The Lord has done many great things in Latin America this summer. It is one of the great honors of my life to be on the Latin American Missions team and see what God can do through willing servants. The highlight of my first year has been the privilege of leading campaigns to Panama and Peru. The work and planning required to pull off a single campaign is vast. It has been an eye-opening experience, to say the least. I quickly discovered that what makes a campaign successful is partnering with people who have a clarity of purpose. The workers who joined me on these campaigns were all soul-focused. They came equipped with spiritual eyes and loving hearts. They brought the mind of Christ.

We had a total of four campaigns. I led two YES II campaigns in Panama and Peru, and Austin Fowler led one in Costa Rica. One medical campaign was conducted by John Farber in Honduras. Before these campaigns began, we made an evangelism plan with the brethren in each location, who committed to follow-up and continue the work after we were gone. In its essence, a campaign is a moment of intense focus on a congregation to help it grow at an accelerated rate by investing manpower, time, and money. We are able to cultivate contacts, initiate relationships, and conduct Bible studies at a high rate for a short period of time. We keep detailed records designed specifically for the host congregation to pick up the work at the exact place we leave it.

While it is hard to quantify the work, as true success is found in the fruit of years and decades, this year’s campaigns had encouraging numbers. We were able to promote the local congregations by making personal contact with 3,423 people. Of these, we acquired the contact information of 306 individuals and families who were interested in studying the Bible and knowing more about the church. We had 1,104 patients come through our medical clinic and fulfilled 4,160 prescriptions. With the understanding that someone comes to Christ only through studying the Bible, we were able to conduct 660 Bible studies, culminating in 34 baptisms and 3 restorations. There were even a few weddings conducted as acts of repentance by some couples who jointly decided to give their lives to Christ. In the handful of weeks and months since these campaigns, the faithful brethren furthering the work have reported the growth and training of new Christians, several more baptisms, and many continued Bible studies.

  Lord willing, we will have three YES II campaigns, two medical campaigns, and one LAM themed summer camp in 2024. It is with this mention of our future plans that I would like to segue into a look at the bigger picture and culture of missions. Throughout the decades, we have been able to observe various approaches to American involvement in missions. Not all approaches are created equal. Some lend to the health and growth of supported congregations, while others do not. It is important for everyone in the missions community to have a conversation about how we can shift missions culture to a healthier direction. This begins by discussing the mindset with which individuals and congregations approach missions.

  I want to preface this with the acknowledgment that this is not a discussion about good versus bad approaches to missions. This is a discussion about good, better, and best approaches to missions. This means being open to consider what we have learned through the years and being willing to trade in the “good” for the “better” and “best.”

  There are primarily two ways foreign congregations are supported: individual support and congregational support. When we consider individual supporters, we see some inherent deficiencies. If an individual supporter loses his or her job or dies, the supported congregation immediately loses that support. Furthermore, individual supporters are not able to provide the oversight and counsel of an eldership, nor are they likely able to visit or conduct campaigns at these foreign locations. This kind of support lends toward something akin to a welfare system. They usually have enough support to keep the doors open; but they scarcely have the resources needed to thrive and grow into self-sufficiency. We have two recommendations for individuals who desire to invest in missions. First, we invite you to support the Bible School of the Americas in Panama City. This school is the hub of Latin American Missions and is directly overseen by the elders at Forrest Park. We have trained more than 600 preachers and continue to send well-equipped, godly men into the ministry. Second, rather than investing in a congregation by yourself, enlist your home congregation and eldership to take ownership of missions. This brings us to the second and healthier way to support missions: a congregation investing in and supporting another congregation. When a mature, resource-rich congregation with elders invests in a single congregation, this is a recipe for growth. Perhaps your congregation has a large missions budget. Does the investment spread amongst many works that no one from your congregation has relationships with or has ever visited? Let me encourage you to think in terms of tabling all but one of those, then going all in to support and grow one congregation. Invest in it as if it was your own church-plant. Take a group to visit. Learn who the minister and the members are, just like an eldership would build relationships with their own members. Organize regular campaigns that promote the congregation and give evangelistic injections. Encourage and counsel this congregation through their growing pains. Equip and educate the members, while cultivating men for the eldership. The goal must be for them to be self-sufficient and not need you anymore. Then, collaborate with them to reach out and support or plant another congregation. This pattern is a strategic, intense, temporary investment in one location at a time. This is a pattern for growth, far beyond merely keeping the doors open. I have not even begun to discuss all the ways this kind of investment in missions will positively affect our congregations in the United States. I’ll leave that thought exercise to you.

  As I mentioned earlier, we have five campaigns planned for next year. LAM has essentially hit a ceiling in what we are able do alone. But our goals extend beyond what we can do. We want to enlist and empower congregations to take ownership in missions and do their own campaigns, so that the few that we do grows exponentially into 10, 20, or even 50! Let’s let the Lord put a cap on that number. These are the types of partners we are looking for at LAM.

  There’s one final component that is worthy of discussion. Whether it’s an individual or congregation sending support, the default structure is that of sending support directly to the preacher. This seems like a normal thing, until we take a look at how we do things in the United States. Here, the norm of a congregation is to have a general fund out of which is designated the support of the minister. When it comes to foreign support, we have observed that when the preacher receives support directly, it lends to two negative possibilities. First, there is no perceived need to be accountable to the congregation (whether they have elders or not) because their livelihood comes from afar. This may also stifle the minister from equipping men to be elders, lest he lose control of the funds. Second, if the preacher moves to another location, he takes the support and supporters with him. Conversely, if support is sent to the congregation, the minister has a perceived duty and accountability to them. Likewise, the support stays with that congregation, regardless of minister turnover. These statements are not accusations against anyone. It is merely an acknowledgment of the inherent temptations of such a paradigm. This is why it behooves us to approach missions in a way that incentivizes and facilitates congregations to become self-supporting and to grow men into the eldership.

  I know that shifting the cultural mindset of missions is like turning a giant ship. This is a 15 to 20-year goal. But it is a worthy goal, if we are shifting away from a pattern that keeps congregations on life support and shifting to a plan for growing and thriving congregations.