Latest Projects

Our new College Building Fund provides another option for our supporters to receive tax deductions when they strategically invest in Bible colleges in the Majority World. We tend to have just one or two projects running at any time for this fund.

Our current project is to assist with building the first floor of the offices for Asia Theological Association in India. ATA-I is a key partner in India and, up till now, they have just been using rental facilities. This initial floor will allow them to avoid rental costs, and then subsequent floors will provide a training facility and accommodation for 25 people, which will create an income stream for them. They have half the funds in place for level one, and this funding will allow them to begin building.

Throughout the Majority World there are a myriad of Christian mission and non-government agencies working in aid and development. Local Leaders has been supporting the delivery of a Masters course (MTD) to promote Biblically based ‘best practice’ for leaders already working in the field.

The MA is a field based program that reflects on the complexities of urban poverty. Students are all experienced and in mid to high level leadership in their organisations. They study six modules over three years, thus remaining in their work and implementing the things they learn.

Three centres are now operating in Malaysia, Egypt and Uganda. Funds are used to provide scholarships for students in one or other of the centres.

To learn more about this project, see our Masters in Transformational Development video. Click here to see video.

Local Leaders International is embarking in a region of ministry which for security will not be outlined.
Details can be discussed with your Local Leaders State Director. See staff here.

Along with our partner organisations and the key colleges in the region, we are forming a new strategy which will focus on the Buddhist nations of Southeast Asia. It is one region which has been poor historically, in terms of church planting and the take up of faith in Jesus. We are working with several key Bible colleges, including Myanmar Evangelical Graduate School of Theology (MEGST), to explore how to improve the teaching of local Christian leaders for this task. The colleges have suggested a range of small projects which need seed funding to begin, such as small training events for church leaders, awareness raising amongst churches and identifying the key issues in each country which have helped or hindered mission.

One element we want to develop with our Saffron Bridges strategy is upskilling particular faculty members in the countries of Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Mongolia (this last one is not in the geography but is in the same Buddhist milieu). By Christian leaders focusing on Buddhist culture, they will be able to teach the gospel to Christians and the majority groups in ways which are relevant and inspiring for church planting and growth.

We have a number of students in Southeast Asia who need support. They are poorly resourced and need assistance. Our support covers their tuition and, in some cases,
their accommodation costs as well.

Photo of one of the students seeking sponsorship in Myanmar.

While our LOGS online education strategy has achieved great goals, we are conscious that this region still has many needs for training of faculty and for equipment at many colleges. We would like to be able to offer further courses for faculty to improve their mastery of teaching online and for the colleges to have the equipment they need.

Local Leader’s headline strategy for the past four years has been Local Online: A Global Strategy. With hundreds of Bible colleges equipped, 3,000 faculty trained in online education, and around 17,000 extra students now studying God’s word to engage as Christian leaders, it has made a real impact globally. But what comes next? While as a percentage of our budget online education will reduce, the reality is that we now have networks of national and continental ‘champions’ who we will continue to resource to train others in online education.

A key next need is to help the AI phenomenon become a force for good in training those leaders. The upskilling needed for faculty and students is enormous, so that the undermining of education with mere information does not take place, and so that the benefits of AI help with leadership development.

We are seeking $150,000 each year to build on the global base we now have, so we can keep strengthening the online learning space for the good of the kingdom.

The situation in contemporary India is now more complex, particularly due to the changes in local laws regarding receiving overseas support. Hence, we have had to stop supporting many of the Bible colleges with which we previously partnered.

The recent appointment of Dr Prabhu Singh as our South Asia Director has opened up new opportunities to work with mega groupings of Bible colleges and mission training agencies.

We are seeking to build a number of sub-strategies within our overarching vision ‘to make theological colleges more missional and mission training more theological’. The first part is to work with the 9 leading evangelical Bible colleges of the country to strengthen them to support the next 50 affiliate colleges. This ‘hub and affiliate’ model has worked well in other continents, so we are adapting it to the needs of India.

It seems obvious that good teachers are needed to make the biggest difference in the lives of their students. When you look at the typical career paths of most faculty members, they began as successful church leaders, then added on capability to do their studies, and even publish their research. Unless they were school teachers beforehand, very few have any upskilling in the area of teaching.

For several years Local Leaders has contributed to this need with multiple international staff members engaged in training faculty members across over 50 Bible colleges. We want to do more because that is what will have the quickest impact on adapting the curriculum for the context, and truly preparing church leaders for their current and future ministries.

Local Leaders offers a wide range of faculty study grants. These are requested by the college principal and are part of a longer faculty development plan. We don’t support full-time study in the West, but have a range of local options or online and modular programs that we support at various Bible colleges and universities.

Union Bible Theological College is planning to expand their reach into the rural areas of Mongolia by offering training courses online. This will be of great benefit to ministers in non-urban communities who cannot afford the time or money to travel into Ulaanbaatar city, but want good theological training. Local Leaders will be supporting this expansion through our Local Online: A Global Strategy project.

Theological commentaries in Arabic are scarce and there are very few scholars able to write new commentaries. Until more scholars are raised up, a coalition of colleges in the Middle East (including Arab Baptist Theological Seminary) are working together to translate key commentaries. The commentary for John’s Gospel is by the late Australian scholar, Leon Morris. It is a classic of evangelical interpretation and pastoral wisdom. The translation has begun and funds are needed for the next stage of proofing and publication. It will be published online and have open access for anyone to read.

With support from Local Leaders International, St Paul’s University began this centre in Kenya several years ago. The goal is to train faculty members in the three key concepts of defending the Christian faith against Muslim outreach, reaching out to Muslims with the gospel, and helping to build peace in conflictual communities. We provided scholarships for eight faculty members from around Africa and now we would love to offer support for more people to study. We choose faculty members from Bible colleges where there is a majority of Muslims in their area and equip them to return to teach at their colleges to build up the Christian cause.

The French-speaking church of Africa is typified by two things. It is one of the most under-resourced in the world, even though in many places it is very open to Christian ministry. Secondly, in many countries of West and Central Africa it is on the pointy end of conflict with radical Muslims. Our strategy is lead by Dr Pauline Golder who works with many Bible colleges to improve the quality of teaching by the faculty. Many of the colleges are stuck in an education time warp where mere lecturing is the norm, and they have very little encouragement to improve the educational outcomes for students. These funds will be used to train faculty in many dozens of Bible colleges as Pauline has raised up a small group of champions to lift standards of teaching.

To counter the growing corrosive tragedy of the prosperity gospel, we are working with leaders in Africa to establish an alternative. Through ‘The Generosity Project’, the biblical themes of stewardship, generosity and sacrifice come together to encourage African Christians to live out a genuinely biblical faith. The project began with African scholars gathering together to think through generosity in the context of their continent. This thought-work not only produced a book, but also a series of courses for theological college students, pastors in the field, and their churches. The pilot study has now been completed, with 105 pastors already trained. The follow up research has commenced, aiming to discern what effect the course has on the pastors themselves and their preaching. The research will also discover the difference this teaching makes in their churches and the local neighbourhoods. As part of the project, a new charity has been established called the ‘Generosity in Africa Foundation’. Local Leaders will gradually transfer the IP to them, and we will support their ongoing success as they move from East Africa to the rest of the continent.

We have several one-week training conferences in Urban Mission planned in different countries by the end of this year. Each one will have about 30 faculty members from 10-15 Bible colleges attending. Costs are for their accommodation and Dr Nancy Njagi’s involvement (Local Leaders’ Africa Director). In the past, these have been very successful for introducing whole new courses into different colleges.

As part of our Africa Mile Deep Strategy, we regularly facilitate courses on Resource Mobilisation. Run by our Africa Director, Dr Nancy Njagi, the courses inspire Bible college leaders to take a fresh look at the resources under their control that could be unlocked and developed for greater financial stability. After taking part in these courses, our partner colleges have generated new income by establishing a variety of farming initiatives, renting out their facilities, or providing services to their communities. Local Leaders provides funding for the Resource Mobilisation courses and offers small loans to colleges who are establishing new revenue streams.

The Pasifika Strategy is a 25 year plan to redefine theological training and church leadership in the Pacific. Now fifteen years into the strategy, Local Leaders has supported the training of more than 60 evangelical church leaders and faculty members from Bible colleges across the Pacific at Masters level. With your help we can realise the 25-year goal to transform the church of the Pacific.

Overseeing the expansion of the project, Dr George Mombi has identified ten smaller colleges needing further engagement from Local Leaders and Christian Leader Training College. Through his work, six have already been able to lift to teach at diploma level. This initiative provides to the church of PNG a higher level of graduate than in the past as they now work at CLTC standard. George is encouraging four more to lift their standards to offer the diploma in coming years.

To learn more about this project, see our Pasifika Strategy Video. Click here to see video.

A key part of the Pasifika Strategy is to use the strength of the ‘hub’ college, Christian Leaders Training College, to assist smaller Bible schools to improve their work. Our Director, Dr George Mombi, is working to lift four such schools up to be able to teach at diploma level this year. It will be a challenge for them, and they will need training and new resources to assist. This year the project will assist colleges in PNG, the Solomons and Vanuatu.

The MTh program at Christian Leaders Training College has consistently included faculty members (with family members) from countries outside PNG and we want to continue to provide for these families to come for the two-year program. The MTh level of study allows participants to examine their culture and context in the light of good biblical and theological understanding. This equips them to return to their colleges and immediately bring those insights to their students.