Latin American Conference

San Jose, Costa Rica
by Dick McClain

The Mission Society's Church Ministry department’s most significant international venture to date took place August 28 – September 1, 2005 in Alajuela, Costa Rica. Fifty-seven leaders from eight Latin American countries (Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Paraguay and Brazil) convened for a Latin America Missions Mobilization Conference, joined by five North American Mission Society missionaries working in Latin America and ten representatives from The Mission Society, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and United States congregations.

The attendees included bishops from Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Brazil, as well as the President of the Evangelical Methodist Community in Paraguay. Seminary deans and missions professors, as well as leading pastors and district superintendents played key roles in the event. A denominationally diverse group, participants included the pastor of the largest Presbyterian church in Brazil, a Paraguayan Baptist who with his family has served as a missionary to Nepal, an Assemblies of God pastor reaching out to Muslims in Brazil, the pastor of an independent mega-church in Brazil, and the leader of NEWMA, a Peruvian mission organization that currently sponsors 700 missionaries, evangelists and church planters around the world.

The purpose of the conference was to challenge, motivate and resource Latin American leaders to lead their churches into effective global outreach. With the mandate of “the whole church taking the whole Gospel to the whole world,” the conference celebrated the growing Latin American involvement in world missions (currently there are 12,000 – 13,000 Latin American missionaries serving internationally) and encouraged the expansion of this movement. Bringing together such a group of key leaders and sharing The Mission Society's mission with them as a group resulted in tremendous synergy, as Latin leaders shared needs and visions, challenges and opportunities with one another. The event took on a distinctly Latin flavor, since it was conducted primarily in Spanish, with simultaneous translation into Portuguese and English.

In addition to sharing the Global Outreach Seminar with the delegates, additional program features addressed a wide variety of issues that are critical to the formation and implementation of effective cross-cultural ministries. Dr. Darrell Whiteman, vice president of The Mission Society, taught for three mornings on the themes of incarnational ministry, cross-cultural communications and missionary training. Keynote addresses were brought by Bishops Fernando Palomo (Costa Rica) and Joao Carlos Lopez (Brazil), and our own president, Dr. Phil Granger. The Rev. Ben Reyes, a Puerto Rican missionary who serves as The Mission Society’s Latin American Coordinator, and who is married to a Brazilian, served as overall leader of the gathering, reflecting the Mission Society’s commitment to globalization. He was assisted by Dr. Norival Trindade, Jr., one of our partners from the International Leadership Institute. 

Numerous other presentations were made by delegates from several countries, addressing such diverse topics as ministries to at-risk children, funding missions through fielding bi-vocational workers, and the challenge of providing effective missionary care for cross-cultural workers.

At the heart of the conference was The Mission Society's Global Outreach Seminar, which was presented on Monday afternoon and Thursday morning. All the seminar materials and Power Point presentations had been translated into both Spanish and Portuguese in preparation for the conference. Participants were given the Global Outreach Seminar instructor’s manual and Power Point along with accompanying videos, along with a disk containing all of the Global Outreach Seminar documents in all three languages. Conferees were encouraged to edit, adapt and reproduce these materials as needed for the variety of settings in which they will be presented.

The responses received from participants indicated the magnitude of the impact the LAMMC had on their lives. One bishop stated, “This has changed my life.  I am returning to Mexico with a new vision.” Another veteran pastor who has served for 33 years in two different denominations and has participated in numerous regional and international conferences stated, “This is the best conference I have ever attended.” A Brazilian missionary to Paraguay who is currently completing his doctoral studies at Asbury Theological Seminary reminded participants that a huge financial investment had been made in their lives, and urged them to hold each other accountable for what they did with what they had received. The dean of the Juan Wesley Seminary in Monterrey, Mexico, asked for permission to include the Global Outreach Seminar materials in the curriculum of his seminary. Virtually all of those who are involved in training pastors and missionaries indicated their intention to include the Global Outreach Seminar in their future instructional program. Church leaders expressed their readiness to send missionaries to each other’s countries, and to receive workers from other countries. The pastor of a large Brazilian congregation is leaving his local church to launch a major missions mobilization ministry in Brazil, and will be partnering with The Mission Society in that effort. The Global Outreach Seminar curriculum is already slated to be taught in two locations in Brazil and one in Paraguay before the end of October.

We anticipate that the long-term impact of this conference will be that numerous missionary-sending movements will be launched throughout Central and South America, accelerating the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The opportunities for future ministry partnerships between The Mission Society and these emerging Latin American mission efforts are exciting to consider. The Mission Society are committed to coming alongside our Latin American partners of whatever denomination or affiliation so that we might encourage and support their effort to mobilize the Latin American church for global outreach.