BibleMesh partners with mission agencies to offer high-quality, flexible theological training for both pre-field candidates and missionaries already serving in their context.
In the last several years we have trained over 450 missionaries or candidates, equipping them to read the Bible, share the Gospel, and teach others the essential contours of the Christian faith.
We are constantly working to refine our courses and how we teach them. So, after a lengthy review process in conversation with our partner organizations like Pioneers USA, Frontiers, Christar, and the Missio Nexus network, we have developed a set of missionary-specific courses in Bible, theology, and outreach.
We began with the question, “What type of theological training does a missionary need to share the gospel and make disciples?” Our conviction is that such training must be oriented towards practical competencies like being able to explain the biblical narrative, articulate core doctrines like the Trinity and Christ’s atonement, and how to contextualize to a particular culture.
Additionally, because the missionary task is fundamentally about making disciples through sharing the Gospel and teaching others in the faith, any theological education for missionaries must be multiplication-minded. Students need to develop skills to reproduce what they have learned faithfully and easily for others.
Finally, the missionary task is rooted in sharing the actual truth of Christ, as it was received and recorded by the early church in the Scriptures. It is a deposit of faith that must be carefully guarded (II Tim. 2:14). Therefore, missionaries need to not only learn to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, but also to do so in conversation with the historic consensus of Christians throughout the ages, especially on doctrines like the Trinity, the full divinity and humanity of Christ, the inspiration and inerrancy of God’s word, and salvation by faith alone.
Therefore, our curriculum has interwoven deep theological synthesis and interaction with historic voices to guide students in what they share cross-culturally with others. Students memorize the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, address issues like the role of Great Tradition in how we read the Bible, and develop strategies for how they might resource new Christians with the ancient wisdom of those who have gone before.
The result is the six-course BibleMesh Missionary Certificate Track, which trains students in how to read and interpret the Bible, move from the Bible to articulating what Christians ought to believe, and how to proclaim what the Bible says to others and teach them to read and interpret it for themselves.
Students study one-on-one with a credentialed instructor, pay as they go, and can start and stop courses at any time. Our courses are credit-bearing at the college or seminary level through our institutional partnerships, so students can go on to earn a degree at one of their partner schools if desired.
If you are a missionary seeking to be equipped in your calling to join God in his global mission, or if you are a mission agency or church looking for ways to better equip those you are sending out, get in touch with us here.