This update is related to the Crossway Global Ministry Fund campaign.
One High School Graduate’s Dream Is Changing Lives
Chris Insaidoo had only just graduated from high school in Ghana, but he knew that his life’s calling was to share the gospel with the unreached. His first task? Helping the leaders in his church who had no formal education and couldn’t read English.
Chris became a Christian during high school, but he was immediately captivated by the good news of the gospel and developed a passion for the lost. Even though education in Ghana wasn’t anything like what schools in more affluent parts of the world offer, they provided him with all he needed: textbooks written in English.
Plenty of young people his age spoke English quite well, which he knew to be advantageous. Many more resources were available in English than in the local languages, even at that time in the mid 1990s. By honing his English language skills, he could help others to develop their language skills while supporting leadership development, equipping pastors with limited access to the gospel, and church planting.
That initial call happened nearly three decades ago. Chris himself couldn’t have imagined that what had started simply as a desire to help his pastors learn English would turn into a full-time ministry calling to train pastors across Ghana and bringing in thousands—and counting—of Bibles and theological resources to train up these pastors.
Donors to Crossway have made it possible through the Global Ministry Fund for books and Bibles to be delivered into the hands of untrained pastors, completely changing the way they pastor and how they care for their congregations. This one high school graduate’s dream has taken root and spread in a way he never knew was possible.
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A Lifelong Calling to Give Away Books and Bibles
Chris’s ministry, Life 3N Relief LBG, started unofficially with a small group of those who joined Chris in seeing the need: these pastors didn’t have access to good, theologically sound resources. This group prioritized visiting the smaller and harder to reach villages throughout Ghana because they knew from experience that this is where the pastors needed the most needed training. Chris recalls one early encounter with an associate pastor—an encounter that solidified his life’s calling and passion for training pastors and equipping them with resources.
Soon after we began traveling to rural villages, I met a pastor serving a church of more than 200 members. When he took me into his study, he proudly showed me his pastoral library. My heart fell when I saw that his “library” consisted of only three books. This associate pastor then told me that he happened to stumble upon the books when he ran into a pastor friend.
Since then, the Lord has expanded the way Chris serves pastors. By partnering with Crossway and others who are able to provide Life 3N Relief with Bibles and theologically sound resources, Chris has begun two to three day intensive training sessions for pastors in their network. All of these pastors fall under the untrained and under-resourced category Chris first set out to serve.
Through the Lord’s work in connecting Chris with ministries around the world, they now receive one or two containers of resources per year. At each intensive Chris and his team make an effort to understand the specific needs or topics that these pastors most need assistance to understand. These often include topics such as discipleship, evangelism, pastoring, teaching and preaching, leadership, and missions. His team then hand-selects a mixture of resources to provide to the pastors at the end of the intensives. Because of this, pastors leave these training sessions equipped with a better understanding of God’s calling on them as pastors and armed with resources they can refer to as they move forward in caring for their congregations.
The word continues to spread about Chris’s ministry work. Though he still pays visits to pastors serving in rural villages, he does so less often. Instead, they come to him.
One Book Can Equate to Many Lives Impacted
Samuel Gakpetor serves as the head of the National Discipleship and Leadership Development Committee of the Church of Pentecost in Ghana. He had heard of Chris’s ministry work and was intrigued by the impact he had heard and seen through others. So when he recently traveled through Kumasi, Life 3N Relief’s headquarters, he paid a visit to Chris.
In his ministry work with other pastors in his denomination, Samuel knows firsthand the shortage of resources pastors experience. “Many pastors I know depend on the practical training that is provided. If they are not well resourced and the other pastors around him are not well resourced, then there is a large gap in their ministry. It’s not healthy for the local church, but they have no other option.”
That day, before Samuel left, Chris gave Samuel a set of Crossway books. Discipling by Mark Dever was among the books Samuel received that day, which has specifically convicted him as he considers how to encourage the pastors under his care.
God has called the local church to be a disciple-making ministry. There are many other wonderful, Christian organizations who can be involved in disciple-making, but Dever states that as much as these organizations are gifted in the area of their calling, they should not replace the local church. After reading this book I have now been burdened to determine how to apply what I’ve read to my work with local churches. The local church should own the discipleship process by adequately and biblically training disciple-makers.
By God’s grace, Samuel has been equipped with numerous theologically sound resources that he can now use to steward and lead well. Crossway continues to support many ministries like Chris’s so that the gospel would go forth to faithful ministry leaders like Samuel. We invite you to come alongside us in this work by supporting the Global Ministry Fund. One book that impacts one pastor has the potential to then impact other pastors in their spheres of influence, which then impacts entire congregations. Even as Chris distributes one resource at a time, the impact of those resources are being multiplied many times over.
Pray that God would continue to use the materials Life 3N Relief LBG gives to pastors for his glory. Pray that the Lord would daily make evident the right pastors and lay believers to give these resources to.
Pray for the Lord to stir up a passion in the hearts of pastors and churches in Samuel’s network to read God’s Word. Pray that they would continue to challenge one another to more faithfully follow Jesus.