The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, has launched his 2007 Lent Appeal by urging churchgoers in his diocese to dig deep to support the training of new Christian leaders in the developing world.
In addition to creating a Bishop of Lichfield Overseas Training Fund, this year's Lent Appeal will also be used to kick-start a major fund-raising appeal for Shallowford House, the Lichfield Diocesan conference centre at Shallowford, near Stone in Staffordshire.
In his appeal brochure, Jonathan Gledhill said his decision to raise funds for the church in the developing world followed an appeal by the former Bishop of Kuching in Malaysian Borneo.
He said: "The Christian church in Malaysia is one of the fastest growing parts of the worldwide church. The Christian population of Malaysia has grown from less than four per cent in 1980 to over 10 per cent in 2000 and it continues to grow.
"And this poses great problems for the Church. Where do they find the trained clergy and lay ministers to lead the ever-growing churches and Christian communities? The Victorian model of sending trained missionaries from the West is not the solution today."
He added: "When I visited Sarawak, in Malaysia, for the first time in 2005 I was overwhelmed to see how busy the clergy were. Sunday services began at a very early hour so they can fit the many different services into the day. Malaysia is a country with many different languages so the churches hold different services for different language groups. And they are all packed!
"The bishops and clergy in Malaysia tell me that one of their biggest needs is to train the newly-called locally-grown leaders. It's not just the cost of theological formation for priests, but preparatory training for both priests and lay leaders. Their training library is so small.
"Malaysia is not unique in this need. Another of our companion dioceses - Matlosane in South Africa - is experiencing similar needs and the Anglican mission agency USPG is working very hard to fund theological and leadership training in growing churches in some of the poorest countries across the world."
