During a January meeting, leaders of the Philippine district found unity on a national strategy for reaching people with the love of Christ and providing discipleship to the church.
Believers in the Philippines historically have been pressured to adopt strategies developed by "outsiders," rather than by Filipino people themselves.
The new-found sense of unity came when the leaders accepted a challenge to begin discipling and to be discipled.
One of the important aspects of a growing church is unity. When people are pulling in several directions it is difficult to make progress. A great deal of energy is spent in debate over what to focus on and how to focus.
Achieving unity is further challenged by the large number of models and methods being created each year, all presenting themselves as the next greatest thing in growth and all with some story of great success.
With an English-speaking leadership and a culture with a Christian background, the Philippines appears to many ministry organizations as ripe for experimentation. Year after year, these organizations try their latest strategies in the Philippines. A colonial history lays the seed for quiet acceptance of these experiments, and often they seem to succeed for a while. They are greeted warmly and the presenter goes away excited. A few months or a year or so later, the presenter notices that his or her wonderful method has been replaced by the next "latest great method" that comes along.
A sort of method fatigue settles in. People wander from one program to the next, sincerely hoping for a spark of the Holy Spirit but quickly wandering on when the hoped for “revival” does not occur. The intentions and motives are good. The programs and methods are often good. But without a unified vision and structure of accountability, the methods can overshadow the mission.
This last fall the Asia-Pacific Region hosted a conference in Malaysia to equip district superintendents (DSs) in servant leadership. Leaders from the Philippines attended. During the event, Dr. Jerry Porter, one of the six general superintendents who lead the global Nazarene denomination, issued a call to discipleship. “Who is discipling you? Who are you discipling?” were the questions he posed to the Asia-Pacific leaders.
When asked about the impact of this event on the attendees, Philippine Field Strategy Coordinator David Phillips said, "I noticed a change. This seemed to be more than a method. There was a different feel to the simplicity of the questions and to the deep hunger it produced in the hearts of the people listening. DS after DS came to me with a deep hunger to be discipled by someone. It seemed to strike at the heart of our hunger for God -- a hunger for spiritual intimacy, a desire to move past shallow churchyness and into the heart of God."
Though encouraged, Rev. Phillips says he was tempted to wonder if God was really doing something new here. Was it just an emotional reaction to an appeal, soon to fade away?
Toward the end of the conference, he and the Philippine superintendents began pondering what the next steps should be as a result of this meeting. Phillips recalls with excitement the response he received from DSs during the last group session.
"As a field strategy coordinator, I was used to meetings, methods and to the attitudes of a people pushed down by those in authority. I have an almost reflexive hesitation to push a solution forward knowing how rarely it is actually accepted and adopted. So it was with this attitude that I facilitated the last meeting.”
“Perhaps we cannot really come up with a unified approach for the whole Philippines,” Rev. Phillips led off. But to his surprise someone said, “I think we can!”
“We are all Filipinos, we have different languages but we have many things in common. We are not so different,” another said.
Voice after voice was raised in agreement. Phillips thought to himself, "Am I seeing an answer to prayer? Was God really doing something to draw us together?"
The Philippine District leaders went away with a determination to develop a unified strategy. Their enthusiasm has carried on until now. Just this past week, many of those same superintendents gathered again in Manila for a strategy round table. At this planning meeting they reflected on the challenging messages delivered by Porter at their recent assemblies – discipleship and multiplying churches.
The Holy Spirit has been using that message and driving it deep in the hearts of Filipino leadership. One of the DSs, inspired by Porter's sermon on discipleship, had formed an “each one” plan that was very similar to the Each One Win One plan of Global Mission Director Louie Bustle and now General Superintendent Stan Toler. With weeping, this DS presented this to his pastors, who also began to weep. Other DSs came to the January planning sessions with similar stories to share.
On the evening of January 26, Philippine leaders gathered in the old library room at Asia-Pacific Nazarene Theological Seminary. Through the facilitation of a Mission Corps missionary, Daniel Pape, the superintendents talked and shared late into the night. There was a respectful attitude throughout the meetings that demonstrated a value for each person's ideas.
"While we did not yet have a unified strategy, we did have unity of the Spirit," Phillips said.
The next morning, the group worked to understand how they could practically come together. Some worried there was going to be another idea forced on unwilling churches – for this is how they had previously understood unity. But after many hours of productive discussion, the leadership team came up with a simple national strategy that will allow districts to set a district tactic and local churches to apply their own methods. They agreed that the overall strategy for "making Christlike disciples in the Philippines" – a contextualization of the denomination-wide goal to “Make Christlike Disciples in the Nations” -- will be accomplished through a cycle of soul winning, nurturing, equipping and multiplying. The superintendents committed to presenting this plan to their local churches for discussion and implementation.
Though the methods to accomplish the mission will be different from church to church, the overall vision, direction and accountability structure are now in place to position the Filipino church for sustainable, Spirit-led growth and development.