Pastoral Trainers Gather in Manila for International Conference
An international pastor training conference focused on equipping pastoral trainers with effective teaching skills is being held Sept. 12-16 in Manila, Philippines.
An international pastor training conference focused on equipping pastoral trainers with effective teaching skills is being held this week in Manila, Philippines.
Trainers of Pastors International Coalition (TOPIC), founded and chaired by Dr. Ramesh Richard of Ramesh Richard Evangelism and Church Health (RREACH), has organized the five-day international conference in Manila, Sept. 12-16, for over 116 pastoral trainers to gather and exchange effective methods and skills needed to train the growing body of pastors without formal ministry education.
The conference titled, “Closing the Gap,” will include speakers, skill-building workshops, and the exchange of training models.
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“This is a mid-decade evaluation to see how pastoral trainers can train more pastors more quickly so more churches can be more healthy,” explains Dr. Richard, who is also a respected theologian at Dallas Theological Seminary. “It will give regional initiatives from around the world the opportunity to share about advancements made, disappointments they may have experienced along the way, and strategic implications for the future.”
According to TOPIC, approximately 4,000 new churches are formed each week, which is estimated to increase to 10,000 by 2010. Therefore, “a globally coordinated effort is necessary to ensure that ill-equipped pastors receive basic training for the ministry,” the ministry added.
One issue that TOPIC and the pastoral training organizations hope to correct is the problem of content. Dr. Richard provided an example of content problems faced by untrained pastors such as in Zaire, “where pastors are getting up and saying the people need to climb trees in order to meet Jesus because Zacchaeus climbed a tree to meet Jesus.”
“In Nepal … 70-80 percent of the pastors are not only ill-equipped, but semi-literate,” Richard added.
“They can’t read,” he said.
“I believe they have been called by God but they are not trained.”
TOPIC is holding the “Closing the Gap” conference in Manila and working with the global body of pastoral training groups in hopes of rectifying problems such content, among other problems faced by untrained pastors.
As Dr. Richard explained, TOPIC does not offer pastoral training but acts as an umbrella organization for the 300 pastoral training groups by coordinating strategies and “serving as a steering group so pastoral training organizations won’t be running all over each other and duplicate efforts…wasting costs, efficiency, and resources.”
TOPIC provides a means for pastoral training organizations to communicate with each other what has been done and what still needs to be done before developing a training program.
The vision of TOPIC members is to have over two million pastoral leaders with basic training by 2010.
