January 14, 15, and 16, David & Lynn Ripley met with the pastors and their spouses of Taiwan Conference. We met in three locations, Taipei, Taichung, and Pingtung. Each day was spent in seminars on discipleship and growing churches. In the morning we met together, and in the afternoon we divided the pastors and spouses for training.
The pastors discussed Mission and Vision, Leadership, and growing churches. The spouses discussed mentoring and structuring for support and encouragement.
The Ministerial Department also introduced the LEAD Program for growing local churches. LEAD stands for ‘Leading Eager Active Disciples.’ Too often experts come and share a good program with pastors then they leave and hope the information they shared will benefit the churches. LEAD will approach training differently. In three modules we will train pastors and lay leaders for growing their churches. Then we will keep pastors together as a cohort of 10-12 pastors to care for each other and grow together.
There will be regular continued instruction and support from the Ministerial Department of the NSD. LEAD will provide instruction on a wide spectrum of topics related to growing healthy reproducing churches.We believe this will bring vital revival and reformation to the local churches.We will support them; walking along side them in their ministry.
The church in Taiwan has an army of wonderful pastors eager to share Jesus with their community. Their spouses are enthusiastic partners in ministry. One pastoral spouse shared, “This is the first time we have had a ministerial couple come to talk to us and our husbands. We are very thankful for the encouragement we received.”