Philippines (MNN) — 1,100 pastors and lay leaders attended Global Advance’s latest Frontline Shepherd’s conference in Davao, Philippines. This is an area of the world that has a growing Islamic presence. Isolated tribal groups make spreading the Gospel a challenge. It’s also an area where pastoral training is greatly needed.
Dale Witt was with this group of Christian leaders. He says training is important to help them reach their country for Christ. “They already speak the language. They already know the culture. And so, we go in. Many of them need encouragement; they certainly need training. It’s been estimated that 92-percent of all the pastors in the developing world have no formal Bible education.”
There’s another important reason the training is needed. “Approximately 10-percent of the Philippine population works abroad in some other nation in some other capacity. So, that really puts them in a unique situation to really spread the Gospel in places they wouldn’t normally go.”
Witt says the great part about this Frontline Shepherd’s conference was the public commitment to cross-cultural evangelism. “We had approximately 50 committing to be cross-cultural missionaries to be sent out to reached people in that area. And, I think that’s phenomenal.”
Global Advance will be hold many more Frontline Shepherd’s conferences this year. The sad thing is, they’re having to say no to many requests. Witt says, “We’re able to do about 50 of these conferences every single year, but we get about 150 requests. Even though we train 30,000 leaders a year, we’re potentially saying no to 60,000.”
