Training Leaders of Leaders 2

We call it life-on-life discipleship

Now, consider something far more within the realm of reason. What if a missionary could start a church doing all the fore-mentioned and leave it with a national pastor every four years just before going on furlough? That would mean he could start eight churches in the same period. In a brief investigation, you find that few men have been able to carry forth this ministry either consistently.

Finally, consider the missionary who approaches the ministry with the mentality of training leaders, as mentioned in the article above. He, too, will plant a church, but instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day operation of pastoring a church, he will search out and prayerfully train leaders. What he can accomplish will be unlimited because the problematic part of planting churches is not getting people together, etc., but leaving a trained leader who can carry the ministry forward. It only makes sense to train leaders. II Timothy 2:2. Imagine the potential for exponential growth as these trained leaders train others, and so on.

Before leaving this subject, consider the greatest missionary who ever lived. Most consider Paul the most significant missionary, and undoubtedly, he was the second greatest, but Jesus Christ has to be rated as the greatest. He spent 3.5 years preaching, healing, teaching, ministering, and doing the work, and yet when he left his ministry, there were only 120 members in His church, and that was the first time they had to count the women to get a good attendance. He failed in the big church planting ministry if numbers are your goal, but he certainly won out when you consider he gave his time to training 11 men who would shake the entire world in their lifetime. What was his goal--to plant churches rapidly or to train men who could train others to plant churches?

You decide on 32 churches, eight churches, one church, or train 11 men or as many as possible to reach the greatest number of churches and souls possible.

We must change our opinions to reach the world with the gospel and change the current problems we face in the mission field. So many Christian leaders feel without saying that “no one else can do it as well as I can!” Or maybe they will think it takes longer to train someone than just do it yourself. Our pride leads us to believe they can never do it as well as we can.

Another more alarming opinion that must change is that there are no good nationals, or I can’t find any! That will come across as a tough statement, but people often express it in some form or another. Even in America, people hear the pastor say that today’s young people just aren’t like they used to be. It is difficult to find young people who love God or desire to serve Him today.

Opinions must change. God still has thousands who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You are not the only one, the last one, or even one of a few. God has hundreds and thousands of people who desire to do His work. What they need is someone to want to train them to be a leader of leaders. This process is very costly. It will mean you are investing your life in the life of another. We call it life-on-life discipleship. Yes, it’s a significant investment of time and effort, but the return is immeasurable in terms of the impact on the kingdom of God.