Where the Work
Takes Root.

§ 01One Work, Three Places.

In every place, the work has one shape.

• We train pastors, elders and groups in the Bible, character, doctrine and the care of souls, while they keep serving where they are. Groups are believers who meet to study Scripture and pray together, with the people who lead them.
• We send trained leaders and planting teams (core groups of believers who go together) to make disciples and plant churches among the people they know.
• We multiply by standing with them for years, so that disciples make disciples and churches plant churches.

Among the nations, partner ministries lead that work and ENDS stands with them. Here at home, it is what we are seeking to do. Thailand, India and rural America are the places where the one work takes root: one story told in three places, with the same convictions and the same hope in each. What we learn in one place shapes the work in the others.

The pattern has a name: the hub model. A hub is a healthy local church, or a trusted partner ministry, that trains pastors, elders and groups and sends them out. Those leaders plant small, sustainable churches with little overhead, each its own church with its own name and its own elders, and those churches are free to join a network for training, care and accountability. In time, a mature church becomes a hub that trains others. The Hub Model explains it step by step.

James Bell, who founded ENDS, has learned from national pastors in Thailand and India, and those relationships shaped everything ENDS hopes to do. They also shape how we hope to work at home: the way a missionary would, listening first, training local leaders and sending them to plant churches in small towns.

Jesus told his disciples that when the Holy Spirit came upon them they would receive power and be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and “to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8 (paraphrased)

Jesus gave one commission, and it held the near and the far together. The church in Jerusalem kept bearing witness at home while the gospel traveled outward. ENDS stands for Equipping Nationals and Discipling Shepherds, and the name carries a second meaning from this verse: the Ends of the Earth Initiative. Both describe the one work in every place: equipping leaders who belong to the people they serve, and discipling the shepherds who care for each church.

§ 02Thailand: Leaders Resourced to Stay.

In Thailand, ENDS stands with the Servant Leadership Ministry Foundation (SLMIF), founded in Chiang Mai in 2019 by Rev. Dr. Yupho Mathusonsawan under the motto “Bring leaders back to the basics.” SLMIF leads its own programs. James Bell serves on its advisory board and teaches in its Servant Leadership Academy.

The Academy trains pastors, church planters, lay leaders and emerging ministry workers in cohorts: groups of leaders who study together over several months. SLMIF describes a program of 123 academic hours, taught online in weekly cohorts, which leaders complete alongside the ministry they already carry.¹

SLMIF's Frontline Mission, led by Pastor Pornsawan Mathusonsawan, works with local networks to find evangelists who are already serving in frontier regions and are trusted by the people around them. It sums up its method in three words, “Find. Train. Release.”, and in one sentence: “We don't recruit them to leave; we resource them to stay.” Those are SLMIF's words.

Churches have long asked who will go. This approach also asks who is already there and what they need to keep serving faithfully. That is the pattern we hope to see take root here at home. The SLMIF page describes the foundation, its Academy and its frontline workers.

The church in Thailand is small, and many of the country's peoples have little access to the gospel.

SLMIF also supports the Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School and College, and the Karen church shows how long national leaders have carried the gospel in this region. In nineteenth-century Burma, Baptist missionaries such as Adoniram Judson gave their lives to the work. Karen believers such as Ko Tha Byu carried the gospel among the Karen, each with gifts the other needed. The Karen story tells that history.

§ 03India: Pastors Among Their Own People.

In India, ENDS stands with Mission Impact India, which describes itself as founded in 2017 in Kaikaram, Andhra Pradesh, under the motto Serve Christ by Serving Others. David Livingstone leads it. The ministry orders its work in three movements. Rescue confronts child trafficking, poverty and illiteracy. Reveal provides a safe place to stay and nutritious food. Restore disciples people through biblical teaching.

Mission Impact India reports a network of about 250 national pastors. ENDS is confirming that figure and its scope with the ministry, and it is not a count of pastors ENDS has funded or trained. Pastors like these usually know the language, the customs and the people from the inside. What they need from churches elsewhere is what every pastor needs: prayer, continued training, and friends who stand with them over years.

In his own ministry, James Bell has helped to equip national pastors in India. ENDS stands with Mission Impact India's pastors in prayer and hopes to help train them further, offering its curriculum, still in draft, if the ministry finds it useful. The aim there is the aim everywhere: pastors who teach others also, and churches that plant churches.

Read more about Mission Impact India, or see how ENDS stands with both partners, including the proposed sponsorship, on Thailand and India.

§ 04Rural America: The Hope of a Hub.

Why here, and why now? In eleven years as a pastor in church revitalization, James Bell has watched God do great things among the people he has served. He has also seen how much of the model he has helped build says “come and see”: come to the programs, come and attend, while the same few teachers have taught year after year. The believers are faithful, yet few have been shown how to make disciples themselves. The goal is not attendance; it is disciples who make disciples, and churches that plant churches. Thailand showed him that pattern at work, and his letter tells the story in his own words.

Across the country, more Protestant churches closed than opened in 2024, by Lifeway Research's estimate: about 4,000 closures against about 3,800 openings.⁴ In rural America, many towns still have churches with long and faithful histories, and the pressing need is often the leadership pipeline: the steady line of leaders formed to follow those who serve now.

We hope to plant a church in rural America that grows into a hub: a sending church that prepares people for ministry, sends them out and keeps caring for them. It would train pastors, elders and groups, so that women and men throughout the church learn to make disciples. From it, trained leaders and small planting teams would start small, sustainable churches with very little overhead. Most would begin in a home, with a few households led by a trained elder who keeps his job. Some would meet in a storefront, a shared building or a rented hall, whichever suits the town. Homes would never be required, and lower overhead would never mean thinner teaching, unsafe ministry or weaker care. Churches That Start Small describes how they would begin.

Each church planted this way will be its own church, with its own name, elders, members and decisions. None will be a campus or carry the ENDS name or the hub's name; campuses serve many faithful churches well, and this is a different, deliberate choice. Each would be free to join a network for training, coaching (an experienced pastor walking alongside a newer one), care and accountability, though no such network exists yet. In some towns the wiser path will be to help an existing church revitalize, recovering its health and mission, or replant, beginning again with new leaders.

Each church would be led by elders, also called pastors or overseers: qualified men (1 Timothy 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9) whom their own congregation recognizes under Christ, since training alone never makes anyone an elder. Most would be bivocational, working another job so that ministry is possible, or covocational, keeping another job by calling as part of their witness in the town. Full-time pastoral support remains a good path wherever a church can provide it.

We are praying for the families and churches who will take up this work with us, and we will introduce them here as they are ready to be named. The Hub Model explains the strategy step by step, and Training and Curriculum shows how pastors, elders and groups would be trained.

§ 05The People in the Work.

SLMIF asks churches to pray for its missionaries. The SLMIF page describes its Frontline Mission. ENDS shows frontline workers' names only where SLMIF itself publishes them and agrees, so none are listed on this site today.

§ 06How the Work Multiplies.

Paul gave Timothy the pattern for multiplication in a single sentence (2 Timothy 2:2). It reads the same in Chiang Mai, in Andhra Pradesh and in a small American town.

§ 07Help That Runs Both Ways.

In Acts, help moved in more than one direction. Jerusalem sent Barnabas to Antioch, where he and Saul taught the church for a whole year (Acts 11:22–26). Antioch sent relief to the believers in Judea when famine came (11:27–30). Then, while the prophets and teachers in Antioch were worshiping and fasting, the Holy Spirit called for Barnabas and Saul to be set apart, and after more fasting and prayer they laid hands on them and sent them off (13:1–3).

The work is global in that sense too. American churches have much to learn from national churches about prayer, suffering, evangelism and training leaders who stay. SLMIF's Academy, built in Chiang Mai, now lists a USA–Canada cohort for 2026–27, open to pastors, church planters and lay leaders; SLMIF's Academy page gives the details. A hub church here would receive from partners there as much as it gives.

§ 08Common Questions.

§ 09Where This Stands.

§ 10Take Part in the Work.

Wherever you are, the first steps are simple: pray, learn, and talk with someone who knows the work. Write to James Bell through the contact page. Choose “Church partnership” if your church wants to stand with the whole work, or the topic closest to your question.