‘Unstoppable’ at this year’s Bible By The Beach

What is every Christian’s prayer?

Surely it is for the message of Christ to spread to every corner of the world and transform lives.

Recent statistics show that the 2.2 billion Christians worldwide make up 32% of the world’s population. With the church’s rapid growth, there is urgent need for leaders to teach and pastor new Christians. Dr Richard Pratt, American theologian and president of Third Millenium Ministries shared with us his experience of travelling the world evangelising and lecturing, and the charity he founded in response.

From his international church ministry, Dr Pratt realized the need for supporting church leaders in their ministry and equipping them with the biblical training they may not have had. Where the church is growing the fastest, Christian leaders have the least amount of training, as they are responding to an immediate need to pastor new Christians in the community. ‘There can be little doubt that God’s kingdom is spreading throughout the world, but the greatest numerical and spiritual growth of the church in recent decades has certainly been primarily in Asia, parts of Latin America and in Africa.’

Untrained pastors

It is estimated around 2 million pastors do not have a biblical or theological education. With this in mind, in 1997 he co-founded Third Millenium Ministries, with a mission to provide a multimedia Biblical teaching programme for church leaders in multiple languages and distribute it worldwide at no cost to those who use it. Dr Pratt summarises the goal of his charity in three phrases: Biblical Education, For the World, For Free. The main reason for functioning on a multimedia basis is to allow pastors worldwide to be trained from their hometowns. Historically, the church has sought to fulfil the need of training church leaders by bringing church leaders to the West for training. However, only 10% of these leaders return home after their training. Third Millenium Ministries seeks to solve this problem by allowing church leaders to remain in their countries and be trained through a media channel that suits their situation. The teaching programme can be accessed through print, audio, the internet, DVD, radio and television, and is delivered in five main languages: English, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and Russian.

The Spirit and sacrifice

Dr Pratt’s background is lecturing in theological seminaries and from this work he identifies two essential components for strong leadership in the church: sound understanding of the Scriptures, and Christian theology. He goes on to say: ‘understanding apart from a vibrant relationship with the Holy Spirit and engagement in sacrificial service cannot produce the kinds of leaders we need.’ If seminaries and theological colleges are going to fully equip future leaders of the church for their ministry, Dr Pratt is convinced that there is a ‘need to focus on the skills needed for effective ministry and the personal spiritual lives of their students much more than they have in the past’. He identifies that this need is just as valuable in Western culture, in which, he observes, ‘the Christian church is weakening’ His prayer for the church in the West is for us to ‘seek God’s help in renewing our first love for Christ.’

Unstoppable

Dr Pratt will be the lead speaker at the Evangelical Christian conference ‘Bible by the Beach’ this May Bank Holiday, from 1st-4th May. He is the perfect choice for this conference, the theme of which is ‘Unstoppable – The Mission of God’. Dr Pratt said: ‘In our time together, we will focus our attention on how the Scriptures call us to engage the world around us in the strength of Christ.’ It is clear what is at the heart of his ministry and the vision of Third Millenium Ministries when he shares his teaching focus for the conference: ‘We will see that our devotion to reaching the lost for Christ and growing in our service to him is essential to being a follower of Jesus.’

Emily Lucas