During the 10 years that Gordon T. Smith ministered in the Philippines, he was “frankly alarmed” to see how the rapid growth of the Church there was outdistancing the development of pastoral leadership for those churches. It was this realization that led him in 2003 to leave Regent College in Vancouver, where he taught spiritual theology, and take up the presidency of reSource Leadership International.

“The outcome we seek,” says Smith, “is a theologically trained leadership for the Church in the developing world. And the means by which we accomplish that is to support theological schools, Bible colleges and seminaries in the developing world that achieve that outcome.”

Smith spends much of his time visiting the leaders of these schools—by June, he will have traveled so far in 2006 alone to Jamaica, Bosnia, Croatia, Romania and Latin America—to get a sense of the type of assistance they need.

Back in Canada, Smith meets with donors with the potential to help meet those needs, be they student scholarships, construction of buildings, creating library resources or facultydevelopment.

Strategic investment

“I really am convinced the most strategic thing the Canadian Church can do right now is invest in a generation of leadership in developing countries who will lead the churches that Canadian missionary forces have so effectively planted,” says Smith.

“If all we invest in is evangelism and church planting without leadership training—not that church planting and evangelism aren’t crucial—we’re doing a long-term disservice if congregations are not anchored in the historic faith or leaders are not really capable of good Bible teaching.”

Training future leaders within their regions, Smith believes, is not only more efficient and less expensive than having them train in the West, it also lessens the risk of them becoming disengaged from their indigenous faith communities and social contexts.

But where religious freedom is an issue, reSource Leadership International looks elsewhere.

For example, it supports a school in Moldova in southeastern Europe whose nearly 400 students are from the mostly Muslim countries of Central Asia.

Formerly known as Overseas Council Canada, reSource Leadership International is part of the Overseas Council Network with affiliate agencies in Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

“We think we’re changing the landscape, we’re making a substantial difference,” says Smith.

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