One of the "seven essentials" necessary for an emerging mission movement is "Appropriate Training." By "Appropriate Training" we are suggesting that the training that emerging missionaries need is unique to their context and calling. For instance, in China one of the first courses taught in some of the mission training schools is "What to Do When You Are Sent to Prison." In this course, students learn how to evangelize their prisons with the Gospel.

The Gospel and biblical training have gone hand-in-hand from the beginning. Paul the Apostle started three schools, first in Antioch (Syria), then later in both Corinth and Ephesus. Students from his school spread out over the known world so that Paul claimed he had successfully planted the church from Jerusalem to Ilyicum (modern Albania). Obviously he never reached all those places, but his students did.

Modern missions started training schools all over the world as well. Most of these schools were raised up to meet the need for pastors and church leaders of the emerging church, but all too often they lacked specific training for emerging missionaries. "Pastoral" training and "missionary" training do overlap in some areas, but for the emerging missionary, there is often a huge gap between what they have been trained to do in Bible school or seminary and what they actually need to know for effective mission field experience.

The need for appropriate missional training in the Majority World should NOT surprise us. When the western missionary movement started out of North America, all kinds of new schools started up. Think of Prairie in Canada (my school), and Moody, and Colombia and schools like All Nations in England. And look at what happened in Korea where 20 years ago, there was only one Missionary Training Institute, but now they have sprung up all over. Why? Because we all recognized the special training needed for cross-cultural missionaries.

When one looks for a school singularly focused on missionary training in the Majority World, they are few and far between. Many start out with that vision, but they slowly drift off course and (probably to draw more students and maybe for financial reason) they broaden their scope. They soon lose their distinctive.

Recently we featured a book by Robert Gupta and Sherwood Lingenfelter called Breaking Tradition to Accomplish Vision. This is an amazing story of how Gupta took over the Hindustan Bible Institute in India and revolutionized it from a western model school to something appropriate for India. It is one of the best models we have found. But now, we want to champion those who are working toward training emerging missionaries for the unique tasks they will face in their ministry.

I have just returned form Asia where we had the joy of teaching a class to 20 emerging missionaries. Most of these were Christian professionals who had worked for an average of 12 years among Muslims but had never had formal biblical training. After studying the book of Acts together, they were challenged to come up with a document called, "Sharing the Gospel in Hostile Situations." They were to draw on their many years of experience with Muslims and reflect critically on the principles they were learning from the book of Acts. You can be sure that preparing this document took on huge significance to them as they knew they would be back at their work within just a few days.

I am often asked, "What can western missions do to help the emerging missions movement?" Well, helping them set up a good missionary training school could make a huge difference. By the way, Bethany Fellowship, a mission out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, has much experience in this area, and we would be happy to put you in touch with them if you need assistance (not money).

And thank you – many of our readers, who are already doing what we are suggesting here.