The Need

THE GOOD NEWS

There has been an explosive expansion of Christianity. Never before in the history of the Church have so many come to Christ in such a short period of time. About 70% of the Church’s outreach since Pentecost has been accomplished in this century alone. At least 120,000,000 people are presented the plan of salvation each year. At least 174,000 are daily coming to Christ worldwide. Approximately 50,000 new churches are formed each year. This creates a tremendous need for trained pastoral leadership. In the 10-40 window alone there are over 5 million pastors who have had no access to any kind of Biblical training. Without better-trained pastors, churches will be weak in the Scriptures, vulnerable to false teaching and not as effective in ministry.

THE CHALLENGE

With the rapid growth of Christ’s Church, there is a leadership crisis of epic proportions. Five million pastors already needing training and four million additional trained pastors are needed just to meet the current dearth. This is equal to 438,000 trained pastors needed each year just to match the growth of the Church. There are a limited number of students that can be trained by physical schools outside of the US. Add to this the inability to set up public seminaries and bible colleges within restricted access (closed) countries and you have a colossal leadership crisis. Even in many countries where Christianity is legal, access to biblical training is severely limited. Dictatorships sometimes restrict admission or the pastors are unable to move to the city due to family and financial reasons.

THE OPPORTUNITY

This is an opportunity to shift our paradigms and see in this a new method and opportunity for training. Non-residential missionaries, as well as Internet-based training systems, will enable us to reach far more people than would have been possible using traditional means of missions. Various mission agencies are now targeting this new strategic form of ministering to the nations of the world. By partnering with them, our ministry with i-Training is at the front lines of training international leaders.