Training National Leaders Without Losing the Church
How should missionaries train national leaders to build a healthy local church rather than stunting it?
Hale describes the training of national leaders as one of the most delicate tasks in missionary work. Ideally, missionaries should encourage nationals to assume responsibility as early as feasible. Yet this creates tension: workers will never be “fully ready” to lead until they are actually entrusted with responsibility, but premature promotion can harm both them and the church. As Hale notes, “people don’t become fully ‘ready’ to take responsibility until you’ve actually given it to them” (Hale, On Being a Missionary, 208).
To navigate this tension, missionaries must set clear, attainable expectations. Trainees need to know what faithfulness looks like in doctrine, character, and practical service. When they fall short, missionaries should explain patiently why the work matters, where performance failed, and how it can improve. Correction should be firm, consistent, and fair, yet delivered in a way that allows the person to save face. Public humiliation may produce outward conformity, but it often breeds bitterness and resistance rather than mature leadership.
Public humiliation may produce outward conformity, but it often breeds bitterness and resistance rather than mature leadership.
Hale extends this logic to church membership. The only biblical criterion for admission is faith in Christ. New believers may bring many remnants of their old life into the church; missionaries must trust the Holy Spirit to sanctify them over time as they receive patient teaching. Baptism marks their entry into the local body. Leaders, therefore, should guard the gate theologically, not culturally, resisting the urge to exclude people simply because they do not yet look like Western Christians.
Missionaries themselves must embrace their identity as members of the national church, not as outsiders hovering above it. “We are together in the great work of the worldwide church, brothers and sisters, equal partners. We are one in Christ” (Hale, On Being a Missionary, 218). National leaders are more permanent than expatriate workers and most able to speak heart-language into their own culture. Criticism that tears them down or treats the church as “theirs” and not Christ’s both discourages and distorts.
Missionaries best serve the church by treating national believers as equal partners, entrusting them with real responsibility, correcting them with dignity, and trusting the Holy Spirit to grow both leaders and members into mature disciples.
Disclaimer: Information in my “slip-box” doesn’t necessarily reflect my agreement with the source or all its content. Recording diverse perspectives helps strengthen one’s position beyond the echo chamber of like-minded thinkers. By documenting alternative viewpoints, we engage in the intellectual wrestling match that ultimately deepens our understanding.
I aspire to post one note from my “slip-box” every weekday. If you want to learn more about how to work with knowledge, click this link: What is knowledge management?
Pastor Dan Patrick, raised in Northern Virginia near Washington, D.C., holds both a Bible degree and a Master’s of Divinity. He has ministered across five states from coast to coast, serving in various capacities, including pastoral leadership. Dan’s primary mission is to help people love God’s Word and find their purpose in God’s work.
Reviving Leadership Training in American Churches — Applies the same urgency to cultivating local leaders so churches can sustain gospel work.
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