Recently, we devoted six days to training and mobilizing pastors and church leaders on Effective Great Commission and Disciple Making with 263 pastors and church leaders present. We had a two-day mission seminar for Pastors and church leaders working in Muslim communities and a one-day training in a Hindu community.
In Pakistan, Anglican and catholic churches are the most prevalent in rural communities and villages with few Pentecostals, especially in big cities such as Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. The life of an average pastor in Pakistan is strenuous. For example in a district called Faisalabad district, there are about 60 Pastors in the Anglican diocese and they cover 136 congregations. That means an average pastor covers an average of 2-3 congregations. It is common to have a pastor finish one church service and move over to another immediately. In some cases where the congregations are three or four, it will be impossible for the pastor to cover all within Sunday morning so some congregations have their worship service during the week rather than on Sunday.
For orthodox churches, for example Anglican, the monthly salary of a pastor is about 4,000PKR – less than $15. Due to the high inflation rate, this money isn’t anything so pastors devote extra time to other activities to get funds. This adversely affects their spirituality and devotion to spending quality time with God.
Through the training, we covered topics including:
- Having a healthy relationship with God.
- Understanding what the gospel is.
- Understanding the Great Commission.
- Introduction to church planting and discipleship making.
- Building capacity and values and effective mobilization strategies.
