Programs
Langham Partnership International operates three programs. They are distinct in their operation and administration, but they all serve the same overall objectives, as expressed in our mission and vision statements, and they all reflect the same three convictions summed up in the Langham Logic. In many ways they support one another and work together with as much integration as possible.
Langham Literature
Langham Literature provides evangelical books for pastors, theological students and seminary libraries, and facilitates evangelical writing and publishing in the Majority World. The logic is clearly expressed by John Stott: ‘Pastors can’t preach if they don’t study, and they can’t study if they have no books.’ Books are among the tools of a preacher’s trade, yet in most countries of the Majority World, good books to help pastors study and teach the Bible are scarce and costly.
Every year Langham Literature distributes hundreds of thousands of books in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese all over the world through grant programs to hundreds of libraries and thousands of pastors and students.
Langham Literature also creates books in a wide range of local and regional languages, not by publishing anything in its own name but by facilitating writers, editors and publishers in the Majority World.
Langham Scholars
Where pastors receive training at all, it will often be in a seminary or Bible college. Sometimes the quality of teaching is neither academically competent nor evangelical. But as John Stott says, ‘There is an acknowledged need for seminary teachers who will train the next generation of pastors to be men and women of God, loving pastors, and conscientious expositors of the Word of God.’
LPI provides scholarships to enable younger evangelical teachers from the Majority World with academic ability and leadership potential to study for doctorates in biblical and theological fields. They then return to teaching positions of strategic influence in their own countries. Over the past thirty years more than 120 Langham Scholars have returned to such roles all over the world, and about 80 are currently studying in the U.K., the United States and Canada. We are now also beginning to support those doing doctorates in suitable institutions in the Majority World itself.
Langham Preaching
There is nothing like face-to-face engagement with pastors and Christian leaders in their own context for motivating and equipping people to take seriously the task of expository biblical preaching. The third ministry of LPI is to build movements for biblical preaching in different parts of the world. This includes preaching seminars that typically last for one week and involve about 70-90 men and women at a time. Participants receive a small set of key books on biblical preaching and interpretation from Langham Literature.
An international team of facilitators, including former Langham Scholars, lead these events in cooperation with local leaders or agencies. We are committed to strong local ownership, continuity and follow-up so that ongoing training and mutual encouragement in biblical preaching would take root in each context.