New wave in church planting;
Mexico City (LAMNS)--What do five Mexicans-a housewife, an aerobics instructor, a pastor, a hairdresser, a former prison guard-and an American missionary all have in common?
These six individuals form a church-planting team that for the past several months has been targeting La Presa, a burgeoning urban neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City.
In many ways this team serves as a model of the new wave in church planting. Most of the team members are not missionaries, but regular church members who have committed time every week to visit La Presa. They pray, share the Gospel door-to-door, lead Bible studies, visit contacts and disciple new believers.
An all-church effort
The entire church body is behind them. The budding "mission church" is seen as a ministry of the whole congregation, not just those who do the visitations. On a regular basis, the team shares updates with the mother church, Iglesia Bautista Bet-lehem, during Sunday worship services. And every week over 60 of the church’s 100-person membership gather to pray for specific needs in La Presa.
Alberto Nova, prison guard turned children’s minister, heads up the La Presa team. "Prayer has been fundamental for us," he says. "We have seen that because of the foundation laid in prayer, the hearts of the people have opened more easily."
Every week the team spends hours together in prayer-praying for the specific needs of those they are visiting in La Presa and claiming the neighborhood for Christ. "We started visiting door-to-door and found that the people seemed just to be waiting for us to arrive to receive Christ," states pastor and Latin America Mission missionary Manuel Vivanco, who was raised in La Presa and has passed on his burden for the area to his congregation.
Typical of a lower-class neighborhood on the outskirts of a megalopolis like Mexico City, La Presa has somewhere between 800,000 and a million people. "Geographically speaking, La Presa is on the top edge of a hill and almost all of the streets are steep hills, many with an incline of 45 degrees," admits Manuel.
Teamwork the key
This is where teamwork comes in. "The advantage we’ve seen, above all," says Nova, "has been in the area of encouragement. We pray for one another when we’re feeling down. We’ve seen that with visitations and walking the streets, when one gets discouraged, someone else can lift him up."
And it helps to know that the whole congregation shares the burden for seeing the church in La Presa raised up. Iglesia Bet-lehem is less than ten years old and recently began its own building project. Also in a lower-class neighborhood, most of the church members are from the working class and raising the funds for the building has been slow.
Yet they eagerly pursue the God-given vision to reach out. "The vision for missions has been growing as time passes," says Pastor Manuel. "God has been encouraging us to lift our eyes to see the people around us who are in need of Christ."
Another team has formed from the congregation to plant a church in the nearby town of Nexquipayac and the church is praying about a third mission endeavor in another area.
Missionary participation
Since its beginnings some 80 years ago, the Latin America Mission has sought to work alongside the national church. Now this philosophy is being applied to church planting as well. For over a century, foreign missionaries have come to Latin America to plant and pastor churches. Turning over the leadership to national pastors has been the challenge of recent decades. But now a new era has begun. The Evangelical Church in Latin America is coming of age.
"The national church has matured to a place where it can multiply itself in missions with or without the help of foreign missionaries," says LAM missionary John Pieters. As the Holy Spirit strengthens and matures the national church in Latin America, the role of foreign missionaries is changing to one of support and empowerment, especially in the area of church planting.
The LAM has been involved with La Iglesia Bet-lehem since its beginnings. In the early 90s, short-term missionaries serving with LAM’s Spearhead program assisted Pastor Manuel when the church was in its early stages. "Spearhead volunteers contributed to the development of the mother church, helping form a strong base from which other missions have been established," says LAM missionary Harry Burke, founder of Spearhead, LAM’s short-term training and service program for young adults.
One Spearheader, Laura King, who first served with the Bet-lehem church in 1992 says, "My time with Spearhead helped me to see that God was calling me to a more permanent ministry in Mexico." Laura now plays a key role in the ministry of the church as the wife of Pastor Manuel.
Goals and future plans
God has been blessing the efforts of the team over the past months. In March, 14 people from La Presa attended the first Sunday evening service for a time of worship, fellowship and learning. Since then the group has been growing slowly and the team hopes to see the congregation well established by the end of the year. "Our desire is to raise up a national leader for the mission in La Presa," says Pieters. "We have a few young converts now who show great potential for this kind of future leadership."
God has called his people to make disciples of all nations and the Bet-lehem church is taking that call seriously.
So if you ask the housewife, the aerobics instructor, the pastor, the hairdresser, the prison guard and the missionary what they have in common, they’ll tell you that they are a team. And that church planting is an exciting venture when you’re in it together.
By Tracey Pieters
The Latin America Mission works in partnership with churches and Christian agencies throughout Latin America and supports missionaries and projects in many Latin countries as well as in Spain. LAM is seeking to place new missionaries throughout the region. The U.S. headquarters can be reached at Latin America Mission, Box 52-7900, Miami, FL 33152, by e-mail at info@lam.org, or by calling 1-800-275-8410. The mission’s web site may be found at http://www.lam.org. LAM’s Canadian office is at 3075 Ridgeway Drive, Unit 14, Missassauga, ON L5L 5M6.