The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Tim. 2:2 – NASB95)
I read something this week that reenforced our Mission Statement as a church and for our mission agency Shepherding The Nations (STN):
“Did you know that, according to research, there is only one trained pastor in the United States for every 230 people? The situation is increasingly dire outside of the US, where there is only one trained pastor for every 450,000 people. Can you imagine how different your city might look if it only had one trained pastor to serve it? If the US were like the rest of the world, the entire state of Wyoming would have only two trained pastors, while some other states like Alaska, Vermont, and North Dakota might only have one.”
Let that sink in for a moment! The world is in desperate need of trained pastors who can shepherd local churches effectively, so they can mature and multiply. One of our missionaries recently shared a prayer request because he was asked to help identify and train pastors to serve in 150 churches that currently don’t have a pastor. Having personally traveled to a number of countries around the world, I might say the problem is worse than in the quote above. Many of the so-called “trained” pastors for every 450,000 people have been trained poorly. Their understanding of Scripture, the local church, preaching, and discipleship is weak at best. They are often highly evangelistic, but they don’t know what to do with the people after they profess faith in Christ. We want to help our missionaries in this endeavor by training pastors both locally and globally. Through the ministries of our local church, our missionaries, and STN, we want to see more trained pastors who can not only reach people, but disciple them to maturity so they can establish healthy churches that multiply all over the world.
We have been doing this throughout the years, but we want to excel still more. That is why our leaders will be spending a lot of time this summer evaluating what we are currently doing and how we can improve. We want to be more effective at training each of you to grow as disciples and as disciplemakers (Mt. 28:16-20). We long to see every one of you reaching lost people with the gospel and then helping them grow in Christ so they can reach others as well. And we want to train up more pastors who can plant churches locally and globally.
Please pray for the Lord to give us clear direction for the future. This will be a God-sized endeavor that will not happen unless He does it. The task is enormous, but our God “is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Eph. 3:20). It will require a lot of sacrifices on our part, but it will be worth it when we see the Lord Jesus and hear Him say, “Well done!”