BILD News History

Gordon-Conwell D.Min. in 2006. (December 21, 2005) March 7–16, 2006, are the dates for the first residency of the Gordon-Conwell D.Min. in Global Church-Based Theological Education. Called the "best of two paradigms," the D.Min. is distinguished by the seasoned leaders who will participate as students, the vision and expertise of its faculty, and the uniqueness of its church-driven curriculum. If you are interested in being part of this historical first cohort, or supporting an international leader, contact Steve Kemp (515-292-7012) at the BILD office. Full Story.

Cambodian Update: May 9–June 4, 2005. The ongoing work of BILD's ordered Church Development Process continues. Five emerging Level V National Leaders, hand picked from the top-level training team because of their understanding of the church-based philosophy and resources, their gifts, and breadth of ministry, have wholeheartedly accepted the leadership responsibilities necessary to direct the planning and training responsibilities of a national strategy for Cambodia. Ongoing training, translation, fund development, prayer, and transition are the continuing work of the Cambodian Church. Full Story.

Gordon-Conwell D.Min. Deadline. (June 17, 2005) The first residency for a D.Min. at Gordon-Conwell in "Global Church-Based Theological Education" is scheduled for October 10–21, 2005. If you wish to be considered for this opportunity, you must have a completed application (application form, transcripts, and recommendations) on file in the Gordon-Conwell Admissions Office by July 31, 2005. Full Story.

For a history of the development and more details about the D.Min., see the article "The Best of Two Paradigms."

The Best of Two Paradigms. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS), a leading evangelical seminary, is partnering with BILD, a leading nonformal leadership development organization, to offer a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) program in "Global Church-Based Theological Education." The program is designed to help strategic church leaders, from all over the globe, think through the paradigm issues associated with church-based theological education. Walter Kaiser, Jeff Reed, Ted Ward, Steve Kemp, and Gary Parrett have all made commitments to teach in the first cohort, which is tentatively scheduled to start October of this year. Kaiser summarized the potential of this program: "This is a big win for both GCTS and BILD. Lots of people will be watching because it is a breakthrough in theological education." To apply for this new D.Min. track, see www.gordonconwell.edu/dmin/tracks.php. Full Story.

Sweet Corn and Sushi. As in the past, Iowa and Japan again have a connection. Sendai Baptist Seminary invited BILD to assist them with their move toward church-based theological education. C-BTE Japan was founded with the mission of supporting church-based theological education and has chosen to use BILD's resources in a non-formal educational paradigm. The C-BTE Japan Network is a group of churches that are taking seriously their responsibility to be well established and be agents for the spontaneous expansion of the Gospel. BILD has the opportunity to assist these leaders in building the right foundation for the development of this church growth in Japan. Full Story.

The Completion of a Lifework—Kevin Rhodes. Kevin Rhodes, a dear friend and co-worker of BILD, went to be with the Lord March 22, 2005. Kevin was a trainer for BILD, directed the BILD Resource Center at Grace Church, and was a great friend and mentor to many in the BILD network. His children and many of his co-workers gave tributes to Kevin's faith, character, and love for the Church. He will be sorely missed.

Remembering Kevin.

BILD North America Expanding! In our last update, we reported that five churches had made commitments to house BILD Resource Centers, which function as training and sending structures for expanding church-based theological education nationally and internationally. More information on Resource Centers.

Since then, these Resource Centers have submitted their annual training schedules. Churches participating in the BILD Church Development Process attend these training workshops as part of the process of transforming their ministries into truly church-based operations. We have developed a brochure to describe the content and timing of these training events, which can be self directed or part of the 3-year process. If you are interested in BILD's process for helping churches follow in "the way of Christ and His Apostles," please see the Church Development Process brochure.

2005 BILD Church Development Process Training Schedule. Please check the schedule of dates and locations of the North American training events in 2005. To sign up or request information for training events, please click on the event you would like to attend and contact the host church.

Training Schedule

Emerging C-BTE Models in Australia. The three key areas of C-BTE in Australia—Sydney NSW, Bundaberg QLD, and Latrobe TAS—remain solid with teams in each area growing steadily. While each State is working with the same general paradigm of training and development of leaders, three distinctly different models are emerging: (1) improving a growing church, (2) reestablishing a dying church, and (3) planting a new church. All three situations have the vision of becoming Antioch style churches—serving as hubs for training and the multiplication of churches. Jeff Reed recently visited and challenged the team and their apprentices to think "outside the box," to consider what God is able to do, and to set their goals for establishing leaders and planting churches based on what they would need in order to see Australia turned upside down with the gospel.

Australia Report

A Final Challenge to 6000 Pastors. Musa challenged the group of pastors, gathered at the National ECWA Pastors' Conference—nearly half of all ECWA pastors—in his last full address to them as their General Secretary. We felt a sense of destiny in passing on the tools and training of C-BLD/BILD Nigeria to this group of pastors and what could be accomplished for the progress of the Gospel. Full Story.

Finally Home! Following a presentation of the building by the architects at one of our first Sundays in the building, Jeff Reed remarked, "We recognize that buildings are tools and people are more important.  This building is a sharp tool to serve people and to function as a base for ministries."  We hope that the building will continue to win prizes, perhaps in terms of architecture, but definitely in terms of eternal rewards associated with people and cultures impacted by the Gospel. Full Story.

Cambodians Carrying on the Work Throughout the Country!  There are 35 leaders training at Level 5 who are committed to carrying the work throughout the country.  These 35 have nearly 700 Level 3 Leaders meeting with them in their provinces with almost 100 % retention at each training session. And, it is estimated that there are another 500 in Level 3 training in their churches and nearly 5,000 in training at Level 1, with each province reporting significant strengthening of their churches. Full Story.

Strategizing for "Churches that Last" in India! Key leaders of church planting movements in India are aggressively searching for workable solutions to develop their leaders and to strengthen their newly planted churches. On a recent trip, Jeff Reed helped many leaders think through how Paul trained leaders in the expansion of the Early Church. Because all of BILD's curricula are designed to take leaders through this biblical equipping process, there was an overwhelming response to Jeff and BILD's process and resources. BILD has the capability of helping them solidify their current churches and restore their attrition losses. Please pray with us as we pursue this wide open door for ministry! Full Story.

JETS Leads the Way to a Church-Based Theological Education Degree Program. Jos ECWA Theological Seminary (JETS) has provided significant leadership once again through the approval of a church-based theological education degree program. The partnership with C-BLD–Nigeria will make available the Master of Arts and Master of Divinity degrees with an emphasis in Church-Based Theological Education. This in-service, non-formal theological education program is scalable for widespread utilization and operates in conjunction with the C-BLD–Nigeria church network to meet the need of training 40,000 vocational leaders in Nigeria and 400,000 non-vocational leaders. There is also strong interest to connect this program with the Global Church-Based Theological Education D.Min. degree program being developed with Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The position of JETS as a leading seminary in all of sub-Saharan Africa is likely to influence many other African theological education institutions as well. Full Story.

Leader Makers in Cambodia! The Cambodian Ministries for Christ and BILD Partnership is training 35 key leaders who are establishing their own churches and passing on the training to 700 additional leaders. And the 700 will train more than 1,000 leaders in their communities. Please pray for them! Full Story.

On the Home Front . . . 5 BILD Resource Centers, a National Training Schedule, BILD-Certified Trainers. 2005 will be the first full year of ministry for the five Resource Center Churches, who will function as training and sending structures for expanding church-based theological education nationally and internationally. These Resource Center Churches have tightly integrated their ministry as churches with the work and expansion of BILD International. We eagerly anticipate the fruit from this first year of national expansion. Full Story.

Church-Based Leadership Development Nigeria—Poised for Explosive Expansion. The last several years of work in Nigeria are converging in two strategies: (1) Musa Asake, currently the General Secretary of ECWA, and his team will be able to give fulltime attention to leading the movement of C-BLD Nigeria starting June 2005, and (2) a foundation has been laid to prepare for large-scale expansion. The key Nigerian leaders are challenged with the enormity of the task, but they also have informed optimism that the training initiatives can meet the need for equipped leaders for their thousands of churches and that they may be part of what God is doing to literally transform a culture with the gospel. Full Story.

Peru Goals Right on Track. Leaders being trained, churches being established, new churches joining the movement, and increasing numbers of requests for training are all signs that the ETBIL-Peru training initiatives are succeeding. Over the next several years, BILD will help in the predictable issues that begin to arise with this kind of expansion and to work with ETBIL-Peru leaders in assessing whether the critical goals are being reached. Full Story.

Introducing BILD's New Japan Partnership. Two years ago, God opened the door for us to begin working with a group in Japan that has a large vision not only for their own region and country but also for places throughout Asia. . . . Believing that their seminary, Sendai Baptist Seminary, is to serve this new Church-Based Theological Education initiative, the board of directors decided to start the process of the seminary becoming a BILD-Japan Resource Center, in order to bring up leaders based on C-BTE's philosophy, using BILD's curricula and assessment system. Full Story.

Why Did Steve Kemp Move to Ames, Iowa? Steve moved from his position of Vice President and Dean of External Studies at Moody Bible Institute to Director of International Partnerships with BILD International, in Ames, Iowa, because of his growing conviction of the biblical priority of training church leaders in the context of ministry, using a church-driven agenda, which is inherent in church-based theological education. Full Story.

BILD's International Conference.  Because completion of the building has been delayed, the building won't be ready in time to host BILD's November conference.  In evaluating the importance of the conference at this time, we decided the conference was not critical to our strategic goals.  Time, energy, and finances right now are being strategically focused on launching the network we are building in the U.S. and with our international partners. Full Story.

Foundations, Expansion, and Extraordinary Men Significant impact in Cambodia is and always has been dependent on God. But God uses leadership. And for the Cambodian partnership, that leadership is on the brink of indigenous leadership. God has raised up thirty-two pastors—extraordinary men—to be at the front end of the impact and also the very broad expansion of the initiatives of the CMC/BILD partnership across the country. Full Story.

A Life Development Adventure Trip The Goris Family Foundation has made a commitment to help BILD International raise funds to support leadership development in churches around the world. In July they hosted a Life Development Adventure Trip—fly-in fishing to the Northwest Territories. Full Story.

Introducing BILD's Albanophone International Project—A Nation-Wide Opportunity for C-BTE.  In a country that tosses aside evangelical Christianity as a "foreign tradition," church-based theological education is bearing fruit.  Since the church in Albania is no more than thirteen years old and much of its leadership is still in development, the opportunity exists, through a national network, to shape and impact a whole nation of churches.  Full Story.

Foundations Being Laid for North American Network By June 2005, five churches will be fully functioning as National Resource Centers, providing regular introductory presentations; ongoing training for using BILD International resources; and creating comprehensive, cradle-to-grave, church-based theological education programs.    Full Story.

Equipping the Church in Pakistan! "Stuart" returned from Pakistan reporting that leaders of the new churches were hungry to understand the book of Acts and how it was intended to be used to establish churches.  "From the BILD course based on the book of Acts, they cover general strategy points, jammat (church) health, expansion, leadership selection, some structural questions, and training.  And this is just course one!" Full Story.

Thinking Globally! BILD was challenged by Tom McCallie, Executive Director of The Maclellan Foundation, to think strategically—globally.  If 3 of 5 people in the world in the near future will be living in India, China, and Southeast Asia, and God is obviously working in those countries, evidenced by massive conversions and churches being planted, then thinking strategically includes focusing on those countries.     Full Story.

Letter From Jeff. The journey of the last several years has been an extraordinary learning experience as well as a long-term lesson in the faithfulness of God. He has been, and remains, faithful to us in the matters that He has entrusted to us to accomplish. We have always marveled at His faithfulness, but we have never been at the place where we find ourselves right now. We have worked hard at our ministry strategies and resources but in many ways God . . . .
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Change in the May Training Meeting in Ames. BILD is experiencing an exciting expansion in its ministry with the emergence of BILD National Resource Centers and Resource Center Churches! Because of this development, the training in 2004 will be held at these churches and we will not conduct the May 2004 Church Training Meeting in Ames. For more information click here.

A Facility That Will Strengthen Our Local and Global Focus! The completion of our ministry facility in October will allow BILD to host its future International Conferences and training seminars and provide an ideal home to support the day-to-day tasks of our local, national, and institutional ministries. Besides meeting our needs, the award-winning facility gives us a presence in the community that communicates the forward thinking of Oakwood Road Church and BILD, our commitment to excellence and the arts, and our commitment to the community, by providing a cutting-edge facility that they will be invited to use. Full Story.

Training Trip to Peru: March 22–26, 2004. Twenty-eight pastors and leaders from fifteen new churches, our third generation of churches, began their training in March. Fifty leaders from the 1st and 2nd generation churches deepened their training with the completion of the BILD course Understanding the Essentials of Sound Doctrine. Twenty-eight churches are now participating in church-based theological education in Peru. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Nigeria: February 21–28, 2004. On our February 04 trip to Nigeria we worked specifically with the ECWA/BILD Partnership leadership team to plan for what could be an explosive expansion among the ECWA (Evangelical Churches of West Africa) churches. For the third time, we convened a group of nearly 140 pastors of strategically located key churches in and around the central to north central regions of Nigeria. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Cambodia: January 23–28, 2004. The partnership between Cambodian Ministries for Christ (CMC) and BILD International is flourishing! Many Cambodian pastors believe that this is now the largest, most comprehensive leadership training initiative that has occurred in the past fifty years. A total of 720 pastors and leaders representing 289 churches attended various training seminars in January. Of these leaders, 350 have emerged as key leaders who will begin top-level training and be instrumental as the work moves forward. For more information click here.

BILD to host 2003 Summit. The 2003 BILD International Summit will focus on the significance of the Antioch Church in the expansion of the gospel in the First Century and then explore the corresponding structures that existed in the Early Church which promoted the formation of a unified network of leaders and churches all committed to the Great Commission. For more information or to sign up, click here.

Training Trip to Nigeria: October 15–24, 2003. During this trip to Nigeria we met with a group of 140 pastors of key ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) churches, strategically located in and around the central to north central regions of Nigeria. While the training of these pastors represents a fraction of the need, the reality is that they are leaders who will be on the front lines of a training and church-maturing initiative to the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of expansion. By the time the expansion reaches this level, the work could represent tens of thousands of leaders. For more information click here.

Nigeria pastors to receive training. Doug Shiplett and Larry Orme, associate pastor of Penn Valley Church, one of the partner churches in the Nigerian project, traveled to Nigeria in October to the second regional resource pastors training. Almost 100 pastors were convened for a second time to train them in the key BILD International leadership resource Acts: Keys to the Establishment and Expansion of the First Century Church. All of these pastors are laying foundations in their churches for church wide discipleship and for training of leadership to help in the strengthening of their churches. But they are also pastors who represent key leadership or regional positioning that place them in unique contexts to be model churches for a larger scale expansion of the C-BTE initiatives throughout the large network of ECWA (Evangelical Churches of West Africa). This three day training was the second in a set of training experiences which provides the foundation for these churches to become fully established and participate in fulfilling God's missional mandate.
For more information on Nigeria click here.

Training Trip to Cambodia: August 14–27, 2003 Cambodia in August is very hot, but the progress of the project is so cool! We are literally becoming the dominant training resource for the evangelical churches in Cambodia. We are now working in seven provinces and held training sessions in each of them during this trip. The leaders have a deep passion to see their country reborn spiritually and believe that their partnership with BILD International is an answer to years of prayer. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Peru: July 13–20, 2003 This trip was a great time of deepening and extending the training of both the 1st and 2nd generation of churches and leaders. These leaders have a deep commitment to maturing their churches and are very dedicated to both their own training and the training of leaders within their churches. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Peru: March 12–16, 2003 This was a phenomenal trip because we reached a number of significant decisions regarding the development of the project. Fifty new pastors were identified and chosen to be part of the next level of expansion. A 3-year strategy has been implemented to translate the entire body of BILD resources, not only serving Peru but the entire Latin American world. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Nigeria: February 14-21, 2003. This trip demonstrated the great needs and the strong desire of the ECWA church leadership for training and for resources for strengthening their churches. Although we had planned for 75 pastors at the sessions, 138 pastors attended the training seminars. These pastors conservatively represent 70,000 Nigerian church members and more than 3,000 leaders in their churches. The pastors left with excitement, motivation, and the skill to begin to work at a church-wide maturing process in their respective situations. For more information click here.

Training Trip to Cambodia: January 16–24, 2003 After our fifth in-country visit, the Cambodian project is really taking shape. We formalized the commitment of churches in the five regions that will be targeted for significant training over the next five years. In three regions, key pastors convened for a week-long training in the Acts course. The course was well received and represented the most extensive, non-formal, intense biblical training that these pastors have ever received. There is excitement and lots of energy as they begin this phase of their preparation. For more information click here.

BILD's New Offices Under Construction! BILD will finally have a place to call home in October 2004. For more information click here.

BILD to officially release Leaders and the Early Church at November 2003 Summit. The long-awaited course is designed to help church leaders structure new, emerging, and existing leadership teams along New Testament patterns and principles and promotes the greater strength and expansion of Christ's Church. For more details, click here.