IMB chairman: Overseas growth demands aggressive training

RICHMOND, Va. (BP) - Help is desperately needed in places where churches are multiplying more rapidly than leaders can be trained, International Mission Board trustees were told during a Sept. 14-15 meeting in Richmond, Va.

God is giving amazing growth through several church-planting movements around the world, but in some places the rapid growth has created urgent needs for training new church leaders, trustee chairman Tom Hatley told the board.

Hatley, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Rogers, Ark., reported on a recent overseas trip, during which he met the leader of a large movement of house churches that had been growing at a phenomenal rate.

"He is instructing his people that, for the next two years, they are not to allow the churches to more than double each year," Hatley said. "The reason for the slowdown is that they were growing so quickly and they could not train leaders fast enough to adequately staff the churches being formed. Without training for leaders, there was a danger that the movement would become weak and open to damaging strains of theological thought.

"The look of concern and frustration in that pastor's eyes was painful to me," Hatley said. "It was a cry for help that demands our immediate attention. It is a logjam that could threaten the future of many of our church-planting movements."

Regional leaders and stateside staff are addressing the need, Hatley said, but he challenged trustees to "find a way to bring leadership to those groups that are experiencing exponential growth.

"What is needed is exponential leadership training," he said. "When we train leaders, we must train them to recruit and train other leaders and continue that pattern as long as is needed."