers.