I wanted to share some wonderful news with all of you!  The Lord has answered our prayers. I got a call from the Spanish Consulate today and the lady told me that they have approved my residency visa. I have until December 30^th to leave the country (we are planning to leave much sooner than that). Believe me, I’m ready to go! Don’t get me wrong I have enjoyed deputation but everything has a time and a season and right now I am in Spain mode. I have 32 wonderful churches to visit from now till then and we have complete faith in God that we will have all of our support raised by our departure date. As a matter of fact we are currently at 86% of our needed support. They haven’t approved everybody’s visas yet but the lady told me that they should be ready in about two more weeks. I am so amazed at how God has opened every door for us. During the end of March of this year we really felt the Lord leading us to step out by faith and set a departure date. At that point we were at 66% of our support. In just 5 months our support has increased by 20%. Also, we have been praying that the Lord would supply the money that we need for our Setup Fund. Just in these past two days we have had 2 churches and 1 individual give towards our Setup Fund. The amount that they have generously given is exactly what we need to purchase our tickets. We are seriously considering leaving for the field November 29^th, 2010. That is 2 days earlier than we had originally planned. You can’t imagine how excited we are. I would ask that you pray for the rest of the visas to be approved shortly. We really feel great peace in our hearts because we know that right now we are in the center of God’s will. Amen. 

We are church-planting missionaries. We understand the command in Matthew 28:18-20 to evangelize, baptize those that are saved, and teach them to be like Christ (discipleship), but these demands can only be fully obeyed within the context of the local church. The first century Christians comprehended that they would be unable to reach the world (“…Jerusalem…Judea…Samaria, and…the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:8) without establishing churches in every corner of the earth. That is why they naturally were involved in church-planting. They understood it to be the obvious and practical conclusion of our Savior’s command. We have a mission and God has chosen the church to carry out that mission. If a “church” is not obeying the Great Commission then it cannot biblically be defined as such. We understand the church to be a group of baptized believers gathered together to carry out the Great Commission. We are pioneer missionaries (we are starting a new work from scratch) that have moved to Parla, Madrid and have begun to proclaim the gospel to every individual in that city for the purpose of establishing a church that will obey and fulfill its mission. We are not in the business of constructing church edifices, but of organizing (directly or indirectly) visible groups of believers (starting churches) in every city to shake up Spain for Christ. As we start more churches our reach will be greater and we will be able to effectively evangelize more places than just Parla. We will reach Madrid as well as the other provinces in Spain, Southwest Europe and the world. In other words, we must start churches in order to reproduce what we are already doing in Parla, Madrid in other places around the world. Our desire is to establish churches that will fulfill our three basic and essential ministry goals.

1. Evangelize the lost: Every single individual within the reach of the church must have the opportunity at least one time in their lifetime to accept or reject Jesus Christ. The church must find every way possible to accomplish that task.

2. Enable others: This means that we are to follow our Master’s example in training faithful men who will reproduce themselves in other Christians. This is not an option, but our solemn duty.

3. Establish Churches: We must start churches that will perform the first two goals in other places. The ideal would be a church for at least every 50,000 people.

 We could go to Spain for a short period of time and carry out massive evangelistic campaigns and distribute millions of bibles and gospel tracts. Although through these efforts many would hear the gospel and some would be saved the effects of this style of evangelization are short-lived. The only way to make a lasting impact for Christ in this world is by establishing churches. A bible-believing, gospel preaching church will faithfully and continually evangelize until everyone within the reach of the church has heard the gospel. But then the church will disciple and train the converts and involve them in the work of the ministry and the cycle will be never-ending.

 It is clear that there are more ways than one to establish a church. Some churches are started by a solitary pioneer who goes someplace where the gospel has never been preached. Some are started by a group of pioneers (a team). Both of these methods are perfectly acceptable but we have opted for the latter. We believe that we can accomplish more in less time for the honor and glory of God as we work together towards a common goal. Team missions is not a new or modern idea but it goes all the way back to Jesus and the Apostle Paul. God has given each of us different gifts and abilities that we can use for the furtherance of the gospel. One clear example for us is the technology aspect of our ministry. If it was up to me or my parents we would have no evangelistic website, no gospel DVD project, and you wouldn’t be reading this article because we wouldn’t have a blog or team website. Of course we would still be able to preach the gospel but with these tools our reach is even greater. Thankfully one of the members of our team is gifted in that area. All of us are commanded to evangelize but some people seem to have a greater God-given ability to make friends and start conversations with people. My father is that kind of person. He has never met a stranger. I remember going on door to door visitation with him in Venezuela and seeing how he would somehow convince a grumpy, unfriendly person to allow us in their home. Before the conversation was over he would have them laughing and attentively listening to the gospel message. Without getting into all of our team’s strengths and weaknesses it is sufficient to say that “two are better than one…” (Ecclesiastes 4:9).

 Once the church that we have started in Parla begins to grow and leaders are trained we will practice a third method of church-planting. While some churches are started by pioneers (one missionary or a team of missionaries) others are the product of churches producing churches. We could work diligently as a team to start a church and leave it with a pastor as soon as possible. Let’s say we were able to start one church every five years (It’s not impossible but we have never witnessed this in Spain). In a fifteen year period we would have started three churches. We could certainly attempt such an ambitious goal, but what if we invested ourselves in training men for the same period of time? What if we allowed the church in Parla to naturally produce more churches? Every pastor trained would equal a new church and members from the “mother church” would go and help those pastors start the new works. We want every pastor to enjoy the blessings of working as a team whether they start a church nearby or in a distant place. Please continue reading. Next week I will post the sixth and final part of our ministry philosophy.

Spaniards have been the victims of a self-serving and greedy religion that offers no hope and no relationship with God for centuries, and they are increasingly distrustful of church. Here is an interesting article by Gallup on church attendance…

The scope of the influence of religion and the church on Spaniards’ lives remains difficult to characterize. While most Spaniards identify themselves as Roman Catholic, only 43% say religion is an important part of their daily lives, and less than a third tell Gallup they have attended a place of worship in the last seven days.

Blog post taken from Project Southwest Europe - Scott Newton

Ron Maggard is a fellow missionary and a good friend of mine.  The Lord used him to play a significant role in my christian growth while I was at Beacon Baptist Church.  He wrote an article that goes along with our Ministry Philosophy that we have been posting.  Enjoy!

Scott Newton is a church planting missionary to Spain.  He is currently on deputation raising his support.  You can visit Scott's website and blog to learn more about he and his family.  Scott started a topic on his blog called, "10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain."  We have asked Scott if we could re-post the topic here on our blog and he agreed.  We are now collaborating together on the "10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain."  Here is the first:

10 Things Every Christian Should Know About Spain(#1) - By Scott Newton

1: Spain is approximately 1.5 % evangelical Christian.

Spain has a population of 46 million, with approximately 600,000 Evangelical/Protestant church-members (FEREDE). Over half of these are members of Pentecostal churches which teach a perverted form of the Gospel that tells people that their salvation is dependent upon their continued faithfulness.

This leaves at best around 300,000 church members of various gospel-preaching churches. To put that in perspective, there are approximately 1 million Muslims in Spain, and 9.2 million who claim no religion (CIS, 2009).

Many times people assume that a first-world country like Spain, in a continent that we associate with great spiritual movements of the past, would have no great need of a Gospel preaching movement. That assumption is terribly terribly wrong.

Would you pray that God will raise up more laborers for Spain, and that He would use our ministry and that of every other missionary in Spain to lift high the name of Christ?

The other day I asked for prayer for our special family day.  It was our desire that God would work in a great way, not just to give us numbers, but to work in the heart of each individual that would come.  We prayed for people to hear the Gospel, for God to be glorified, and for people to be edified.

All in all it was a tremendous day.  We had 41 people in total, our highest day yet.  However, a number really doesn’t mean anything.  The largest church in the USA averages 43,500 people per week but if the true Gospel isn’t being preached, if the Word of God is not being taught, what’s in a number?  If the people are only hearing men’s philosophies and not the Word of God, what’s in a number?  The number of people that came to our service is not what is important.  What is important is that each person has a soul that needs God and the teaching of His Word.

What’s important is that Robertson and Laura came...a couple who we have been working with who are struggling to make ends meet.  Laura has confessed that she is not a Christian.  They need forgiveness for their sins and to meet the Lord Jesus Christ.

What’s important is that Eduardo came.  Eduardo found us through our website www.estudialabiblia.com and requested a Bible.  Even though Eduardo lives an hour away from us, we decided to go and give the Bible to him and at least give him a clear presentation of the Gospel even if we never saw him again.  Even with the distance, he came.  Eduardo is struggling to find work, having problems with his wife, and really, really searching for the truth.  This morning Eduardo raised his hand expressing his desire to give his life to the Lord.

What’s important is the owner of our building came with her mother and daughter.  There is a good chance that they have never heard the message of Salvation that we find in scriptures and this was their first time.  They were able to listen to songs that talk of God’s amazing love.  They were able to hear the testimony of Alberto Puente, a Spaniard who was saved years ago in Spain under my father-in-laws ministry and is now in the ministry serving the Lord.  They were able to experience a Bible message about Family and Faith.

No, the number “41” is not important.  What is important are the lives and the souls that make up that number.  The ones who were able to catch a glimpse of God’s awesome love through the preaching and teaching of His word.  Many of those precious souls remind me of myself at age 19 when I first walked into Beacon Baptist Church and heard a clear message from God’s Word.  May the Lord work in their hearts as he did mine and may they return time and time again to hear the life changing message that we can only find in God’s Holy Word.

Thank you for praying.  God answered all my prayers and much more.

This coming Sunday we are having a special day.  The theme will be on the Family.  We haven’t done a huge campaign, just simply made invitations for all of our current contacts.  If they all decide to come, this will be more then we can handle in our present location.

I was at the church on Thursday making up some packets of information to give to the first time visitors that will come on Sunday.  While I was waiting for the envelopes to finish printing, I decided to go and pray for the people who might come.  I remembered the verse in 1 John that says if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us.  I was not asking for numbers.  I was not asking for Him to make it an exciting day.  I didn’t ask Him to fulfill our desires.  Not that these things can't be according to His will at times, but I wanted to ask Him for what I know for sure is His will according to the Word of God.  Here is what I asked for:

1. That the people who come would hear the Gospel and be taught the things of God. - Matthew 28:19 - 20
2. That the Christians would hear the Word and apply it to their lives - James 1:22
3. That Christ would be glorified and those that don’t know him would see that He is Worthy - Revelation 4:11; Revelation 5:9; Revelation 5:12
4. That people would be saved - 2 Peter 3:9
5. That the Word of God would do it's work in the hearts and lives of whoever hears the Word.  - 2 Tim. 3:16
   

Would you help us pray for this special day?

Watch the Video or read about it below.

I wanted to give you an update on how God is working through this DVD Project. We have been able to give out 23,329 Gospel DVD's.  If we calculate that there are 3 people per household that means we have given 69,987 people a chance to hear a clear presentation of the Gospel.  Our goal is to saturate our city with this DVD.  The DVD has a gospel presentation, clearly given for those who have never heard it.

So far we have had over 2,000 pageviews per month on the website that we have created.  This means that many who have received the DVD have watched the whole presentation until the end where the website is displayed and then accessed the website for more information.  It is every church's desire that in the lifespan of their ministry every person in their area or city will come through the church doors at least one time so they can hear a clear Gospel presentation.  However, we all realize that in the life of our ministry, only a small percentage of the people in our town or city will ever walk through those doors.  So what we have done is given the people of our city a chance to have the preacher come to them.  In the comfort of their own home, they can watch and hear a sound biblical message on salvation.

Please pray with us as we endeavor to finish getting DVD's to the rest of our city.  Also help us pray about our next project, " a Bible in every home."  Just as the title suggests, we want to get a Bible in every home in our city.  Thank you for your prayers and support.

As we clearly saw in Part 3 of our ministry philosophy, Jesus did not spend equal amounts of time with all of those that followed Him (this would include the multitudes that followed him, the 70, the 12 and even the 3). How can we expect to do more than our Master? Jesus is our supreme example on how to make disciples and so we must be careful to follow in His steps. We really will have two general goals for the discipleship ministry in our churches (I say churches because our desire is to establish multiple churches throughout Spain and the regions beyond). On the one hand, we share the same desire as the apostle Paul in Colossians 1:28, “that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” The only problem with that, of course, is that not every Christian in our church is going to cooperate with us in that process. We want every born again believer to love God and be actively involved in carrying out the Great Commission, but we know that unfortunately many “Christians” will remain spectators (from the outside looking in) of what God is doing in and through the rest of the church. This will not impede us from trying to present perfect (complete, mature) in Christ Jesus as many as possible. On the other hand we find Paul writing to his disciple Timothy in 2 Tim. 2:2 and he says, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” Here we are commanded to train faithful men who will become disciple makers themselves. In other words, these men will become the future leaders and pastors of our churches. As we have heard many times, “The cream always rises to the top.” This group of people will receive more one on one time with us because they are faithful, proven men that are hungry for more involvement and responsibilities in the church. It may seem like we are playing favorites but that is far from the truth. As soon as someone is saved in one of our churches we will immediately seek to involve them in the discipleship process. Already in this phase we will have people that will refuse to receive even basic discipleship lessons. But many others will begin learning the basics of the Christian life and start growing and maturing. They will start learning how to read and study God’s Word, how to pray, how to give biblically to the work of God etc…. But once they reach a certain level of growth many will refuse to take that extra step into service and teaching others. Only a select group will want to go further and become disciple-makers. This group is not content with sitting  on the sidelines while others get the work done. They want to be like Christ in every way possible. Not all of these believers will become pastors and missionaries but they will all have a very important part in the ministry in Spain. It is only natural that we will spend more personal one on one time with them.  It would be a mistake for us to beg and plead the others to move forward for Christ (we can’t force people to serve) when the faithful men (and women) are willing and desiring to take the next step. What’s amazing is that the more mature and faithful  Christians will begin to impact and influence the rest of the congregation so that some will venture out of their comfort zone and begin to do more for Christ.

I do want to be very clear that although Christ is our model to follow in discipleship, we are only humans and as such we have many limitations. We will be very careful to not make disciples of ourselves, but of Christ. It is very easy to center our ministries on ourselves and forget that our goal is to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” When a new convert enters into a student-teacher relationship with one of us, he is going to naturally want to imitate everything that we do. While this is inevitable, we must remember that our ultimate goal is to point them to Christ and not us. The apostle Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:1, “Be ye followers of me, even as I am also of Christ.” It would be easy to say that this verse proves that people are supposed to follow us, but I believe that the emphasis of the verse is, “Even as I am also of Christ.” We want those that we are discipling to imitate those areas in our lives that are Christ-like, but certainly not every facet of our being. If that’s the case then our children in the faith would possess our strengths as well as our weaknesses. When we begin to disciple someone we want them to understand that we are not perfect and that we will make mistakes. If we point them to the Bible and ask them to judge all things through the light of the Scriptures then they will learn what areas of our lives are truly worth imitating. I am very thankful that God gave me an earthly father that was not a dictator. Although I was expected to obey him in everything that he commanded, he made it very clear to me that he was not perfect. Many times I remember my father coming into my room and apologizing because he had not been a good example in a particular matter.  I learned that although my father was appointed by God to direct and mold my life, he was only a vessel intended to lead me into a personal relationship with my heavenly father, who is perfect in all things. He taught me that God’s word (not his own) is my ultimate authority.  Because my father pointed me to Christ I have an anchor that will keep me safe in the fiercest storms. Ministries that are centered on men will never survive after the death of their earthly leader. We want the men that are trained under our ministry to depend on Christ and not on us. Please continue reading. We will get into church-planting in the next article.  

Almost always when I pray to the Lord, I thank him for the privilege of being in the ministry.  This is something that I have always felt in my heart and soul.  I truly believe it to be an honor and a privilege that God would allow someone like me to serve Him.  I have always felt this way.  Serving him is not limited to those that we have labeled to be in "full-time" ministry.  Serving Him is something that all Christian can and must do.  The Bible talks of us being like parts of the human body.  We all serve a purpose and whether we are the foot or the ear, we all work together for a common goal.  Everyone is important and has a purpose in God's work.  We must seek the Lord and find what that purpose is.  I believe that we should all be able to say what a privilege and honor it is to serve the Lord. 

As we serve the Lord, the path is not always straight.  Sometimes it is bumpy and at times dark.  However, no matter the situation, we serve the same Lord and we must always recognize the great privilege and honor He has given us to serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

We thank the Lord for what He is doing in our ministry.  We are a very new work.  We began meeting with one believer in my in-laws home in October of 2009.  My in-laws had only been in Spain for a few months and My wife and I had just finished our internship at the church we were working in.  We were making plans and trying to locate a building to start our church.  In November of that same year, we found a building and began renovations.  It took us about 3 or 4 months to renovate the building and get it ready for use.  Finally, in February of 2010, the building was ready enough to where we could move from my in-laws house to the building.  We held one Bible Study in the building and then our family took off for the USA to begin our adoption process and Home Study.  We returned in April and continued holding Bible studies in the building with Isabel.  However, even though the inside of the building was ready, the outside still needed work.  As far as the people knew, the building was still closed down.  We worked on getting the outside taken care of and the escaparate finished.  (An escaparate is the window of a building that displays certain things about that business, like advertisements.  They are very popular in Spain.)  We finally got the escaparate and outside done around the first of May 2010.  It was exciting because many people stopped by and read what was on the window. On May 23rd, Stefan was walking by the building and noticed the escaparate.  He began reading the things on the window.  About that time, Isabel, the one person that we were having Bibles studies with, walked up and said, "Do you like what you see?"  They begin talking and she invited him to stay for the Bible Study.  8 weeks later, he trusted Christ as his Saviour.  Since that time, we have been able to put up a sign and now people know we are there and are open for business. 

It amazes me how God brings people.  We work hard to get the Gospel out and make contacts but God seems to keep us humble as he brings in people that we have never met, nor had contact with.  We have pretty much had visitors almost every Sunday since Stefan walked through the doors.  This past Sunday, we had a high day of 19 people in church.  We were very excited and we could tell our people were excited to see others come.  Our goal is not to promote ourselves, nor our ideas, rather to focus on Christ.  We give honor and glory to God for this wonderful day. 

Honestly though, as exciting as that was, our goal is not to have high numbers.  Yes we would love to see 40 or 50 people next week, but that is not really our goal.  If you have been reading our ministry philosophy, you have learned that our goal is quality, not quantity.  We want to grow people in Christ so that they will have a solid relationship with the Lord and a true Love God.  Out of their love for Him, they will in turn share the Gospel message and help grow those that become new Christians.  We want to see the kingdom of God expand with dedicated, faithful servants who also count it a great privilege and honor to serve Him.