"And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-12).

By God's grace a person arises in the congregation with a burden to serve in the ministry. He more than often leaves his home church untrained, unconfirmed and rarely returns.

By deliberate purpose the church works with her Lord to train up leaders and provide training for those who are called and gifted to serve in the full-time ministry.

Our Lord in His day ignored the professionally trained Jews in favor of training His own disciples. The apostles' qualifications consisted not of degrees they had gained but whether they had been 'with Christ.' Training institutes like seminaries no doubt have brought some benefit to the church, but they also have hampered effective training. ADT steps back closer to Christ's own training methods in order to raise up more effective workers for His harvest.

In order to accomplish this training, the local church needs to develop strategies for training their people at all the different levels starting with the most basic level. ADT assists the church at the last level of training which prepares men for full-time or a ministry of overseeing.

What about training women for ministry?

Undoubtedly, this question on training women will come up. It is unfortunate that there is so much difficulty on this matter. Feminism has created such distortion that it is difficult to speak honestly without sharp reaction. Allow me to share a conclusion and application of this issue below. Please understand that I have worked alongside women in ministry for many years.

ADT speaks about training men because Jesus trained men leaders. If we have strong men leaders, then women will not be so concerned with the unmet needs (example Deborah). Women should not lead or teach over men (1 Timothy 2), but they have a special place for ministry to women (Titus 2). Wives have special roles alongside their husbands to accomplish God’s purpose for the family. Men and women can both be benefited by proper training. We suggest that such sisters, when possible, join in with the men in the large group speaker-oriented sessions. It would be advantageous for men and women to have their own discussion groups.