The Evangel Dean Basic Training Resource Handbook

A PPENDIX • 157

The local congregation is the place God has ordained for believers to be equipped to do the work of the ministry, in order that the body of Christ might grow spiritually and numerically (Eph. 4.12-16). Your Institute’s most important calling is to equip leadership for the urban church. Regardless of those urban leaders you train – whether they are pastors, Christian workers, missionaries, youth ministers, Sunday school teachers, or whomever else – you are enhancing God’s Kingdom advance in your locale. Your Institute should strive to make Christians effective in their local churches so that every church they represent may be strengthened in Christ, becoming fruitful in doing good works and evangelizing the lost as God leads. 3. The local congregation can be strategically mobilized to promote a biblical understanding of freedom, wholeness, and justice in the city, as well as to target unreached urban communities for evangelism and church planting. As we equip leaders for spiritually vital ministry in the urban church, the Holy Spirit will provide opportunities for your students to minister to the pressing needs in your community or beyond. The Scriptures are God-breathed, sufficient to teach, correct, rebuke and instruct your students in righteousness in order that they might be completely furnished for every good work he calls them to do (2 Tim. 3.16-17). As you train your students to minister, and teach and model the Scriptures in your Institute, God will bear abundant spiritual fruit through your students, guiding them to disciple growing Christians, engage in good works, and reach out to touch the lost in your community. Training leaders to be effective in the context of their own local con- gregations will multiply ministry throughout your community, city, and around the world.