A few years back, when I was in Myanmar visiting a local Bible College, I remember being in the back of a small oddly shaped “truck” bouncing around the dirt road. It didn’t feel like we were ever moving faster than 30 miles an hour. To be honest, the “truck” probably didn’t even have the capacity to do so.
As we began to drive up a hill and go around a bend, I remember our guide telling us that we were about to pass a Buddhist monastery. This monastery, he told us, had actually prevented the local electric company from extending power to the Bible College.
As I was reflecting on what it would feel like to live in a place where something like that could happen, I felt the air go thin and began to experience a bit of trouble breathing. I then felt this deep sense of heaviness in my heart. It was so vivid that I can still feel it to this day.
Eventually, a few miles later, we arrived at the Bible College to this tall wooden fence. As it opened, not only did I feel the air clear up, but the heaviness in my heart dissipated as I saw, not concrete buildings like the monastery had, but straw roofs and makeshift buildings. This felt like the most peaceful place on earth.
As I reflect on that experience—when I walked the grounds, talked to the pastors, and prayed for them—I couldn’t help but feel like my future was going to be somewhat tied to the encouraging, training, and equipping of pastors.
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few
When I read a particular book on missions, I couldn’t believe these three statistics that were outlined in the opening pages:
- “In the USA there is one trained Christian worker for every 235 people. Once you leave the USA, that drops to one trained Christian worker for every 450,000 people.”
- “An estimated 85 percent of the pastors around the world have no theological education or pastoral training.”
- “Over 90 percent of all our tools for evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training has been produced for highly literate people.”
I know it sounds incredulous, but I believe it. Jesus said it himself, “The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Matt 9:37-38).
The need is great, not just for harvest workers, but for harvest workers that are trained to have “minds for God, hearts for truth, and hands that are skilled for the task.”
What are you going to do about it?