Honduras and Panama: Developing Leaders

After spending eighteen days in Honduras and Panama with visits, contacts and presentations in 37 churches, I am back home. For those who do not know the purpose of these mission trips, for the last four years I have traveled across Latin America (in most parts of Central America and South America from Guatemala to Chile) to encourage churches to think realistically about their past and to plan for the future. A good way to summarize the goal is to say that I am helping with church development and leader development. Many churches have been begun by missionary efforts, but the majority have failed to grow and have stagnated. Most of the churches in Latin America do not have elders, and those that do have often followed the lead of U.S. churches and have fallen into unhealthy (and unbiblical) patterns of leadership. The majority of the places I go do not have a North American presence. Often the church was established (weakly) and the missonaries left. The need is to strengthen churches and help them grow to accomplish God’s will in their unique places in the world.
I make about ten trips per year, averaging two weeks out of the U.S. per trip. The invitations continue to multiply as churches realize the need. Almost always in the churches where seminars are presented, there are also members present from surrounding churches. The number of churches receiving teaching each year is between 100 and 200. I speak to hundreds of Christians and have the opportunity to listen to the concerns and dreams of dozens of Christians–leaders, potential leaders, and members who care deeply about the church.
The challenge in Latin America accentuates the need in the U.S. that churches think carefully and biblically about the role of leaders and God’s plan for the biblical organization of the church. The problems in the U.S. are easily transported to mission fields where the leadership problems are often more severe.
A model Paul used for working with the churches he had established is set forth in Acts 14:21-23: strengthening, edifying, and naming elders. This same process I seek to use so that healthy, sustainable churches can develop to the glory of God, and so that these churches can become missionary churches able to help establish more churches.