Titus Email - Volume 1, Number 3 – March, 2007

Welcome brothers and sisters in the Lord. I pray and trust that the emails I send are helpful and encouraging. Your feedback is needed. What do we need to do or how do we help you so that you can be more effective in the ministry God has entrusted you with? All of you are very gracious to us but let us know if the spiritual leadership material really does help you. If you are not using this material to disciple leaders, let us know why and what ways we can improve so the material fits your culture and situations better.

Details are beginning to materialize to the trip to Zambia and Zimbabwe in July. I am greatly looking forward to the time with you pastors when we train the trainers. It is very important that you can make this (if you live in Zambia). You will be given insight, tools and skills to help you in your ministry. What will be helpful is to get an idea of where we will hold this (if Chumpa Valley is the best location) and what the costs will be to get each of you to where we hold the training.

The second week Steve and I are in Zambia, we plan to have a team of Americans join us to teach (with you), wherever you feel the best locations are, plus introduce the second level of teaching material to at least one church location (I imagine somewhere we have taught previous).

One great desire of mine (during the third week we are in Africa) is when I teach in Zimbabwe at the Theological College in Harare that one of you pastors, if possible, join me for that week. That way you can also do some of the teaching, plus we are reaching outside the borders of Zambia. The team that is with us will go on a safari and visit Victoria Falls either the first or third week of this trip. They would only stay for two of the three weeks.

HOW DID PAUL DO THE WORK

FACING THE EARLY CHURCH

In the New Testament Paul faced the difficult task of raising up churches in different regions spread over a large area of land (and water). It was one thing to get a group of people in one community to get together and have church. The greater task was to have that group of believers function as a healthy church and have the leadership lead the church well. From what can be gathered, many did not have a “pastor” but supposedly an elder or several elders running the church.

Paul placed Timothy in Ephesus and Titus in Crete to establish the spiritual leaders. Why did Paul choose these two men? If for no other reason, Paul knew them extremely well. He had taken these two guys and poured his life into them prior to sending them to their respected places. Due to his time with them, Paul knew what their strengths were and how they would react to the pressures and circumstances they would face. They were grounded in their faith and knew what they believed. With confidence they were sent.

Ephesians 4:11-13 encourages the spiritual leaders to prepare or equip (meaning help develop people to not be deficient) to do works of service, to do ministry. The reasons given are that the Body will be built up or developed, unity will result and we will mature in the knowledge and understanding of who we are in Christ.

Not all of us have degrees in some sort of Biblical studies. Yet all of us believers have some understanding of the Scriptures, spiritual gifts and experience. Plus except for an extremely small minority, we have some one older than us and younger than us. Take in from the older and give away to the younger to help equip the Body to do ministry.

God is not looking for perfect men and women. He is looking for people after His own heart. The guy that has received that accolade was an adulterer and murderer – David (Acts 13:22). He sinned but when his sins were acknowledged before him, he repented and did what he needed to get back in the right relationship with His Father. We sin. What we do after we sin tells most of the story. God is looking for people who love Him and want to impact their world for Jesus.

If we are going to build our churches, wherever we are in the world, one of the major steps is investing your life in key spiritual leaders. This takes time and energy. Paul devoted himself to influencing and developing Timothy and Titus. In a short time, his influence was significantly felt in Ephesus and Crete because he planted Timothy and Titus there.

Remember the multiplication illustration we do in our teaching. There is no quick fix to making our churches solid spiritually but we can do this the Biblical way. Spiritual leadership is closely tied into missions and spiritual development/formation. To reach the world we need strong spiritual leaders. Give your life away. One of the greatest needs in the worldwide Christian church today is spiritual leadership development. We all need to be involved in eradicating that need.