A Word from AMG President, Paul Jenks
AMG President/CEO Paul Jenks shares news and information each month about AMG's various ministries

February  2012

Dear Ministry Partners,

It is AMG’s mission to “make disciples around the world through national workers and in partnership with like-minded Christians.”

National workers are the hands and feet of AMG in the countries where we work; men and women reaching out to their own people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. AMG comes alongside these committed believers to enable them to serve in Christian ministry. At the heart of every AMG ministry outreach is a national worker.

• They are the medical doctors and nurses in our hospitals and clinics who pray with patients and share God’s love while providing compassionate care.
• They are the teachers, school directors, and faculty who teach God’s Word to students of all ages. They are the camp directors and staff who provide Bible teaching, Christian counseling, and life training to children and adults from all walks of life.
• They are the house parents, program directors, and staff of AMG’s childcare centers, hostels and orphanages who provide tender care, protection, and social services to sponsored children and their families.
• They are church planters who open God’s Word to adults and families and help mold them into growing fellowships of believers in places where there are few established Gospel-believing churches.
• They are mature believers who have accepted the call to lead and oversee AMG ministries in their home countries.

National workers provide a tremendous Gospel witness in their culture for a fraction of the cost of a cross-cultural missionary. Because they know the language and the culture intimately, they can reach communities in which cross-cultural missionaries would struggle. National workers do not require tedious government paperwork, giving them more time and energy to focus on ministry.

AMG’s national workers are especially important to the establishment and encouragement of local churches in their home cultures. Some of them are directly involved (church planters), but all of them contribute by active participation, leadership, discipleship, or training of pastors.

In 2012, one of AMG’s desires is to increase our involvement in this area of pastor training. We have become convinced that the equipping of local pastors is a crucial step in fulfilling Christ’s commission to “make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).

By some estimates, 85% of churches in the world are led by individuals who have no formal training in ministry. As this exchange between Reuben Musiime, AMG’s national director in Uganda, and local pastor Amos Sichempe of the Mulongo Baptist Church demonstrates, this is a tremendous need.

Reuben: Where did you get your training for the pastorate?

Amos: When I was called in 2002, I had no pastoral training at all. It was only when I started that I found myself being helped by the older members in the church.

Reuben: So, pastoring a church with no training, what constraints have you experienced?

Amos: It has been the very, very, very worst challenge, I believe. And it has been a very big challenge to me in particular.

Reuben: How about training tools. Do you have any training tools for the church, for ministries?

Amos: We have people.

Reuben: But are they equipped to run and teach the church?

Amos: They need training. We also need the tools, Bibles, we need them very much.

Stories like this are common in most of the countries where AMG works. Wherever possible or practical, we try to reach out to men like Pastor Amos with training, Bibles, study tools, and encouragement in ministry.

We have taken teams of pastors and church leaders to some of our fields to do pastor-training seminars, and other volunteers have done longer-term training. Many of our nationals are directly involved in equipping pastors for ministry, and we have a formal seminary in Indonesia.

As part of this ministry focus, this month AMG is hosting a “Pastors 4 Pastors” conference here in Chattanooga to help call attention to this work and to the need for volunteers to assist our national workers in training pastors.

As important as such volunteers are, they need Bibles, concordances, and study tools to put in the hands of local pastors on the field. Additionally, the pastors who come to receive training need help with transportation, meals and housing.

Please consider partnering with AMG this year to help provide vital training for pastors overseas. Will you pray with us for volunteers to go with AMG to train pastors and for local pastors in other countries to be  receptive to that training?

Your prayers and gifts toward this ministry will help breathe new life into churches around the world, sharpening and strengthening the witness of the Gospel in cultures very much in need of transformation. With your help, we are trusting the Lord to provide for this need He has laid on our hearts.

Yours in Christ's service,

 Paul E. Jenks, President & CEO