Unlikely Ecuadorian church planters prove effective

By Dea Davidson

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (BP)--Seven years of moisture and exposure through the cheap, wooden frame have soiled the thin paper, but the faded certificate retains a prominent spot on the cement wall. Carlos Solis proudly points out the inscription: he is an official church planter.

Solis and about a dozen other Ecuadorians equally proud of their certificates weren’t exactly the people missionary Guy Muse had envisioned when he set out to train church planters in July 2000. One woman was blind. Three others were very old. Even Carlos and his wife, Maria, were former drunks who lived in “The Frontier” – a zone of Guayaquil where gangs meet and clash, and doors are locked by 5 p.m.

Yet within six weeks, the unlikely workers had started four churches. A year later they and other local believers had formed 70 more. Now, more than 100 churches are meeting in the streets and barrios (neighborhoods) of poverty-stricken Guayaquil.

Guy and his wife, Linda, both native Texans, have served among the 3.3 million Mestizos – mixed Spanish and Indian people – of the Guayaquil area for 20 years.

People of this city, which serves as a port to the Galapagos Islands, hold to a culture of nominal Roman Catholicism, with fewer than 5 percent of the population evangelicals.

“People on the coast of Ecuador are very open,” Guy says. “They know that they’re sinners. They know that they need God. Those are things that help us because they prepare the way for presenting Christ. We’re getting to harvest what many of our fellow missionaries that came before us had planted and watered.”

Guy was one of the first Baptists to plant seeds in Ecuadorian soil. In 1963, he arrived in the capital city of Quito as a missionary kid. He remembers handing out tracts with his dad on street corners, watching people rip the paper in pieces and throw them in his face.

Openness to the Gospel – and the strategies used to bring it to the Ecuadorian people – have changed in the past 30 years. In 1997, with the average Baptist church baptizing seven people a year, the work took on a new direction. Missionaries began focusing on building house churches rather than starting churches with buildings.

In March 2000 the Muses and the Guayaquil team began praying for the Lord to send helpers. Five months later, the Solis’ church became the first answer to those prayers.

At a missions meeting, Linda announced a church starting goal that people weren’t confident could happen.

“The next year at the missions meeting,” Linda says, “we got to get up and say, ‘We started 33 churches by December.’”

Casting a vision for reaching the country’s largest city is one of the first things Guy does every seven weeks as he begins another training group. Through radio announcements and word-of-mouth, between 20 and 30 Ecuadorian believers pour into the training center each week to learn how to start la iglesia en tu casa – the church in your house. When these servant-leaders lead people to Christ, they are expected to follow up within 48 hours and immediately begin discipling. Within four weeks, each trainee is to start a new Bible study that will become a functioning house church. Guy’s role is to train these disciples in church planting skills as the Ecuadorians to reach their own people.


Marlene Lorenti, a single mom and hairdresser turned Bible teacher, is one of the results of Guy’s training. Testimonies of her faithfulness in leading her neighbors and friends to Christ come from those who meet at her beauty shop for church. A new church started from this group meets 45 minutes away in another area.

“Marlene is an on-fire evangelist,” Guy says. “She has done everything that we’ve talked about. I feel like that’s my job, to empower people.”

Through servant-leaders like Marlene, the number of house churches in Guayaquil continues to expand, some even replicating to the second and third generations. As the Muses and their team continue catalyzing church plants, they also are looking for stateside partners to carry the Gospel to unreached pockets of their province. By teaming up with Ecuadorian churches, Southern Baptists have an opportunity to strategically take the Good News to people in coastal Ecuador.

“This is the time when we need to be putting everything into the effort,” Guy says. “We have an open window of opportunity like never before. This is not the time to be holding back. We need to put everything into finishing the task. It’s finishable.”

To volunteer, check out the “Go” section of samregion.org. The Muses are among the more than 5,500 Southern Baptist international missionaries supported by the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The close-out date for 2008 offering receipts is May 31, 2009. To learn more about the offering, go to imb.org/offering.

-Dea Davidson covered this story as an overseas correspondent with the International Mission Board.

What is our missionary role in the cities of Latin America?

What if, for some reason, we suddenly had to pull out of all the major cities in the Americas? No more missionaries in Bogotá, San José, Lima, Asunción, Sao Paolo, BA...would it really make any difference? Would we really be missed? So why are we still in the cities? Why are most of our missionary personnel still in places like Caracas, Santiago, Mexico City, Quito, Guatemala City?

I have a few thoughts about the roles we missionaries play in the cities of Latin America where the Gospel has already taken root. If we use the analogy of the missionary task to that of a field being planted, the farmer first plows the ground, plants the seed, waters the seed, pulls the weeds, and eventually harvests his crop.

Those missionaries who came before us did an excellent job in plowing the hard ground, planting the Gospel seed, and watering the seed through a host of ministries, institutions and programs.

But I would argue that those initial three phases now belong primarily to the national church and are no longer our tasks as missionaries.

In many parts of Latin America the work is mature. The national church is effectively carrying out these roles as effectively--or better in many cases--than we foreign missionaries were able to do.

So, what then is the missionary task that justifies our presence in the major cities of Latin America?

I propose that our missionary role and presence in the cities is validated by the extent of our engagement in the later phases of "weeding" and in many places "bringing in the harvest."

How do I define "weeding?" Weeds are what compete with the sowed grain and negatively impact bringing in a bumper crop. After two decades in Guayaquil I can name those weeds that are most hurting us: discouragement, distractions, divisions (the 3 D's of the Devil.) The missionary task, as I understand it is to be a prophetic voice "weeding out" the 3 D's of the Devil. There are probably other "weeds" out there, but these three seem universal in harvest fields. Our role is to help identify in the churches, ministries, institutions, and conventions, the weeds which are choking out the harvest which God wants to bring in.

Nobody likes to pull weeds. But what happens to a crop if nobody hoes weeds? All the hard previous labor will fall short of its potential. The thieving weeds will ruin a harvest! How weed pulling is played out will surely vary from city to city and region to region, but it must be addressed.

The other final phase is to bring home the harvest.

I see in this missionary phase the task as primarily an administrative, logistical role of coordinating, training, mobilizing, motivating, and inspiring people. We can't possibly bring home the harvest by ourselves. To finish the task, the Lord of the Harvest is going to have to touch many hearts. Our part is to be an instrument that He uses as a mouthpiece, a voice, the go-between to get people from point-A to point-B where the harvest is taking place.

We are the ones who need to thoroughly understand concepts like partnering, networking, mobilizing, how people communicate today, and understanding today's generations and cultural values to harness that energy to bring in the harvest the Lord has been preparing for decades in the cities of Latin America.

So, what do you think? Should we still be giving our missionary time to plowing, planting, watering, as well as to weeding and harvesting? Would you add/subtract anything to the above? Again, I am speaking more in the context of the missionary task, not as what we the Church should be engaged in. Till Christ returns, the church should be out there making disciples of the nations. But where do we engage our priorities as missionaries? That is the question.

Like Zoo Animals

Missions, Misunderstood has often made me squirm with his poignant thought-provoking analysis of today's church and missions in general. I don't always 100% agree with everything written, but he always has something well worth considering. Take for example the following January 11 post...

You may have heard about the controversy over the elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo is building a $42 million exhibit for Billy, its only elephant. There are three sides to the argument: those who say that $42 mil is too much to spend on one elephant, those who say the new “Pachyderm Forest” project is just what the zoo (and Billy) needs, and those who say that it is cruel to keep elephants in captivity, no matter how much is spent.

Reading about the controversy got me thinking about Christians. I’m a huge advocate of total church involvement in missions. I believe that the church’s gifting, authority, and accountability are vital to obedient and successful missions.

Nevertheless, church people aren’t always prepared for ministry in the real world. The way I see it, our modern expression of church is a lot like a zoo. We’ve got all kinds; the old urban zoos that are little more than cages in a central park. The theme-park kids of zoos with multi-million-dollar attractions. Some mimic the animals’ habitats in the wild. Others seem like they’re more for show. We’ve got zoos that were designed for conservation, rehabilitation, education, entertainment, even research. The thing about zoos is their influence on animal health and behavior.

It’s called “institutionalization.”

It seems to me that there are three kinds of Christians; those who have left the wild and have been brought into the zoo, and those who were born and raised in captivity, and those who continue to live in the wild.

• Those who came to faith outside the church setting are quickly assimilated into the Christian culture. They are taught to speak, act, and think like a Christian (each according to the customs of his local zoo, of course.) On the one hand, this process is seen as a rescue operation. On the other, it’s a cruel and unnecessary act that strips a person of his ability to relate, understand, and survive in what was his natural environment.

• Believers who grew up in church really don’t stand a chance in the wild. Their dependence on doctors, caregivers, guards, and spectators makes them unprepared to face the challenges of life in the real world. They position themselves in pecking order, clinging to the members of their small groups for social comfort.

• Christians who operate outside the walls of an institutionalized church. Some simply slipped through the cracks of the programs that the church designed for them. Others came to faith through real relationships and have never found it necessary to trade real life for a safely synthetic one. These aren’t lone wolves- they move in dynamic but fiercely loyal packs and herds.

For some reason, the first two kinds of Christians are the ones the church sends out on mission, and left and right, they’re being devoured by dangers and distractions of life in the wild. We need more of the third kind of Christian, the ones outside the institution. The truth is, they’re already doing ministry , and they’re doing it better, more humbly, and more cheaply than the zoo ever could. It comes quite naturally to them. But they need the church’s approval, support, prayer, and encouragement.

Institutional church is bad for believers, bad for ministry, and bad for the environment. Okay, maybe not so bad for the environment, but you know what I mean.

Is the above writer stating his case too strongly? Is IC really BAD for believers, BAD for ministry, BAD for the environment? If you disagree, how would you restate the issue?

Church planters or Gospel planters?

More good stuff from David Watson's Touchpoint blog.

When I train church planters or discuss what I have seen in church planting, the first question I hear is, “What kind of churches are you planting anyway?” The tone of the question is usually full of doubt, and at times, derision. Many who ask the question are well trained by their churches or church planting organizations. They are often theologically trained, and have had success in church planting according to their understanding of church planting. They know they are well-trained, committed to the task, devoted to the Lord, and unable to produce the same results. Therefore, there must be something wrong somewhere in what I am doing since they cannot do the same. I have been dealing with this question in its myriad forms since 1996.

What most seem to miss on the first exposure to our training and materials is that we are not church planters, we are Gospel Planters. This is key! There are thousands of kinds of churches, but there is only one Gospel. Certainly, our hope is that churches are based on the Gospel, but when we start a new church, what is the foundation? Is the foundation of the new church the church I came from with all its cultural heritages, or is the foundation of the new church the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Church has two major parts – The teachings of the Bible, and the cultural expressions of obedience to these teachings that have developed over time and may have been borrowed from different cultures and times. Insiders in the church understand their culture without asking where it came from, but when we begin the process of church planting, we must not make our church culture the foundation for the new church, or it will fail. By failure, I mean it will not naturally reproduce in the new context.

In our ministry, we define success by reproduction. I really don’t care how many churches anyone has planted. You tell me you have planted 100 churches, and my next question will be, “How many churches did the 100 churches you planted start in the next year?” Success for leadership is defined by how many new leaders a leader reproduces every year.

In a recent training event I asked the trainees who where the people I was engaged in training. They looked around and then said, “Us.” I responded, “No, I am here to train your trainers.” Success is easy to spot. There will be three generations present. I will be present. The ones I am training will be present. And the ones my trainees are training will be present.

I am currently in an evaluation process in West Africa. I want to see three or more generations of leaders present, or I have failed. So, I ask the leader I am working with, “Tell me about the people you are mentoring, and tell me about the people your mentorees are mentoring.” There is always an expectation of three generations, minimum. All good leaders are intimately aware of the two generations below him or her and the one generation above him or her.

Back to church planting - Culture is extremely difficult to pass on to others because it requires people to leave behind or lose their own culture in order to adopt the new one. This is a barrier most people are not willing to jump. Very few people, and in some cultures no one, wants to be seen as different. This makes it difficult or impossible to start new churches if the foundation of the new church is a church culture from another time and another place.

So, what kind of churches do we plant, anyway? We don’t. We strive to plant the Gospel of Jesus Christ and let it transform individuals, families and communities so that a culturally relevant and redeemed church will emerge. As we introduce the Gospel we ask the question, “If this is from God, what are you going to do about it?” We insist that the role of any Believer is to be obedient to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and allow it to redeem self, family, community and culture.

We don’t plant churches! We plant the Gospel and allow it to redeem peoples. As they become obedient to the Gospel, then worship emerges out of their culture and is acceptable to the culture within the limits set by the Word of God. As they struggle with the Word, new leadership forms develop. As they strive with the new and push out that which is not from God, unique systems develop that look like the local culture, but are redeemed by the Gospel. The church emerges out of obedience to the Word of God and expresses itself in uniquely cultural ways, thus removing or limiting the barriers of foreign culture and times.

Churches grow from the soil of culture where the seed of the Gospel is planted. This leads to churches that can naturally and quickly reproduce. This causes leaders who can reproduce. It makes disciples, who by the very definition of “disciple” reproduce more disciples.

Everyone is trained to ask the question, “In this situation how will I/we be obedient to the Word of God?” Faith is defined as being obedient to the Word of God regardless of what it may cost, even our lives.

These are the kind of churches we see grow out of the Gospel we plant. They are obedient. They grow and they reproduce as a natural part of being and doing church. It starts slow, but exponentially reproduces very quickly. They become a Church Planting Movement.

Former gang members reaching Guayaquil with Gospel

By Dea Davidson

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (BP)--In crime-heavy Guayaquil, Ecuador, where more than 60,000 youth are involved in gangs, the scene at the public park looks like something to avoid.

A dozen young men lounge around the concrete, outdoor amphitheater. One guy — wearing a backward New York Yankees hat, shades and chains — sits hunched over. Another with tattoos and dreadlocks drops down next to a youth sporting a carefully carved beard line from his bottom lip to chin.

Years ago these men might have been plotting an operation with guns and violence. Today these one-time rival gang leaders are planning to bring the Good News back to their “hoods” through Christian Latin rap.

“Every one of these guys, the Lord has called them to different parts of Guayaquil,” says group leader Byron Garcia. “We join together to be able to assist in their part of the city. Before we knew Christ, we used to get together and beat up on one another with our gangs. Now we gang up together to evangelize.”

Poverty, a desire for family stability and curiosity often are the carrots that draw the city’s youth to gangs. Each young man around the circle had his reasons.

For rapper and former gang leader Jose Luis — also known by his stage name, “Poetico” — drinking, drug addiction and sexual promiscuity marked his life. But problems with his kidneys and liver plunged him into despair. He lost the will to live. Finally he realized Christ wanted to redeem his life, and he accepted that invitation. It’s a decision his old gang refuses to accept.

“There are many of us who have been persecuted, shot at, for coming over to Christ’s side,” Luis says. “We have enemies in the world. But thanks to God, we’re all still alive. Nobody has lost their lives yet.”

Garcia, Luis and their new brothers in Christ have banded together to bring Guayaquil to a saving knowledge of the Lord. They host neighborhood concerts of Christian hip-hop and reggaeton (a form of Spanish-language music popular throughout Latin America). At each performance they invite the youth to accept Christ.

“It’s like the Lord comes to them and helps them to remember their own pain and suffering,” Garcia says. “They can see through my life what they, too, could have lived. Seeing me in this wheelchair shows them that this is no game.” Garcia was paralyzed in an altercation with police in which he was shot five times.

The ministry team — under the training and mentoring of International Mission Board missionary Guy Muse — pull together new believers to form house churches. By offering discipleship plans, Guy provides ways for the evangelists to enhance their efforts.

Each Sunday night the rappers gather with friends for fellowship and Bible study — a house church that sometimes meets on the sidewalk of a busy city street. Songs of praise rise above the very neighborhood once terrorized by these young men, who now call themselves “Jesus Rappers.”

“We all have the same ministry to reach the unevangelized,” Garcia says. “We throw out nets and see what we catch. Those who believe, we disciple them and a whole series of events happen. We’re confident God is going to do great things in Guayaquil.”

Nuggets of wisdom we are trying to live by (Part 2)

Mother Teresa wrote, "Slowly I am learning to accept everything just as He gives it." Am I learning to accept all things without complaining and whining , understanding that it is God who allowed it?

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote,

Earth's crammed with heaven
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries...

Am I seeing God in every common bush, or am I one of those plucking blackberries?

In spite of everything, it is still a beautiful world.

Excellence is in the details. Attention to details is one of the ways I worship God who is worthy of my best.

People come first. Everything else falls in line behind them.

We are blessed to be a blessing (Psalm 67). Am I using my blessings to bless others?

Jesus and others and you: what a wonderful way to spell JOY... When I lose my joy, maybe it is because I am focusing more on myself than Jesus and those others he has placed in my life.

The facts and truths of God's Word are my anchor when the storms of life seek to sink my ship. Feelings and emotions are unreliable means to judge what is happening.

God gives us 24 hours every day to be divided up into balanced eight-hour blocks of work, play, and rest.

Marriage is work.
Time spent improving our marriage counts as work time.
Marriage is play.
Time spent playing together counts as play time.
Marriage is rest.
Time spent resting together counts as rest time.

Family is work.
Time spent strengthening our family counts as work time.
Family is play.
Time spent playing with family counts as play time.
Family is rest.
Time spent resting with family counts as rest time.

Do it anyway. Do things simply because they need to be done. Don't wait for someone else to do the good deed, just do it. Instead of worrying, fretting and procrastination, do it and get it over with. My deepest regrets are usually those things I did NOT do, more than those I did do, that maybe didn't turn out as hoped. [For more on this one, see here.]

Simplify. Get rid of the clutter in my life and in our home. Do what I can to help others simplify their complicated lives. Less is more.

Nuggets of wisdom we are trying to live by (Part 1)

Be faithful in the little things. God will accomplish much through my small acts of obedience.

Thoughts are sub-conscience prayers. Be aware of what I am praying.

What is not given is lost. Are we hanging on to anything that ought to be given away?

Live off of 70% of what we make. Divide the remaining 30% between Kingdom causes and personal savings/investments. If we can't live within the 70% then we need to adjust our lifestyle. Adjustments are made within the 70%, not the 30% designations.

Never go into debt for anything beyond what I am able to pay off within 2-3 month's time. Any debt should be backed by other existing personal assets before the debt is incurred. Use savings/investments to acquire needed or desired things, not debt.

One negative comment packs more power in someone's life than a dozen positive or uplifting remarks. I need to be very careful how and what I communicate with others. If I can't build someone up, it is better to keep silent rather than using my words to tear down.

Confront problems, hurts, misunderstandings, and mistakes as soon as possible. Don't allow Satan to carry out his agenda of rejection, suffering, division, fear, and pain.

Devote 80% of my time, energy, attention in work/ministry to the 20% who actually "get it" and are seeking to be obedient Kingdom disciples. The remaining 20% of my time, energy, attention in work/ministry for everyone else.

What does God have to say about it? It is not about me deciding everything and doing things as I deem best. If He is Lord, he is lord of ALL, including the things I think I can handle on my own without his input.

This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. This is a choice I have to make daily.

John the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Who is actually increasing/decreasing in my life? Am I moving in the right direction?

Seek first His Kingdom. Does this thing seek to advance my kingdom or His Kingdom?

Charles Swindoll writes that life is 10% what happens and 90% of how I react to it. Am I focusing more on what has happened, or how I am reacting to what has happened?

Ecuadorian house churches support own missionary

The following story was written for Baptist Press 12-18-08 by Dea Davidson, an overseas correspondent with the International Mission Board. José Chillambo, is one of the young men the Lord called out of the Guayaquil house churches as an international missionary. José currently serves with the Xtreme team in the jungles of Perú.

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (BP)--When young people consider joining the International Mission Board’s South American Xtreme team to take the Gospel to difficult-to-access areas, they might be drawn by the “extreme” aspects of the training – learning to build rafts, cooking over a campfire and surviving in the mountains.

But for Ecuadorian missionary Jose Chillambo, the team’s unconventional skill set is nothing new – he grew up in a tropical rain forest. He wants to train alongside the team to learn the skills he needs to touch the hearts of those living on the extreme edges of lostness.

“The idea of going out to the ends of the earth appeals to him,” says missionary Guy Muse.

Chillambo has grown up spiritually in a house church network in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where Texas natives Guy and his wife, Linda, serve as church-planting trainers and mentors.

His first day as a new believer, Chillambo traveled with a pastor to remote mountain villages to find people who had never heard about Christ. That day, he was called to missions.

“What struck me was in the city there are many, many Christians crawling all over each other,” Chillambo says. “No one wanted to go out to the extreme edges, the countryside. I was really touched because no one was willing to go. My passion is not to travel to another country but to go where people have never heard the Gospel.”

While Chillambo was starting house churches in the coastal city and serving as a national partner to Southern Baptist missionaries, Muse suggested Xtreme Team training to prepare him for his calling. The Afro-Ecuadorian accepted the challenge, but with help. More than 100 house churches in Guayaquil are supporting him by raising $200 – a collection of $1 and $2 individual tithes – each month to pay for Chillambo’s training, food and supplies.

“We’ve accepted that challenge to come up with that money,” Muse says of the house churches. “We’ve been to Judea, Samaria and now we’re in the uttermost parts of the earth.”