From one person
to the next generation

Every generation begins with one person's decision. The apostle Paul did not keep to himself what he had heard in the presence of many witnesses; he opened up his whole life and ministry and handed it on to the next person.

LDI's training starts in the same place. It does not begin by drawing up a program, but with one person — already trained himself — deciding to give away his own time and life. This is where the principle stands: “I cannot train anyone else unless I have first been trained myself.”

In Acts 16 Paul met Timothy and took him along on his missionary journey. From then on Paul cared for Timothy as a spiritual son, taught him, and trained him by ministering together with him.

Jesus had already shown the same way. After calling the twelve, he spent long stretches of time with them and taught them; through a public ministry of living together and traveling together to preach, he set the example of a training ministry for workers.

Training therefore does not end in the classroom. Through one-to-one discipling (Man to Man) and small group dynamics, we walk together all the way to the place where what has been learned meets the problems of daily life.

When Timothy had finished his season of testing and was serving as a pastor of the church in Ephesus, Paul urged him: “the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people.” Learning does not arrive at personal maturity and stop there; its destination is entrusting what was received to someone worth entrusting it to.

At this point a disciple becomes a disciple maker, and grows further into a minister who raises up disciple makers. It is within this nurturing relationship that leadership and followship are developed together.

When lay leaders, who make up more than 95 percent of the church, are raised up as workers through evangelism, follow-up, training and small group ministry, the burden of pastoral work no longer rests on one person, and ministry becomes something every member shares according to gift and calling.

“…who will also be qualified to teach others.” The closing clause of 2 Timothy 2:2 does not stop at the fourth generation; it loops back to the beginning. Paul → Timothy → faithful men → others: the spiritual four generations are a structure of reproduction and multiplication.

This multiplication ministry is the biblical way to bring the gospel to every people most quickly, and it is a mission model that works even in restricted areas. When local believers are built up as faithful disciples of Christ and go to their own people to make disciples in turn, the Great Commission keeps moving forward.

The final picture LDI looks toward, then, is not a larger organization but a landscape in which people who can teach others keep rising up, wherever they are.