Training: who pays?
It costs £5.7 million to train a fast jet RAF pilot, and almost £250,000 to train a doctor or dentist. Financial consultants KPMG spend £92,000 training a graduate. It even costs up to £30,000 to train a guide dog for the blind. On the other hand, a typical Bible college receives just £13,500 for two to three years full-time training.
As will become clear when we investigate costs later in this piece, an obvious question arises. How does it cost less to train a man for the pastoral ministry over three years than it does to train a dog for a little over a year-and-a-half? And how do you train a pastor, missionary or evangelist for a twentieth of what it costs to train a doctor?