One of the major needs of the hour is to train up Christians for future leadership in the local church.  There is also a tremendous need to address the shortage of men coming forwards as potential pastors for our affiliated churches. 

The Pastoral Development Team has a brief to consider the calling and training of men for pastoral ministry for the benefit of FIEC churches.  Its remit includes:

1. supporting the work of the FIEC Training Team and other teams seeking to grow men and women in gospel ministry creating a training culture across the Fellowship which helps people to aspire towards leadership
2. helping churches to define the process of identifying and selecting potential leaders
3. working with training providers such as LTS, Oak Hill and WEST
4. identifying churches who might be prepared to join a thought-through training scheme that would include apprenticeships to test gifts and commitment and free church ‘curacies’ to enable trainees who had been recognised and approved for ministry to learn ‘on-the-job’ alongside experienced pastors.
5. creating a Training Fund to provide bursaries to help support men and women through training and into ministry
6. linking with the Training Resources Team to intentionally prepare men for church leadership that continues to grow throughout their ministry-life