Training is not an optional extra

Like Di, I recently attended the EQUIP Women Leaders Conference. It was a fantastic time of discussion and discovery. I had several ‘light bulb’ moments… and one moment of despair.

Carmelina Read challenged us to have a vision for our ministry that includes training others.

• If our goal is equipping the whole body of Christ (Eph 4:11-16), then we’ll always be looking for people to train in ministry, rejoicing in our trainees’ successes and seeking further training for ourselves.
• Our training should be people-centred, based on their needs, gifts and opportunities.
• God’s word does the work, so keep it rooted in the Bible.
• Every opportunity to serve is an opportunity to model how to do it.

These ideas weren’t new to me but as I listened, my spirits fell. 

Earlier this year, I’d had grand daydreams of training an army of women to read the Bible one-to-one as I began reading the Bible individually with women from my church. I thought they’d see it wasn’t such a scary thing; you didn’t need special qualifications; and that there wasn’t even much preparation needed. The women I’d met with would then go on to read with a friend, a neighbour, someone new at church, and they’d sit in cafes across our suburb opening God’s word and going home with hearts eager for more. Their diverse backgrounds and networks would have them connecting with people I’d never be able to. I was going to do myself out of a job, spectacularly! 

What really happened was that it took a lot of time to get to know people. I met with women who were either struggling, outsiders at church or immature in their faith. And those I’d had high hopes for got busy with other things. “That’s alright”, I thought. “There’s plenty of time to introduce training… soon.”

Which brings me to my moment of despair. After ten months, there are exactly zero women reading the Bible one-to-one without my direct involvement, except for the two who were doing it before. And due to a sudden-but-long-awaited pregnancy, I’ll need to put a pause on many of these meetings sooner than I’d expected. There is no longer plenty of time. It’s possible that these women will drift back to rarely reading the Bible themselves rather than reading it with others.

Carmelina made two more points that helped me:

• Firstly, if you don’t prioritize training, it won’t happen.
• Secondly, training needs a long-term view of people. We must allow for the work of the Spirit in people’s lives: “what they do may surprise you”.

Replication was my goal. But in practice it was an add-on, an idea to be introduced when everything was perfect. I didn’t even consider training with several women, whom I’d labelled as too timid, too young, not doctrinally-sound, or too busy. I was distracted by the now; any minor setback in their lives was enough to stop me even mentioning the idea of them reading with someone else.

So what’s next for me? And if you’re also struggling, what’s next for you?

I’ll apologize to each woman for not taking all the chances I had to help them grow. I’ll be clearer about setting the vision and helping prepare them to be able to read with someone else. That means I’ll be more transparent about how and why I chose the passages we’re reading through. I’ll show them a few different approaches they could use, such as the Swedish or COMA methods. I’ll tell them how I try to pray for them before each meeting. I’ll try to pass on what I can.

I’ll encourage them to think about what they’ve enjoyed about meeting up together, how they’ve grown through reading the Bible, and that that could continue with someone else, because there is nothing about me in particular that has made it great. It’s all been God’s word.

And I’ll be praying for them and with them that God shows them who they could ask to read the Bible with, that he gives them confidence in the power of his Word and Spirit to do the heavy lifting—just as he has done for me. There are some women I’ll actively try to pair up.

Training isn’t going to be a someday secondary anymore. I’ve been encouraged and trained from the Bible by Carmelina; time to pass it on!