Revised October 2026. Figures in this essay were checked against current sources, and some claims were corrected to match what ENDS is and does today. Where ENDS stands today is set out on the accountability page.
There are two ways to say a man has been trained. One counts the hours he sat and the certificates he collected. The other watches what he can actually do when the lecture is over. These are not small variations on the same method. They produce different men and different churches. The curriculum we are drafting is built on the second, harder question: not did he attend, but can he now tell the whole biblical story from memory, gather believers who keep meeting, and hand the work to others. That question is the difference between a shepherd and a spectator.
Attendance is easy to measure and easy to fake
Attendance is a convenient number. A school can record who was present, total the hours, and print a document at the end. The document is real. Whether anything took root behind it is another matter entirely.
Paul warns of men who are always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7). The danger is old and it is human. A man can sit under sound teaching for years, take careful notes, gather certificates, and still be unable to open the Scriptures to a room of new believers on his own. Sitting is not the same as shepherding.
On the frontier this gap is not academic. A man returns to a place with no other trained teacher, no Christian bookstore, no nearby church to lean on. If the training only certified that he was present, he arrives home with paper and no capacity. The people waiting for him do not need his transcript. They need him to feed them.
Competency means the module is passed by demonstrated ability
Competency-based training flips the question. A module is not complete when the sessions end. It is complete when the man can do the thing the module exists to produce, in front of witnesses, more than once.
Consider three plain examples from the work we are building. First, can he tell the whole biblical story from memory, from creation to Christ to the church, in order, without notes, in a way an oral community can follow. Second, can he gather believers into a functioning assembly that keeps meeting when he is not standing over it. Third, can he train two apprentices who can then do the same. Each of these is designed to be watched and confirmed, not assumed.
This is why our design is competency-gated. A man does not advance because a calendar moved. He advances because he demonstrated the ability the next phase depends on. If he cannot yet tell the story cleanly, more lectures do not fix that. More practice does. The gate keeps the standard honest and keeps a man from carrying a title he cannot yet bear.
Certificate-collecting produces a different kind of man
When training rewards attendance, it quietly trains men to collect. The credential becomes the goal. A man can accumulate certificates from many programs and mistake the stack for readiness. The stack proves he was taught. It does not prove he can teach.
The pastoral qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are almost entirely about demonstrated life and ability. An elder must be able to teach, must manage his own household well, must hold firm to the trustworthy word so he can both instruct and correct. These are things you observe over time in a man, not things you certify at the end of a term. Scripture already assumes a competency standard.
So the honest measure of training is not what a man has attended but what he can now do that he could not do before. We would rather send out a man who has passed fewer gates but can genuinely feed and gather a church than one carrying a thick folder and an empty hand.
Why this shapes everything on the frontier
The stakes here are stewardship. Every gift toward frontier work is entrusted, whether it supports a missionary family or a national pastor, and the costs of the two are not like for like. What they share is this: a gift toward frontier training can go a long way, which is exactly why the training behind it must be real. Money multiplies whatever it funds. If it funds attendance, it multiplies attendance. If it funds proven ability, it multiplies churches.
This is also why the design is oral-first and in-country. A man is to be formed where he will serve, in the language and rhythm of the people he will shepherd, and tested there. You can read more about that approach in why oral cultures need more than printed curriculum and about the unhurried nature of the work in the slow work of making a shepherd.
We should be plain about where things stand. This curriculum is Draft v0.1. It awaits theological review and partner input, and it has not yet been piloted with any cohort. We are describing the standard we are building toward, not outcomes we are claiming to have finished. That honesty is part of the point. A method that measures real ability has to be honest about its own, too.
James Bell is Founder and Director of ENDS, Lead Pastor of First Baptist Church of Fenton, Michigan, founder of the Pastors Connection Network, and author and creator of LiveWell by James Bell. He writes on world missions, national-pastor training, and the unfinished work of the Great Commission. More about James Bell.