The International Director of Langham Partnership, Chris Wright, has met with nine trainees in Pakistan to equip them to be 'Local Facilitators' in the community.

The team of nine men and woman previously successfully completed three levels of Langham Preaching training. It is now hoped that, following Dr Wright's tutorage, they may become influential and strengthening people in their region.

The Langham Partnership explained that one of the key goals of its 'Langham Preaching' programme from the very start has not merely been to run preaching seminars in other countries with external facilitators, but rather to give birth to nationally led and self-sustaining movements for better biblical preaching.

Langham's preaching programme in Pakistan has been going for three years now and already a good number of pastors and Christian leaders of different denominations in several main cities have attended Langham Preaching seminars at Levels 1, 2 and 3, with facilitators from the UK, Australia and the USA.

The leadership and committee, however, have always been fully in Pakistani hands, and this recent event initiated a new phase.

The plan is that each of these nine local facilitators will establish a small group in their home city and train them in the basic methods of studying and applying the Bible and simple expository preaching - ie the Langham Level 1.

It is hoped that within the coming year up to 80 more people will have completed this basic level of training in their local context and be ready to move on to a national or regional seminar at Level 2.

In this way, expectations are that the whole movement will be established and begin to multiply at local grass roots level, along with the more structured national events in the years ahead.

"The church in Pakistan needs to be more effectively fed and strengthened through good teaching of the Bible, in the context of much opposition from outside and deceptive false teachings from within," the Langham Partnership said.

Langham has testified that it longs to play a part in raising up pastors and lay leaders who will be eager to preach the Bible well - and know how to do so.