Yesterday I had the privilege of attending a lunch with 26 pastors from around the world who are in Dallas for three weeks of intensive training. These 26 pastors are relatively young (at least compared to me!) and are in Dallas for a conference sponsored by an organization called RReach. Among other things, RReach is committed to expanding the Church worldwide by equipping and connecting young pastoral leaders.
During the lunch, I had the chance to visit with several of these pastors, and two of the pastors took a few minutes to describe their churches and their ministries to the lunch crowd. It was awesome to hear what God is doing around the world. But, it was also a stark reminder of how light our burden in here is the States.
One of the pastors who spoke at lunch was from Kenya. He was thrilled to tell us that a couple of years ago his congregation completed construction of a new church building that holds about 850 people. This caught my interest, in part because the Heartland sanctuary has about that same capacity. It also sounded like his Sunday attendance numbers are about the same as HC.
But there are significant differences between his church in Kenya and ours in Carrollton. We have theater-type seating and a state-of-the-art sound system in our sanctuary. We also have a separate wing for our children and student ministries, as well as a separate wing for our administrative offices. From what I could tell from the pictures, the church in Kenya was basically one big room with no air conditioning.
The median income in Carrollton, Texas is around $65,000 a year. According to this Kenyan pastor, most people in his congregation make around $1.00 a day. He said it took ten years to complete construction of this church, and it obviously must happened as a result of great sacrifice by his congregation.
Of course, this is only scratching the surface of the challenges that many of the pastors at the conference are facing. Some of them face persecution. Some worse. I wonder how many of our American pastors would choose to pastor in those same conditions?
According to the people at RReach, over 80% of pastors world wide have no formal training. The vision that God has given to RReach is to do something about that.
http://www.rreach.org/
But there are significant differences between his church in Kenya and ours in Carrollton. We have theater-type seating and a state-of-the-art sound system in our sanctuary. We also have a separate wing for our children and student ministries, as well as a separate wing for our administrative offices. From what I could tell from the pictures, the church in Kenya was basically one big room with no air conditioning.
The median income in Carrollton, Texas is around $65,000 a year. According to this Kenyan pastor, most people in his congregation make around $1.00 a day. He said it took ten years to complete construction of this church, and it obviously must happened as a result of great sacrifice by his congregation.
Of course, this is only scratching the surface of the challenges that many of the pastors at the conference are facing. Some of them face persecution. Some worse. I wonder how many of our American pastors would choose to pastor in those same conditions?
According to the people at RReach, over 80% of pastors world wide have no formal training. The vision that God has given to RReach is to do something about that.
I invite you to check out their web site. And, please keep RReach and the pastors they are serving in your prayers.
Blessings.
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