by Rodney Walls, Missionary to Honduras
General Baptists are blessed with a good group of pastors here in Honduras who are faithful and hardworking, and it is a joy to serve Christ alongside of them! They have seen a lot of missionaries come and go over the years, and building a strong relationship with them continues to be a top priority. Relationship building takes time and the last year and a half have been fruitful in many ways.
The vision to start new works has been in place. The challenge to our pastors has been for us as a group to prayerfully identify areas where we can start a new church. Once God has given the location, the design is to have a pastor, along with a trained new leader, begin the work in that community. That way the new pastor can observe and learn from the experienced pastor. During the next six months, the lead pastor will gradually give more and more ministry responsibility to the new pastor. We (the mission and the pastors’ association) want to provide a bit of a safety net to our new pastors and leaders. The desire is to then bring Mission One teams alongside the new works to provide a short-term ministry boost.
The church is the hope of the world because the church has been commissioned by Jesus to tell others about Him and to make disciples! The ability to reach people with the gospel, to start more churches in areas without churches and to see our existing churches thrive, depends on leadership development. However, as in many areas in the States, there is a leadership vacuum here. The question became, “How can we best train up leaders in our churches as well as identify and equip future pastors?” Without development of potential pastors within our existing works, the potential for growth is extremely curbed, and the mission becomes dependent on people outside General Baptist ranks. Though there are many good people who can and hopefully will join our ranks. Growing leaders from within is paramount to the mission. Simply put, we need more pastors, because we need more churches!
In September 2017, we took a giant step forward. Miguel Ramirez a long-term employee of the mission was brought on board. He and his wife have served as house parents for Faith Home for years. Miguel has always had a heart for our churches and has served as president of the pastors’ association. He is a powerful preacher and a gifted teacher. Miguel also graduated with a bible degree in Theology in 2013. Miguel and Eduarda continue to work some for Faith Home, but Miguel’s primary responsibility is to work with and train up prospective leaders in our churches, preparing them to better serve alongside their pastor and/or preparing them to be pastors in the future. This is exciting news!
For several years, Miguel has in his own time been working with some churches and leadership groups. In fact, Ezequiel the new pastor at Emanuel church, came out of Miguel’s classes. We believe Ezequiel is the first of many. We are putting together an effort to intentionally train young men and women to be servants in the church. On top of that, Miguel will also be teaching classes to our pastors, better equipping them to be instruments in God’s hands. I told you this was exciting news.
The training will be localized not centralized. That will mean a lot of traveling for Miguel and myself. The Honduras Bible Institute has reformed, and we are working with Pastor Rene Rodriguez who leads the effort to train pastors and leaders in California and Mexico. Pastor Rene has provided materials and support to our efforts here. Thank you, Pastor Rene! Moving forward we want a unified effort among all our General Baptist Hispanic ministries! This is powerful stuff!
Miguel began his first class in October. He travels to a different church Monday through Friday, and 102 men and women from seven of our churches have signed up and are attending a class in homiletics. Yes, you read that correctly (102). I will admit it. That number is significantly higher than I had thought or hoped. And, (and this is exciting), 12 teenagers are taking the class as well (ranging from 14 years of age to 17). Tell me that is not exciting?
We have a basic curriculum in place and believe that God is going to use the Honduras Bible Institute to prepare pastors and leaders for our existing churches and to start new ones too. Soon the leadership vacuum will be no more, and there will be many new General Baptist churches here reaching people with the Good News that Christ tasted death for us all! If just 5% of this group are God called to be a pastor, then we can begin five new churches.
Moving forward… We need your prayers and your support as we move forward following Jesus! The Church Planting ministry here is dormant no more. Things are busy and getting even more so! Thanks to a couple of churches that are already helping to fund this effort by helping to underwrite Miguel’s salary. Your support is making an impact. I will also need support to purchase books and supplies as I have already used my resource for buying books. Don’t wait, join in what God is doing here. I will keep you posted as we move forward.
