Nearly five billion people live in Asia!
How do you comprehend numbers like that?
Forget trying. Focus on this instead: among those billions are more and more Christians and more and more churches. And those churches need pastors!
Every pastor needs a solid Bible education.
Asian Bible colleges and seminaries are doing all they can. Many residential schools are adding distance education or online extension programs to equip as many people as they can.
Entrust is partnering with a major evangelical accrediting organization in the region. Our international team is working alongside Asian Bible school faculties, assisting in creating or revising relevant 21st century curriculums. The goal is to update materials and add built-in application to meet regional needs.
Josiah is one of those faculty members. This is part of his story.
Josiah loves God’s word, God’s people and helping God’s people grow spiritually.
Born into a believing family in a country where Christians are a minority, he personally trusted Jesus as his Savior when he was in 7th grade. He gained biblical understanding at home and at a Christian college.
He desires to see more and more men and women equipped to lead and minister in his country, from a firm biblical foundation.
Josiah has served with a non-residential Bible college since its inception in 2021. The school offers theological education in the local majority language, in a hybrid online/in-person format.
The school is a member of the evangelical accrediting body with whom Entrust is partnering. It’s through that accrediting organization that our Entrust team met Josiah.
Entrust’s international team works alongside school faculties like Josiah’s, discussing, problem-solving and exploring Scripture together. They consider cultural needs within the Christian community. Employing best practices in pedagogy, the faculties are gradually revising existing and writing new curriculums, seeking to make every course practical and relevant to life in this region in the 21st century.
How does that happen?
Many of the new courses lead the student to consider the context in which he or she serves or hopes to serve. What questions are Christians asking? What life issues do they face? What pressures might hinder them from growing strong in their faith and walk with God?
Next, the courses might guide the student to determine Bible knowledge and truths related to those questions, in the context of the local culture.
Finally, the student might be given practical assignments to put to immediate use.
One Entrust team member explains, “If a course just gives students material to read, first of all, they might not read it. Second, if they do read it, they won’t remember it or use it.” Hence the immediate application.
Josiah’s non-residential school is more affordable and accessible for rural and village pastors than any brick-and-mortar school could be. The students live and learn directly in their ministry environment, taking classes online and occasionally in person, putting their learning to use along the way.
As Josiah and his colleagues develop this new biblically-sound and immediately useable curriculum, we pray the school will become even more effective and that the church leaders it produces will become even better equipped in all aspects of ministry. All leading to more lives truly transformed by the gospel.
Josiah’s school is equipping more people to impact more of those five billion people. That’s a result we can pray for and comprehend!
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