Across the world, as national groups we know that we need to be effective students of God’s Word and to have well trained leadership. To help local assemblies with this focus, Bible schools and training courses have sprung up in many places over the past century but especially in the last three decades. To encourage the already existing, the newly established and embryo activities, consultations of trainers and Bible teachers have been organised in recent years by a steering group with the hospitality of Emmaus Bible College, Dubuque, Iowa, USA. These have been approximately every 4-5 years, seeking to balance the cost of travelling with the very significant relationship building and mutual encouragement that comes from meeting face to face in matters for which we share a common passion – to “equip the saints for works of service.”
- The First consultation in 2005 was an opportunity to report on how training has developed in each region around the world.
- The Second consultation in 2010 under the theme “Sharpening the cutting edge: encouraging excellence in leadership training” gave opportunity to explore how we can best prepare spiritual (godly), skillful (gifted) and thinking (Biblical and theological) people to serve and lead in our churches in each area of the world where Brethren or Brethren ethos churches can be found.
- The third consultation was in 2014 and was on a more hermeneutical theme. In particular we explored aspects of contextualization – how do we read, interpret and apply the Scriptures to contemporary contexts. The resources and details of discussions from that conference can be found on this website, click here.