This last June I visited numerous churches in Argentina and shared a vision for a church planting movement. One church was in Sunchales, south of Rafaela in central Argentina. Pastor Ezequiel has a wonderful church there and a big vision for planting new churches. Today I received a very encouraging email from Pastor Ezequiel. He said,
“I want to share with you that Sunchales has begun a new church on the other side of the city with two new families in a community called Colón. They were two families that we had in Sunchales when you came and were a motivator for us. I ask for your prayers as we believe this can be the beginning of a movement.”
This story illustrates the work of Hispanics for Christ. We cast vision, help with strategy and resources and follow-up to hopefully see many, many new churches started among Hispanics throughout the Americas.
Sharing the Gospel in Queretaro, MX.
Hispanics for Christ has connected three churches in the USA with Hispanic churches in Latin America this summer. Teams will be leaving in July and August to work alongside Hispanic churches in Mexico and Paraguay. Hillcrest Baptist in Sultan, Washington, The Table in Portland, Oregon and Grosse Point Baptist in Michigan will be serving what will hopefully become sister churches and lead to long term relationships.
Long term relationships are something Latin American churches are looking for. They are looking for sister churches to pray for them, send teams to help them with evangelism and discipleship in the course of planting new churches and simply to be an encouragement. Connecting these churches is one of the goals of Hispanics for Christ.
We have found in the city of San Lorenzo and all it’s communities and in Pastor Alcides Gonzales a welcome and openness to planting new churches on a large scale. I presented to a group of 50 pastors and leaders the idea of multiplying simple churches and they were very excited. We’ve done some initial planning and established some next steps for the work here.
I watched Paraguay beat Japan today in the World Cup play-offs and the city erupted in celebration with their win. As I watched people wave banners, flags and singing cheers I was feeling the same way about ministry starting here for us. this is going to be a big win for the kingdom of God!
We have just completed our second presentation of six for this trip to Argentina. Eduardo Buldain and Geoff Hartt presented the seminar “Five Principles to Encourage a Church Planting Movement” in Salta in the north of the country and this is a ripe harvest field! All the ingredients for s movement of new churches are in place.
We can present the vision for a church planting movement but if the local church isn’t ready to embrace the model and the people aren’t open to the Gospel there won’t be success. But that’s not the story here. In Pastors Nico and his brother Lucio they have a great vision of planting churches in each of the hundreds of barrios in Salta but also throughout the state and this region of South America.
Lord willing we will be able to encourage, support and resource this movement and the result will be dozens if not hundreds of new churches over the next decade.
Tomorrow we go on south to teach in three more churches in Argentina and finish the week in Paraguay.
Portland pastors planning over breakfast.
Today a new team of Hispanic pastors began meeting to begin working together to plant new Hispanic churches in the Northwest. We have eight pastors ready to start new churches around the Portland Metro area. Pastor Antonio Lopez will be leading the training and stratigizing with these men. We hope to have three new churches by the end of summer and from these new churches national missionaries will be prepared and sent out to start new churches in their home towns throughout Latin America.
