About L3

The Need

Based on conservative estimates, there are over five million evangelical churches outside the United States. This means there is a need for more than five million evangelical pastors/church leaders across the world, and that number continues to grow every day. The founders of L3 Ministries recognize that the vast majority (over 80%) of these pastors live in countries and regions where they do not have access to any level of theological or ministerial training. The absence of effective training creates at best an ineffective environment for spiritual growth and evangelism, and at worst, a situation ripe for abuse from within the church from misguided leaders, and exploitation from without by false teachers. L3 Ministries seeks to address this need by strategically providing resources to identify, educate, and enable ministry leaders who otherwise do not have access to biblically sound, culturally relevant, ministry focused training. The goal of L3 Ministries is to not only train effective leaders, but train them to effectively train other leaders, thereby multiplying the impact of the ministry to close the gap of untrained pastors around the world.

The Purpose, Mission, and Vision

The purpose of L3 Ministries is to facilitate leadership development to the third degree by “Producing Leaders Who Reproduce Leaders.” Our mission is to “identify, educate, and enable ministry leaders to evangelize, disciple, and reproduce leaders in their own culture, community, and language.” Our vision is to “develop a network of educated and enabled ministry leaders across the globe who in turn train other leaders to competently and effectively produce additional ministry leaders.”

The Process

The process employed by L3 Ministries is to develop an international team of spiritually mature, effective educators and spiritual mentors who then identify potential ministry leaders, educate and train these leaders for the work of evangelism, discipleship, and reproduction, and then enable this core group to minister and reproduce other leaders in their own culture, community, and language. The work of training is done through the most effective means that can be identified for the area being served. In some countries this will involve partnering with existing schools or ministries, in others it will require that we establish a completely new enterprise.  Regardless of the approach, the desired outcome remains consistent – to provide local, ongoing, sustainable access to biblical education. In addition, the ministry will facilitate pastor conferences and workshops that either supplement formal, ongoing training, or provide the only educational opportunity for pastors in remote regions.

While the primary focus for ministry application is the underserved, international church leader, the scope of the ministry also includes the identification, education, and enablement of U.S. leaders to serve in the international aspect of L3 Ministries, and to strengthen the local church. To accomplish these purposes, L3 Ministries will seek to partner with likeminded domestic and foreign agencies to share resources and leverage the scale of ministry delivery.

Following are the core tenets of each phase of the leadership development process:

Identifying Leaders Who Have:

  1. A teachable heart, humble spirit, and a passionate desire to learn.
  2. Limited training and limited access to educational resources.
  3. A commitment to develop other leaders that is demonstrated early in the education process by the leader training others in the manner in which he is being trained.

Educating Leaders in:

  1. Spiritual Formation: growing stronger in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
  2. Biblical Foundation: mastering a core curriculum of biblical knowledge.
  3. Ministry Perpetuation: developing skills to effectively evangelize, disciple and reproduce leaders in their own culture, community, and language.

Enabling Leaders through:

  1. Investing in local ministry needs by providing financial, educational, and spiritual formation resources from outside the community.
  2. Fostering ongoing education and ministry development within the local community.
  3. Providing ongoing accountability to maintain sound biblical foundations and guarantee ministry perpetuation.

Throughout this process, the focus and goal of the L3 Ministry team is to invest in leaders around the world to establish:

  • Spiritual Formation
  • Biblical Foundation
  • Ministry Facilitation

The core concept of L3 Ministries is based on 2 Timothy 2:1-2:

You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and that which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will then be qualified to teach others also.

We are dedicated to the premise that both the facilitators and the recipients will conform to the principles of 2 Timothy 2:15:

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.

Ultimately, by producing leaders who reproduce leaders, L3 Ministries seeks to strengthen and expand the kingdom of God for the glory of God.