One of East-West’s key strategies is equipping local believers to share and spread the gospel. So what exactly is equipping on the mission field?
John, a member of our Equipping Team, says it can look different depending on the local context.
Our Equipping Team serves a variety of people from new believers to seasoned ministers. Their assistance may be more structured in one setting and less formal in the next, and the process may look more organized or organic depending on the established relationships with believers in a region.
Take a moment to think about the roles and relationships outlined in Paul's message to the Ephesians:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. -Ephesians 4:11-16, emphasis added
Equipping implies that the person being equipped is receiving what they need to be effective ministers of the gospel.
To that end, there is often a component of teaching in which new or refreshed information is presented. Since we expect those we work with to do something with what they learn, we often talk in terms of training.
On other occasions, we work with people who are using—and may have even mastered—the training principles for their ministry needs. This is where the specialized input of coaching or the recommendations of a mentor becomes the most appropriate form of equipping our missionaries have to offer local believers.
Regardless of the type of equipping or how the process began, our aim is the same:
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” –2 Timothy 2:2
We want to entrust faithful believers with the tools and training necessary to multiply the Church in their cultural context, all to the glory of God.