Abstract

This white paper highlights one of the most urgent and often overlooked challenges in global missions today: the lack of trained pastoral leadership in the fastest-growing regions of the Church. While the global evangelical movement is experiencing explosive growth, particularly in the Global South, it is not matched by the development of trained pastors and spiritual leaders. Drawing from field experience and global research, the paper explores the root causes of this leadership deficit, examines practical and scalable training models, and issues a strategic call to mission leaders, donors, and institutions to invest intentionally in building the spiritual infrastructure necessary to sustain the harvest.

I. Introduction

As a career missionary, seminary professor, and a senior leader within global mission organizations, I have witnessed firsthand the astounding ways God is moving today across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Every day, an estimated50,000 new believers ¹ are baptized into the body of Christ. Entire communities are being transformed, and the Gospel is advancing in ways few could have imagined a generation ago.

Yet behind this wave of revival lies a growing concern—a concern shared by countless pastors, mission leaders, and believers I have met: Who will shepherd these new believers?

Too often, churches spring up without trained leadership. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We have neglected for too long to address the shortage of trained pastors with requisite urgency. Today's victories are becoming tomorrow's vulnerabilities. We must refocus on the importance of properly discipled and equipped shepherds for local churches and movements globally.

As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing thanto give them faithful, sincere and upright ministers, so the greatest cursethat God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over toblind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm and unskilled guides.    George Whitefield²

This paper offers the perspective of a missionary practitioner and educator—now serving on the President's Team of the International Leadership Consortium(ILC)—on one of the most urgent and often overlooked needs in global missions today: the discipleship and training of pastors globally.

This paper offers the perspective of a missionary practitioner and educator—now serving on the President's Team of the International Leadership Consortium(ILC)—on one of the most urgent and often overlooked needs in global missions today: the discipleship and training of pastors globally.

II. The Growth of the Global Church

The expansion of Christianity, particularly among Protestant and Evangelical communities in this century, is unprecedented.

According to mission reports, approximately 50,000 baptisms occur daily worldwide.³Consider: if each group of 50 new believers were formed into congregations, we would need at least 1,000 new pastors every single day to shepherd them. The vast majority of these new followers of Jesus are in the Global South (see Figure 1). More than 80% of the world’s population of 8.3 billion people live in the Global South (see Figure 2). There are 3.49 billion people who are yet unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.⁴ An Unreached People Group (UPG) has less than 2% evangelical Christians in the population.

We refer to the people groups to which these 3.49 billion belong as Unreached People Groups. These people groups are still unreached because they are culturally, linguistically, spiritually, economically, and politically very distant. These people groups remain unreached because of their significant distance from the global centers of mission mobilization.

Yet itis with these people groups that we see the Holy Spirit doing a stunning workin the world today. It truly is as prophesied:

“[The Lord replied,] ‘Look among the nations! See! Be astonished! Wonder! For I amdoing something in your days—You would not believe it if you were told.’”
— Habakkuk 1:5, Amplified Bible⁵

As wonderful as this explosive growth in global missions is—especially in the areas previously neglected most—there is an aspect of missions, namely church planting, that is seriously lagging. When I have traveled and ministered internationally, the story I hear again and again is that while churches are multiplying, the development of trained pastors is not keeping pace.

Without shepherds, these growing flocks face spiritual dangers:

• Persistent immaturity as Christians

• Confusion in doctrine

• Vulnerability to false teaching

• Personal isolation without mentorship or discipleship

Our celebration of this growth the Lord has blessed us with in global missions must be matched by an urgent commitment to persevere in the fulfillment of the Great Commission, and for a new emphasis on leadership development.

III. The Pastoral Deficit: A Global Leadership Gap

Research estimates there are between 2.2 and 3.2 million pastors globally serving Protestant and Evangelical congregations.⁶ Alarmingly, studies show that 68% to 92% of these pastors have received no formal theological training, even in North America.⁷ Additionally, only 5% of pastors are trained for pastoral ministry outside of North America and Europe.⁸

From my conversations with church leaders around the world, the realities are heart breaking:

• In Cuba, Baptist association directors overseeing over 1,000 churches shared that more than half of their churches have no pastors.⁹

• In Ecuador and elsewhere across Latin America, leaders confirmed that churches often wait years for a trained pastor or rely indefinitely on untrained volunteers.¹⁰

Adding urgency to the crisis, many active pastors are aging. Reports from Latin America reveal that a majority of current pastors are 55 years or older in manycountries.¹¹ Without a strong pipeline of younger, trained pastors being prepared now, an even more massive leadership void is just a decade away.

There are 17,351 ethnic groups in the world, with 7,151 distinct languages. Roughly half of these ethnic groups have been reached with the gospel, with most of that tremendous accomplishment occurring in the past 30 years.¹²The numbers give us hope that the remaining unreached people groups can be reached in the next 30 years.

But we must give careful thought to building up the spiritual infrastructure of the body of Christ behind this great mission work.

Brethren, we must begin to grow in our own missionary development to be as Saint Paul. Paul was the great evangelist, fearlessly going where the gospel had not been heard before. And he grew to become “the wise master builder,” whose guiding hand and spiritual maturity shaped one grand edifice for the habitation of God by the Spirit. His was decidedly no “drive-by” evangelism. Neither should ours be.

IV. Challenges Facing Pastoral Training Today

For this paper, "Latin America" refers to Central America, South America, and the Caribbean.

In many of these regions, systemic barriers hinder the development of evangelical pastors:

• Religious-Political Obstacles: In countries historically dominated by Roman Catholicism, government authorization for Protestant theological schools is hard to obtain. Accreditation processes are often restrictive or hostile.

• Similar Barriers Exist in Muslim-Majority Nations: In parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, Christian education faces legal restrictions and security risks.

• Poverty: Even where training is available, economic hardship makes traditional seminary education unreachable for many.

• Literacy: In many areas, there exists a high rate of illiteracy.

I have seen these realities firsthand through my work in mission leadership and theological education. But I have also witnessed inspiring innovation.

Organizations like the International Leadership Consortium (ILC) and the School of Applied Leadership for Transformation (SALT)—through partnerships with Kairos University—offer ATS-accredited¹³ theological education to underserved pastors and leaders globally. Their shared mission is clear: to accelerate the development of field-ready pastors, leaders, and missionaries for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

In many areas, there is no need for degrees in Christian theology. At ILC, we do not attempt to address local ministry needs with a one-size-fits-all solution. Every pastor and future pastor deserves discipleship and training that is customized to their ministry context and needs.

Many of these same groups work as mission organizations, bringing the cost of training and education down, making effective training affordable in the most  impoverished areas. Many of these groups, and others, can be engaged to lead aliteracy program within a church, village, or larger area. There have been great advances this century in Oral Missions Programs. Pastors and missionaries are being trained to share the gospel orally in the poorest and least literate areas of the world with great effect. More work and engagement must be made to bring these orality initiatives to the pastors, teachers, and leaders who need them.

Finally, there are shortcomings in the training and education of pastors and leaders in the West. There has been far too much emphasis on a purely academic methodology. A far more faithful, biblical discipleship model must bring in the Biblical prerogative of Christlike transformation. The Bible’s stated goal is that we all be transformed into the image of Christ—a goal even more essential for the servants of Christ.^{14 This} must become a core principle of any faithful training of pastors and leaders for churches globally.

V. Encouraging Developments and Strategic Opportunities

It seems that once Christianity has become the incumbent religion that it soon forgets the counter-cultural nature of our faith. The prophets were always at odds with the incumbent priesthood. We could speak of John the Baptist and Jesus himself, operating outside of the status quo of religion and politics. The apostles famously responded to legal demands to “cease and desist” laboring outside of the incumbent religious and political framework.

Then Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men[we have no other choice].” Acts 5:29¹⁵

There is much we can learn from the limited subset of missionaries and organizations who focus on areas of the world that are closed, and/or hostile to the gospel. My work has been greatly influenced by them and made far more fruitful by learning how to operate in these areas. It is still our primary course of action to heed the sage advice given by Hudson Taylor to a missionary who was driven to labor in a city known for its persecution of gospel workers

“Brother, if you enter that province, you must go forward on your knees.”¹⁶

We must learn to operate and sustain ongoing training and education in locations that are not friendly to Christian ministry. For example, East West Ministries sustained an underground seminary in Russia for decades. They partnered with Open Doors, which had much experience working in closed countries, to provide needed resources for the school. Ephesians chapter four is decisive for us and our work. There is only one body (Christ’s), one Spirit, one God, and so on. There is therefore only one ministry, one mission, to build up one Body. With these truths as a framework for us, we find that there needs to be much more collaboration among missionaries and organizations to accomplish the remaining task. Thankfully, there are coalitions of missionary organizations, such as 2414Now, Mission Nexus, and others, to bring together all missional resources for the completion of our shared Great Commission.  

Even amid the challenges, God is raising up solutions. Across the globe, movements and organizations are reimagining pastoral training:¹⁷

• 24:14 Movement — fueling Church Planting Movements among the unreached.

• E3 Partners and East-West Ministries — equipping leaders on the frontlines.

• GPro Community — connecting thousands of pastoral trainers worldwide.

• International Leadership Consortium (ILC) and SALT — delivering affordable, accredited, accessible theological education across cultural and political barriers.

These initiatives share essential characteristics:

• Scalable — Able to equip many leaders rapidly. (We have ample evidence that Western church models do not scale well.)

• Accessible — Designed to overcome economic and political obstacles.

• Biblically Centered — Anchored in Scripture, aligned with the Great Commission.

• Experienced in Clandestine Ministry – I recall Brother Andrew (founder of Open Doors) saying to us, “There really are no closed countries, only ones you may not come back from.”¹⁸

And yet, we have more than enough proof that what has been done- and is being done- is not sufficient for the need, locally or globally.

VI. A Renewed Call to Action

Ramesh Richard made a call to action with his paper from 2015 for the Lausanne Movement. That paper, “Training of Pastors: A high priority for global ministry strategy,” laid out the enormous lack of pastors globally at that time. The shortage of pastors globally has grown significantly over the last ten years. This paper seeks to update the call to action originally cast by Dr. Richard for 2025.

The urgency is not new. Jesus Himself looked at the multitudes and felt the burden:

“When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion and pity for them, because theywere dispirited and distressed, like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said toHis disciples, ‘The harvest is [indeed] plentiful, but the workers are few.’”
— Matthew 9:36–37, Amplified Bible¹⁹

The same crisis exists today. Consider that less than 3% of all missionaries go to the Unreached People Groups of the world. Less than 0.5% of all American mission funds go to work among the unreached.²⁰  These are alarming facts of the status quo of Protestant Christians’ and churches' response to the largest, most crucial aspects of global missions.

As alarming as these numbers are—and they are very alarming—the focus on raising up pastors, teachers, and leaders is even more neglected, especially in the places where they are needed most. A large part of the tremendous success of global missions this century has been from strategies that include movements and multiplication. Evangelistic, disciple making and church planting movements have fed the rapid expansion of the gospel. There are also new strategies of multiplication, rather than one on one strategies, that have fed this exponential growth. We need to adapt these strategies to meet the soaring need for pastors behind these movements. It would seem that Disciple Making Movements (DMM) would be readily conducive to adaptation to the rapid and agile equipping of pastors for the sustainability of these movements. We know from the huge revival movement in Costa Rica that more than half the population of the country has been reached. We also know that 55% of new believers are no longer in church after 3 years. The  Center for the Study of Global Christianity research shows this precipitous drop in church attendance is due to corruption and bad doctrine, due to untrained pastors andleaders.²¹ The lack of discipled and equipped pastors is hurting churches behind these great movements.

We must act:

• Churches must identify and support emerging leaders.

• Mission organizations must prioritize leadership development alongside evangelism.

• We must also leverage the successes of movement and multiplication mission strategies to fuel a similar exponential growth in leadership development.

• Donors must invest in training as a strategic priority.

• Seminaries must forge partnerships to reach the underserved.

• Believers must pray and mobilize fervently.

Wmust be moved by what moved Christ: the dire lack of shepherds for His flock.  If we move with urgency, a generation of biblically grounded, field-ready pastors can be raised up to sustain the global harvest.

We should note the pattern of the Apostle Paul. As the tireless and fearless evangelist, he covered the known world. As the wise master builder, he and his teams would circle back and strengthen new church plants. He also appointed proven leaders over many of them to guide them through the crucia lformative years. He taught the teachers he trained “to train others also.”

One of the risks of not doing this is evident in the statistics we see now: seven out of ten church plants fail within the first year.²²   If we delay, the church risks spiritual drift, stagnation, and fragmentation.

We thank God for the super-abounding grace toward us—that the gospel is spreading at a rate not seen before in history. We can look at OperationWorld.org, EastWest.org, JoshuaProject.net, and others and track the amazing progress of reaching the world for Christ.

And don’t misread this paper: there is a giant-sized task ahead of the Church in reaching the remaining people for Christ. But it must come as no surprise to gospel workers of every kind that building up the Body of Christ behind that gospel tidal wave is a monumental task also. Both tasks are truly mountains to scale.

We must become like the 85-year-old Caleb, who demanded of Joshua, “Give me this mountain.” — Joshua 14, Amplified Bible²³

God will give us all we need to accomplish His purposes. When is the best time to begin accelerating the development of equipped church leaders?

The best time was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

The need is urgent.
The opportunity is immense.
The time is now.

VII. Footnotes and References

1. Baptism figures based on evangelical mission estimates from the International Mission Board (IMB, 2024) and Missio Nexus (2024) reports.

2. Whitefield, George. The Method of Grace, sermon transcript.

3. Same as footnote 1.

4. Joshua Project. “Unreached People Groups.” www.joshuaproject.net

5. Habakkuk 1:5, Amplified Bible.

6. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Status of Global Christianity: 2024 Report.

7. Lausanne Movement and World Evangelical Alliance studies (2023–2024) on pastoral training gaps.

8. Johnson, Todd. Director, Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Personal communication, 2024.

9. Author’s field interviews with Baptist Association Directors in Cuba and mission leaders in Ecuador, 2024.

10. Ibid.

11. Author’s field interviews on pastoral aging trends in Latin America, 2023.

12. Winter, Ralph D. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2009.

13. Association of Theological Schools (ATS). Accreditation details via ILC and SALT partnership with Kairos University, 2024.

14. 2 Corinthians 3:18; Romans 8:29; Ephesians 4:13–16, Amplified Bible.

15. Acts 5:29, Amplified Bible.

16. Hudson Taylor, quoted in personal correspondence to missionary Bill Fietje.

17. Organizational descriptions from 24:14 Movement, GPro Community, E3 Partners, East-West Ministries, ILC, and SALT (2024).

18. Brother Andrew (Andrew aan der Bijl), The Calling.

19. Matthew 9:36–37, Amplified Bible.

20. Joannes, David. “Shocking Stats on Missions Giving.” www.davidjoannes.com/shocking-stats-on-missions-giving

21. Winter, Ralph D. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2009.

22. Lausanne Movement. “Training of Pastors.” www.lausanne.org/global-analysis/training-of-pastors, quoting The Global Alliance of Church Multiplication.

23. Joshua 14, Amplified Bible.