The Lord has blessed us with a diverse ministry since 1986. The diversity has been a blend of pastoral and cross-cultural ministry. We have pastored churches in North Carolina, Indiana, and New York. While actively involved in pastoral ministry, we founded Laborers Together, a 501 (c)3 mission to undertake short-term mission trips for the purpose of evangelism and discipleship.

LT has allowed us to serve in multiple foreign countries; conducting camps for young adults, holding Bible conferences, teaching modular seminary courses, offering ESL (English as a Second Language) schools, participating in evangelistic campaigns, and publishing Christian books. Additionally, we have served as the Executive Director of a Bible Conference and conducted summer children’s camps in the USA. In 2005, the Lord opened the door to join the faculty of a local community college on an adjunct basis (Religion & Ethics), a position that continues to the present.

Joining the IGM family is a culmination of more than 20 years of pastoral and cross-cultural ministry. Since the inception of our ministry, the Lord has placed upon our hearts a burden to teach and train those preparing for ministry. While we have done this on a limited basis, it is our joy to embrace this call through the global network of educational partnerships (schools) represented on the IGM fields.

The calling is critical given the current trends in the harvest. With more than 178,000 new Christians daily and 4,500 new congregations forming weekly, this leaves a void of leadership as follows: 7,000 pastors daily, 210,000 monthly, or 2.5 million annually.¹ Estimates are that fully 85% of the world’s Bible-believing churches are led by untrained men. A further implication of these statistics is that if all of our schools were filled to 120% of capacity, we would only be able to meet 10% of the need. Sadly, this is due to the fact that there are few trainers to equip the leaders who are required to match the exponential growth of the church, especially in the third world.

We are committed to standing with the national pastor to assist him in meeting the challenge of training leaders. You will be encouraged to know that IGM currently has many indigenous schools and fine nationals capable of training leaders. It is our call to assist them in their training endeavors and to provide a resource for encouragement as together fulfill the Great Commission.

IGM has created the role of the Global Academic Director as a strategic measure to enhance the educational partnerships of the Mission. There are two responsibilities that form the basis for this position:

1. To develop the existing educational partnerships of the Mission (via assessment, evaluation, and recommendation), and

2. To coordinate short-term modular instructional teams.

Through assessment, evaluation, and recommendation, it will be possible to strengthen the existing educational partnerships (Bible Institutes, Bible Colleges, Seminaries) within the Mission. The idea is to uniformly adopt a set of guidelines as standards for academic and spiritual excellence. In essence, this will create a type of accreditation process conducted by the Mission under the auspices of the Global Academic Director. This will include course and curriculum development, complete with student learning outcomes intended to meet the expectations of a trained pastor within the IGM global family.

Short-term modular instructional teams are a useful compliment to the residential instructional faculty of IGM educational partnerships. The challenges incumbent upon the Global Academic Director will include:

· Determining needed courses from partnering institutions.

· Developing guidelines for course requirements and syllabi.

· Recruiting qualified instructors for short-term ministry.

The primary objectives set forth by the Mission are to assure a uniform standard of excellence within the distinctive  scope of Baptist faith and practice, and to encourage a balance of academics and spirituality.

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Copyright © 2010 Dr. Douglas A. Blanc, Sr.
Last modified: 05/23/10