Why I do what I do

I am a missionary. I teach Bible. Specifically, I train rural Pastors in Africa in a one-year Bible School training program. Here are the reasons why.

1. For me, this is my calling.
It is specific. It has boundaries. There are things that I must do as part of this calling, and there are other things that I cannot do that might be considered normal missionary activity by many people. This is my specific, personal calling. Accompanying that calling is an anointing to carry it out.

2. I do pastoral training because it is strategic.
If we can lift the Pastor, he can lift the church, and the church can transform the community.

3. I do leadership training with an emphasis in church planting because that is what I see as the missions model in the Book of Acts.
Paul did not go from place to place starting orphanages and raising money from the Jerusalem church to pay for it. He trained leaders, he planted churches, and he expected the local church to take care of it's own local community.

4. I do this because I believe in long-term people development.
One of the reasons BSIB is so effective is because we live here. We do not fly into the country every quarter or semi-annually. We do not phone in Bible School. All our students have my cell phone number, they call me, they text me, I am here to work out what I tell them in the classroom. We do not do 'fast food' discipleship.

5. I believe that developing leadership is the best way to reach the lost.
Of the three selfs, self-propagating should come first. Local people should be reaching local people whenever possible. Local leadership should be trained to train their people how to reach the lost.

6. I do this because almost all the problems in the church can be traced back to underdeveloped, untrained, uneducated leadership.
The Church is growing faster than leaders can be trained. As a result, false doctrines, wrong theology, and traditional religious practices are mixed into what local people call a church. Most of the time, it is hardly recognizable as a church, and would easily qualify as a cult. Sometimes a Pastor will lead the church into error by an innocent mistake, simply because of a lack of training.