House Church Strategy
Introduction:
After prayer, study, receiving input from others, and a series of meetings, GFM has recently revamped its overall strategy for reaching the Mixtec people of Oaxaca . What this does not mean is that GFM's mission has changed. Our purpose for being here has been and always will be to see the Mixtec region reached with the gospel. What it means is that we have redefined how we think we can best see the area reached for Christ. This shift in strategy affects and brings about changes in every area of our ministry - our long-term church planting team, Mission Training School, summer internships, short-term mission trips, our mobilization efforts - everything.
We believe that this change is something God has brought about. In retrospect, we can look back over the past year or two and see the many ways in which God has been laying the ground work for this and leading us to these decisions. Several of our staff can share ways in which God has put our new strategy on their hearts and/or prepared them for changes in their roles that will take place because of it. God has confirmed the decisions in a number of ways, both big and small. One big reason we feel God ordained this is that none of our leadership team came into meetings thinking what we came out with was the way we should go. By the end, though, we were in perfect unity, convinced that these were the right decisions to make.
What we will try to do here is give a clear, reasonably detailed (though not exhaustive) explanation of our shift in strategy in order to help all of GFM's stakeholders (prayer and financial supporters, churches, short-term mission participants, Mission Training School students, people who have been on the field with us in the past, etc.) understand what we are doing and why we're doing it.
Background:
The Mixtec region, which is the focus of our work here in Oaxaca , is made up of many municipalities (larger villages that often have a few smaller villages called agencies belonging to them) and a few centrally-located market towns. Our town of Tlaxiaco would be considered "the" market town of the Upper Mixtec region, which represents the most unreached area of Oaxaca . Missions scholars have differing opinions about what exactly constitutes a people group, but a good case can be made for considering each municipality (the larger village and any agencies that belong to it) it's own people group. Until recently, we have viewed our long-term goal in Oaxaca as getting a reproducing church planted in every municipality, which would then mean that people in that group have reasonably good access to the gospel.
The problem is that we have sensed holes in that goal for a long time. We have talked more and more over the past year or two about the importance of getting Mexican Christians more involved in the work, saying, "The day the Mexican church owns the vision of reaching the unreached here is the day our job is done." We have talked about mobilizing Mexicans to mission work at the same time that we have been trying to raise up North American church planting teams for the unreached municipalities, and we have been trying to figure out how to integrate those two things.
The breakthrough came when we realized that our goal shouldn't be to see a reproducing church planted in every municipality (meaning that if someone else doesn't do it then we have to do it), but instead to see a church planting movement started in the Upper Mixtec region that will be capable of taking the gospel to every unreached village. A church planting movement (CPM) is something that has happened in many areas of the world. It is the rapid multiplication of indigenous churches who are planting other indigenous churches. What it means is that instead of us trying to find a way to raise up a church planting team for every municipality, we instead need to do everything possible to help see one or more really fired up churches who will go plant other churches, who will plant other churches, who will plant other churches.If a movement like this were to start and then develop and gain momentum to the point that it was not dependent on outside help, then our work here would be done.
With our end goal redefined as seeing a CPM started in the Upper Mixtec region of Oaxaca , we set to work trying to figure out the best way to make this happen.
First some explanation of CPMs:
If you care to thoroughly understand GFM's new strategy (or even just to read a some good material on the role of Westerners is missions today), then we highly recommend you read a booklet put by David Garrison of the International Mission Board called Church Planting Movements . It's a quick read and packed with good information. Click here to read it online, or click here to download a free .pdf copy.
On our CPM link we will sum up a lot of the material from the above-mentioned CPM booklet put out by the International Mission Board. (You don't have to read this entire section, but the better you understand CPMs and their characteristics, the better you will understand our new strategy. Most of the reasons why we made specific decisions are found in the following summary.):
Specifically Defining GFM's Strategy:
Knowing our end goal in the Mixtec region (seeing a CPM) and understanding the elements that need to be in place for a CPM, we set to work defining a clear strategy for working towards a CPM. This strategy involved two big decisions:
Working with existing churches vs. planting new churches
In the past, as we talked about mobilizing Mexicans to reach the unreached we always thought in terms of mobilization work in existing churches. As we studied the elements of a CPM, however, we realized a lot of problems with hoping to see a CPM started through existing churches. Here are some of them:
- Most churches in the area are governed by a bureaucratic denominational hierarchy. Many villages have a "pastor" from their denomination who lives several hours away and only visits once every 2-4 weeks, or less. This pastor is the only person allowed to baptize new converts, serve the Lord's Supper, etc.
- The local village leaders of the church (who are its true shepherds) are viewed as largely incapable of leading because they don't have formal theological training.
- The denominations that oversee most of the churches in the area impose many of the above-mentioned extra-biblical requirements on churches, such as having to have land and a church building. This places a lot of strain on new churches, mostly made up of members from the poorer classes, who must try and scrape together the finances for these things.
This does not mean that we are cutting ties with existing churches. We will continue the relationships we have with many churches and Christians, we will support and encourage them, and we will attend them on Sunday mornings. As we plant new house churches, we will work to instill in them a spirit of unity and a love for brothers and sisters in Christ, in hopes of combating the big problem of disunity among the existing churches rather than compounding the problem.
Working in the villages vs. working in Tlaxiaco
In the past we have essentially focused all our effort on the villages. Once we knew we were planting new reproducing house churches, we began to see a lot of benefits to focusing more on Tlaxiaco. These include:
- Currently, our church planting team is made up of people who only ever commit one or two years at a time. They are fresh out of Mission Training School and most of them need a lot of work on their Spanish. This means that under a village model of ministry, they go through Mission Training School getting a day a week in a village, then they spend a year-long apprenticeship mostly in Tlaxiaco focused on learning Spanish, and then (if they're still around, because many of them are already leaving by getting to this point) they can finally focus on spending more time in the villages with whatever additional time they give to GFM, which usually isn't much. We don't see this trend changing in the foreseeable future and have often lamented the lack of staff who will commit to the 5-10 or more years it would take to plant a church in most villages here. Focusing on Tlaxiaco allows these staff to get a two-year head start on the ministry as they spend a year in Tlaxiaco going through Mission Training School and then another year as apprentices learning Spanish in Tlaxiaco. So we get two years of ministry out of them before they have even finished their apprenticeship and been promoted to full-time staff. Because of proximity and cultural differences in Tlaxiaco, chances of planting a church here in two years are a whole lot better than the chances of planting a church in a village in that time.
- In the book of Acts, the gospel spread rapidly from Jerusalem because people from every nation on earth passed through there (see Acts 1:8). Tlaxiaco is the Jerusalem of the Mixtec region. People from every unreached village for hours around live here, and many more pass through here on the weekends. The people who live here have networks of family and friends back in the villages they come from - they already have the necessary trust to share the gospel with them. It takes us 1-2 years in a village to gain the level of trust necessary for most people to want to hear what we have to say about the gospel and be interested in studying the Bible. People living in Tlaxiaco tend to open up to us much faster, and then those people can share through their networks back in the villages.
- In Tlaxiaco, everyone speaks Spanish. This means that we can minister in Spanish, and then as people we disciple share in their villages, they already know Mixteco where necessary. To state it differently, us planting churches in Tlaxiaco and people living in Tlaxiaco planting churches in the villages are two small cultural jumps, versus the big jump we have to make to plant churches in villages. The more indigenous a person is, the less they tend to open up to us in the villages. The people we usually first make good connections with are people who have lived in the U.S. or in big cities in Mexico, or who are from elsewhere in Mexico and have married into the village. These are the kinds of people that Tlaxiaco is made up of.
- It is a lot easier to disciple new converts when living in close proximity (the same town) to them.
- Working in Tlaxiaco gets rid of a weird dynamic we've always had, which is that we live here, but our ministry is in the villages. A Tlaxiaco focus allows us to throw ourselves into living out Christ where we are, among the people we're around every day - which is the way it should be. It's not that we haven't ministered in Tlaxiaco, but we've never been able to consider it "real" ministry according to GFM's strategy.
- Working in Tlaxiaco makes better use of our resources. It takes a lot less time and money to get to Tlaxiaco than to the villages. We also don't lose two years on the front end with incoming staff while preparing them for village ministry.
- Working in Tlaxiaco allows every member of the family to be more involved. In the past, wives have felt like if they couldn't drag all their kids to a village and then somehow build relationships while juggling them (not an easy task), they couldn't really help the cause. Now, every shopping trip, every conversation with the neighbors, etc. is an opportunity for ministry that is at the core of GFM's purpose.
The conclusion of the matter:
GFM's long-term goal is to see a church planting movement started that will be sustainable enough to reach every unreached village in the Upper Mixtec region of Oaxaca . Our role in that will be focusing on planting new reproducing house churches, mostly here in Tlaxiaco. We will focus 80% of our time, energy, and resources on Tlaxiaco and 20% on the villages. (The reason for keeping some village focus is that we have church planting work already coming along that we can't leave, and we need to have a good sense of village culture and what it takes to reach a village in order to help mentor new believers as they reach out to the villages.) Our church planting team will now live in Tlaxiaco, and their strategy will involve focusing on specific neighborhoods.
FAQs:
So will short-term mission trip participants still go out to the villages?
Mostly they will not. We will shift our short-term outreaches to focus here on Tlaxiaco, with teams staying at our base throughout their trip. Teams that have adopted a village will still get out there some and keep them plugged into that work.
What will mission trip participants do in Tlaxiaco?
We have been striving to incorporate more and more community development into our overall ministry, and this will be reflected in short-term outreaches. Here are some of the most common outreaches we foresee in Tlaxiaco:
- Setting up sand and gravel water filters on street corners in town to demonstrate them by giving away cups of water. This allows the opportunity to talk with people who stop by and to make a list of people who want a filter for our church planting team and their Mexican disciples to follow up on.
- Drilling wells for people with the hand apparatus we purchased last year.
- Doing kids' programs that incorporate public health teaching into the program (brushing teeth, washing hands, etc.)
- Medical/dental clinics (Tlaxiaco is sub-divided into several neighborhoods - we will offer clinics to the authorities of a particular neighborhood so they can invite their people)
- Helping people set up gardens with drip irrigation systems that can produce even during the dry season.
- Putting on English camps where kids come several hours a day for English classes.
Not to worry! Both types of ministry - ministering to physical needs and to spiritual needs - are clearly validated in Scripture. Being ambassadors of Christ means offering the whole package. The reason we minister to physical needs is that it demonstrates Christ's love in a practical way and opens people up to hearing about their spiritual needs. Our new strategy gives us a great need to establish an identity for ourselves in Tlaxiaco, besides just "the gringos who live off other people's money and talk to people all day." Community development allows people to see us doing something positive and tangible. Community development can become businesses that can support new church leaders, so they don't feel the need to take off up to the U.S. to earn money to support their families (which is one of the biggest problems churches have down here - their good leaders leaving). And community development projects are well-suited to short-term teams. Teams provide the manpower to do projects we wouldn't otherwise do, and these projects provide many new contacts for our church planters and their disciples to follow up on later on. Do we encourage our short-termers to share the gospel at any opportunity? Are our church planters sharing the gospel at any opportunity? By all means! If you have been following our ministry updates at all over the past few months, you have heard about new people accepting Christ, baptisms, and Bible studies being started. Our sole purpose is and always will to glorify God by reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What does all this mean for Mission Training School?
The biggest change will be that instead of students having a day a week of ministry in the villages, they will now have a day a week in Tlaxiaco.
What about summer interns?
Global Adventures interns will now, obviously, mostly be doing outreaches in Tlaxiaco with the mission trip participants. Missions Extreme interns will now live in Tlaxiaco with our church planters.
Will GFM's focus be this strong on Tlaxiaco from here on out?
Ultimately, we want to see villages with no churches reached with the gospel. As house churches are planted here, we will be encouraging them to reach the villages from the very beginning. As more and more churches are raised up and doing this, then some of our focus will probably swing back out to the villages. As that happens, though, our role will be as disciplers and facilitators rather than as the primary church planters.
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