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Miami Symposium on Leadership Training

The preparation of indigenous church planters and pastors is one of the greatest needs in missions in Latin America today. On April 6-7 about 35 MTW missionaries gathered in Miami to talk about the training of future leaders in Latin America. MTW has missionaries working in various organizations that produce materials for such training, and representatives from each gave a presentation of what is available.

I came away very encouraged to see the great leap forward that has been made in the last ten years in terms of materials that are available in Spanish. I was also encouraged by the desire among the various groups to work together for the benefit of the kingdom.

My presentation was about the need to train by integrating quality academics, contextualized ministry experience and personal growth. If these three elements--knowing, doing and being--are three rails of a wooden fence, then the primary task of the trainer is to be the fence post that connects the three.

Ultimately it's the Holy Spirit who connects these three so they are integrated around Christ. The following diagram shows a kind of spiral movement that occurs when these three are integrated around Christ: knowledge leads to greater obedience (doing), and obedience leads to greater understanding. Knowledge leads to love (being) and love leads to greater knowledge. The result is that what we know doesn't remain in the mind but actually influences how we go about ministry and our spiritual growth. These, in turn, increase our understanding.

However, I believe the Holy Spirit usually accomplishes this integration through people acting as "fence posts." This means taking the time to invest in people so they can see in our words, our deeds and our character how the three fit together. We tend to act as if the transmission of biblical concepts were enough. We give information, then simply expect the person has to apply it. Sometimes we are so focused on delivering a quality curriculum that we forget the priority of helping people make the connections. Without this key element, our training programs will be less effective than they could be.

Covenantal Training

I have called this kind of training that seeks to integrate our knowing, doing and being around Christ "covenantal training." It is similar to what the Lord asks of parents in Deuteronomy 6: in the context of loving Him above all (being), show your children how His words (knowing) apply to everything we do (doing). Training is not a neutral, scientific activity to which Christians add spirituality. Our training of church planters and pastors is not complete or effective unless what they know is increasingly consistent with what they do and with who they are.

Implementation in Mexico

After the symposium a number of people stayed to talk about ways to implement "covenantal training" in parts of Mexico. These included MTW missionaries to Mexico and some Mexican leaders, as well as Andrew Lamb, the new MTW country director for Mexico. Please pray for us as we seek to implement some major changes in the way we go about training future leaders.

What's So Wrong With Traditional Training?

I'm not suggesting it's always wrong to draw away from ministry into an academic setting to focus for a while on academics. This traditional method can be especially useful for people who already have lots of ministry experience and are trying to answer some questions. Furthermore, the Lord graciously uses all kinds of less than perfect methods--thankfully!

However, as a steady diet, I believe the traditional training program has some important drawbacks. In the first place, it is unlikely that graduates will actually know how to pastor or plant churches. Secondly, it is likely that these graduates, not knowing what to do, will fall back on the method they learned in their traditional training program: the transmission of concepts. This often creates an organizational culture in the church that to visitors seems to say: the more you know, the more spiritual you are.

The negative effects of such training are especially visible in cultures--like those of Latin America-- that place a high value on good relationships. When we design training programs in Latin America that over-depend on the transmission of concepts, we tend to attract counter-cultural Latin Americans to our programs. These are often people whose personality never did quite mesh with the expectations of Latin cultures. They, in turn, tend to establish churches that have a foreign ring to them, and are unlikely to be able to reach out to most people in the culture.

Seth's Graduation

On Saturday, May 6, Seth graduated from Covenant College. In the fall he will be entering a PhD program in physics at Washington University in St. Louis. Please pray for him as he enters this new stage of life. Pray that we will all have a good summer together. This could be the last time we are all living together.