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Our Global Focus process is challenging churches all ove Latin America to embrace a new way of thinking about the church. What dominates the mindset of many churches are their weekend services, their own installations, their members, their staff and their programs. What should dominate our mindset is the mission of the church; to make disciples locally and globally. To extend the Kingdom of God to all peoples and nations. When we segment missions into a department or a select few individuals (ie: missionaries only, or missions committee members) then missions is not the mission of the church. Global Focus helps churches return to the reason that the church was formed, as the primary instrument of fulfilling God’s mission in the entire world.

Churches all over Latin America are being challenged in this paradigm.Not only the hundreds of churches that we are already working with, but the new churches that our facilitators are launching with are getting it from the inception. Listen to what one pastor from Peru said right after they had 6 hours of the initial Global Focus seminar in their church:

“We just finished the initial Global Focus seminar, it was a day of blessing and arduous work for each and every member of our church. Today we are challenged to be a local – global church and fulfill God’s vision for the entire world. We will assume our role with passion and love for our God!” Pastor Marco Antonio Ayala of Bible Baptist Church of Peralvillo, Peru.

Pablo Caruachin, our Peru Director has launched with several new churches in Peru, this is just a sample of one of the new churches he is mentoring.

Mauricio Tejada and Paul Vargas Global Focus facilitators and pastors of a Global Focus model church in Arequipa, Peru. They have launched Global Focus in the northern part of Chile at First Baptist Church of Arica, Chile. The pastor of  this church attended the Global Celebration in Arequipa,  and wanted the same passion for missions they saw there for their own church.

They are also mentoring another church in their own city. Vida Abundante B.C. is in Arequipa, Peru, and they just did the 2nd Module, where they help align their entire church around the singular mission of God. Pray for these new churches as they have started a process that will end up mobilizing their entire church, and hopefully one day sending out their own workers to the fields.

I have been mentoring the “Amigos” (Quaker) denomination in Guatemala for over a year. I was supposed to teach the 5 module this past week. This is the last module before the Global Celebration. Pastor Luis was able to take my place and teach this module and share with the church not only Miramonte’s experience in their now 5 Global Celebrations, but since Luis is a favorite preacher for many of the Global Celebrations in Latin America. He was able to share what many other churches are doing, and how the entire church celebrated God’s Mission. The Amigo’s churches area very excited about having their first ever Global Celebration the last week of November. They have already sent their first teams to Southeast Asia and will continue to send even more teams next year! God is doing something incredible in these churches.

Pastor Luis Marti (former pastor of Miramonte Baptist Church) who is now the director of Central America and Mexico for Global Focus was able to begin the Global Focus process with Central Church, which is the oldest evangelical church in El Salvador. Last year the leadership of the church came to our Global Focus training at the Global Celebration of Miramonte Baptist Church and were convinced that was exactly what their church needed. This is a large historic church in El Salvador, that God is breathing new life into because of their passion for missions. Pastor Luis is doing an excellent job of mentoring this church in our process, and sharing his own experiences as a pastor who implemented Global Focus.

Luis helped them develop their Mission Statement :

“In Central Church we are committed to glorify God, being and making disciples of Christ in our own community, in El Salvador, and to the Ends of the Earth.”

I was able to launch Global Focus in Chile a few months ago, but because of the surgery, I was not able to continue with the following module, so I was able to send our Venezuelan director to Chile to continue mentoring the churches there. Yovanny did a great job not just teaching our material, but sharing his own experience as a pastor of a church of 800 members and sending his own people to the nations.

He was able to mentor the leadership of Bible Baptist Church of Valledor in Santiago, Chile. This is a church that the pastor has already declared that he wants his church to become the Global Focus model church for Chile, and he wants to be able to mentor other churches.They had over 40 of their leaders go through the second module where we help to ailing the church around God’s Mission.

From there pastor Yovanny  traveled farther south to Concepcion, Chile where he was able to mentor Renuevo Church (Renew) in the first module. This is a church of a different denomination, but is very interested in forming an Acts 1:8 church, that is engaging it’s members both locally and globally.

Pastor Mauricio Castellon, pastor of Miramonte Baptist Church in San Salvador (Global Focus model church in Central America). This is the church that pastor Luis Marti pastored for over 25 years. Mauricio has kept the exact same missional emphasis in the church and he is also a Global Focus facilitator. Last week he was able to go to Tapachula, Mexico, and begin the Global Focus process in one of their mission churches. He and Rafael Huezo (the Ends of the Earth leader in Miramonte) were able to take all of the leadership through our initial seminar, and will be returning to continue to implementation process in this church.

Vida Abundante (Abundant Life) Baptist Church has seen how God is moving in Vida Nueva. Last June, I held a training event for Global Focus in Lima, Peru, we had 30 pastors and leaders attend 4 days of in intensive training. The pastor of Vida Abundante said, “That is exactly what I need to mobilize my own people”. This past week, pastor Mauricio Tejada (one of the pastors of Vida Nueva, and the director of Pioneers Peru) started mentoring this church in the same missional process that has brought such transformation to their own church. He was able to take all of the leaders through the initial seminar, teaching them that the Biblical basis for missions is not the need, but the Glory of God. God desires to be glorified among all peoples. He also taught them of the great need that exists, especially among the unreached, and how the church was formed in order to fulfill that mission. He finished by teaching them, that God desires for every follower of Christ to fulfill His mission for their lives, and His mission is Him being glorified among all peoples.

Vida Nueva (New Life) Baptist Church of Arequipa is one of our Global Focus model churches in Peru. All 3 of their pastors are Global Focus facilitators, mentoring other churches in our missional process. This past Sunday they commissioned their second family to the nations, a family to be “tent making” missionaries in Spain. Jose is a lawyer, who will be studying his doctoral degree, and Gabriela plays in the symphonic orchestra, and will be playing in Spain as well. It was during the last Global Celebration of their church last year that they spoke with me about their desire to move to the other side of the world, and leverage their careers to reach the unreached. Where they will be serving in Spain, not only are there hundreds of thousands of mslms that need to have contact with the Gospel of Christ, but it is also the gateway to North Africa. While in Spain, they plan on helping some of the Latin American families serving in North Africa. Please pray for the Ricalde – Caruachin family as they prepare to move to Spain, on Mission with Christ.

The mobilization is not about preaching an inspiring sermon or teaching a great lesson about the great need among the unreached. At it’s core, mobilization is about helping churches, and people to intentionally move. As disciples of Christ, He has called us to deny our own mission, and take up His. So mobilization is about helping every single church member understand that missions is not for just a select few, but His Mission is for every Christ follower. In our Global Focus process, we help churches mobilize (move) their own people; out into their own communities on mission with Christ, and to the nations, the unreached, on mission with Christ. So at the end of the day, mobilization is not judged on how good our sermon or lesson was, it is judged at how many churches and people are moving with Christ on His Mission.

Mobilization is much more than preaching a powerful, impactful sermon. It is much more than just teaching about the huge need among the unreached. Mobilization is alignment, helping to align churches and it’e members around the mission of God. This is done when you begin to help change the DNA of a local church. When a church realizes that it does not exist for itself, not for it’s own growth, to build buildings, and have weekend services. But the reason that a local church exists is in response to God’s Mission, to make disciples locally in their own Jerusalem, but to also make disciples all the way to the ends of the earth.

In our Global Focus missional process, our 2nd Model helps align the church (or re-align)  around this missional purpose. The way we help change a church’s DNA is to help them develop a Missional Purpose Statement, we help then to integrate missions into every single ministry of the church, and we help them to develop a strategic, intentional prayer strategy in every small group gathering, and every large group gathering to pray for missions and missionaries.

This past week we had 3 our our Latin American facilitators teach this very same module in churches we are working with. Josue Villanueva is mentoring First Baptist Church of Ahuachapan in El Salvador. He was able to take them through our 2nd Model, where we teach these truths, and then help them to implement them in the DNA of the church. He said that the leaders told him, “now we fully understand the purpose of our church.” Not only were the leaders of the church involved, but also the youth were involved. Last week you read about a small church in El Salvador, that sent it’s first cross cultural worker to the Central Asia. Some might ask, how can a smaller church in Central America send a full time worker to Central Asia. They understand why their church exits…

Not only in El Salvador was this model taught last week, but also in 2 different areas of Peru. Pastor Oscar Loyola (who is the sending pastor for Dr. V.T. and also a Global Focus facilitator for northern Peru. Pastor Oscar has started to mentor the First Baptist Church of Piura, Peru. In forming their missional purpose statement they declared the following: “The First Evangelical Baptist Church of Piura exists to worship God, preaching the Gospel of Christ, and forming disciples in Peru, all the way to the Ends of the Earth.”

In another area of Peru, Pastor Pablo Carhuachin (Our Global Focus director for Peru) was in the jungles of Peru mentoring a baptist church that is 86 years old. He just began the Global Focus missional process with this historic church. He said the pastors and leaders are more excited about their future, than their past. They believe that Global Focus will help them to make an impact, not just on the Amazon region where they are, but all the way to the Ends of the Earth.

Two years ago we took C.V. from El Salvador to Central Asia on a project we do every years. C.V. there felt called to come return full time as a worker, but there was a problem; his church  did not know how to send him. After C.V. came back from that trip to Central Asia with us, Josue Villanueva, one of our Salvadorian facilitators started mentoring his church in the Global Focus process. Vida Nueva Baptist Church of Guatzapa, is not a large church, a little over 100 members, but none the less, this past Sunday they launched C.V. as their very first cross cultural worker to Central Asia!

So, here is a smaller church, in a smaller city of Central America sending their first worker to Central Asia! How is this done? The truth is, it is an intencional process. There are many young people like C.V. that feel that God has called them to the nations, but the difference was that C.V.’s church went through the Global Focus missional process. Many of these young people find it totally impossible to fulfill God’s calling on their lives. But because in our process we teach a church to step by step  engage it’s members locally, nationally, internationally and globally until they are sending their own people to the nations.

These same churches that years before would have never believed that they could do this area actually the ones doing it. So can God use, smaller churches from smaller communities in Latin America? Absolutely !