The Governing Body is keenly aware of the growing need for qualified men to care for responsibilities in the field as well as in the various branches of the Society. Steps have been taken to help meet this need.

The Ministerial Training School

You graduates of the 82nd class of Gilead, as well as all who have been present for this most upbuilding occasion, will be glad to know that in the fall of 1987 a new school will be opened. This Ministerial Training School, as it will be called, will be a part of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, thus enabling brothers from some other lands to attend. The first class is expected to commence around October 1 of this year in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., the initial center of the Society’s early development. Following the completion of the first class, other classes will be conducted at regular intervals in different parts of the United States.

Definite Scriptural requirements must be met by those to be enrolled. Training will be given initially to single elders and single ministerial servants who are in good health. If some are pioneers, so much the better. Those invited to the school must be willing to serve, following their training, wherever there is a need in the worldwide field. This will call for the spirit of Isaiah, who offered himself willingly, saying: “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) You graduates of this 82nd class, along with missionaries already serving in over a hundred lands, can look forward in due time to having other trained brothers working shoulder to shoulder with you.

An entirely new curriculum has been prepared for the Ministerial Training School. The school has been established for the purpose of training qualified brothers who have had some organizational experience as elders or ministerial servants in the congregation.

Now there is in store a further fine teaching program for qualified men with some experience in caring for congregational responsibility. They will be trained with godly devotion in view, which will help them maintain the right perspective and equip them to focus on what Paul further wrote to Timothy: “Let no man ever look down on your youth. On the contrary, become an example to the faithful ones in speaking, in conduct, in love, in faith, in chasteness. . . . Continue applying yourself to public reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Ponder over these things; be absorbed in them, that your advancement may be manifest to all persons.”​—1 Timothy 4:12, 13, 15.

As in the case of Timothy, those brothers appointed to congregational responsibility today, including younger men, should realize that this is an appropriate and urgent time for them to make their advancement manifest. By doing so, they will give evidence in a heartfelt way of measuring up to divine standards and of having a genuine disposition to care for spiritual interests, thus being qualified for further privileges of service.​—Philippians 2:20, 21.

In view of the need that exists at this stage in the outworking of the divine purpose, it is a privilege to be used by Jehovah anywhere within his organization. How grateful we are to him as our Great Shepherd and to the Fine Shepherd, Jesus Christ, for this new, timely organizational provision, the Ministerial Training School!