Why We Need More Pastors, Not Just Missionaries

I memorized a church-planting outline before I ever set foot in Africa. It came from my sending pastor, Larry Clouse, a man who had pastored in Michigan, planted churches in Hawaii, and then started what became a thriving, reproducing church in New Hampshire.

Pastor Larry’s outline was simple: make friends, lead them to Christ, disciple them, start a Bible study, move the Bible study to Sunday morning, train people for the work of ministry, and then go do it again. Seven steps. Lori and I carried that outline to Zambia in 1993, and it has guided our approach to ministry ever since.

What I didn’t fully grasp was that the sixth step, training people for the work of ministry, is really the heart of the matter (Eph. 4:12). A missionary who serves wholeheartedly, brings medical help, establishes educational institutions, and plants churches, but never helps produce pastors, has only postponed the moment when that work must either mature or die.

For years, the modern mission movement has measured success by how many missionaries are sent. It is easier to count missionaries than to count how many pastors are being left behind. More boots-on-the-ground don’t automatically mean healthier churches. 

I have watched short-term teams do evangelistic work for a week and then leave new believers with nothing sustainable. Once their plane takes off, there is no elder, no shepherd, no one equipped to open the Word on the next Sunday, and the one after that.

A BIBLICAL PATTERN FOR TRAINING

Training others for the work of ministry was not a new strategy the Apostle Paul invented for efficiency. It was his modus operandi everywhere he went. Wherever he planted a church, he raised and appointed elders and moved on (Acts 14:23). 

He did not stay to lead the church himself long-term. He trained men to shepherd it. These were men who would minister the glorious truth of the gospel in their own language, within their own culture, and then carry the work forward after he left. Paul was a missionary obsessed with producing pastors (2 Tim. 2:1-2).

These pastors labor for indigenous healthy churches. A healthy church that is self-governing (Titus 1:5), self-supporting (1 Tim. 5:17-18), self-propagating (1 Thes. 1:8), and self-theologizing, applying Scripture faithfully within its own culture rather than importing foreign applications (Acts 15:1-29).

FOLLOWING THE BIBLICAL PATTERN TODAY

João Macedo Domingos is what this looks like in a single life. 

João serves as one of the pastors at Kitwe Church, where I have pastored for the past decade. He holds a diploma in expository preaching and a degree in missions from Central Africa Baptist University. 

This year, Kitwe Church sent João, his wife Laureta, and their daughter to plant a church in Cuito-Bié, Angola, a country of 30 million with very few gospel-preaching churches. It’s a place where prosperity teaching, Roman Catholicism, and traditional religion crowd out the true gospel. 

Their ministry plan runs for seven years: evangelizing, discipling those who profess faith, organizing a home Bible study, growing in numbers and knowledge, appointing deacons and elders from within the congregation, and, as the Lord provides, reaching independence. After that, Redemption Bible Church will plant other churches.

That is not simply a missionary strategy. That is a pastor strategy. It only works because someone was trained first. 

I could also tell you about Mohammed, raised to become a Muslim cleric in Darfur, who was handed a Bible as a challenge, came to faith in Christ, and was eventually sent from Faith Baptist Church in Kitwe, Zambia, to plant a church in Port Sudan. Each of these men required years of patient investment before they were ready to preach and lead faithfully.

That’s the math often overlooked. One missionary, however gifted, reaches only as far as his own hands and decades allow. One trained pastor reaches his own community, disciples the next generation of men, and plants daughter churches in his own language and culture long after the missionary who trained him has gone home or gone to be with the Lord.

So here is a shift of focus for every mission agency, every sending church, and every donor: the question is not how many missionaries you can send. Ask how many pastors you are helping train. The nations don’t primarily need more short-term visitors, and with all our mission strategies, we will never be able to send enough missionaries to do the job of reaching Africa on our own. 

The nations need more shepherds who will never leave.