Bringing Together Church Planting & Camp Ministries

“Una Vida A La Vez” - “One Life At A Time”

                Many people ask us the question “how are you going to plant churches through a camp ministry?” We love to hear that question because we love to answer it.  The question leads to the very heart of church planting which is evangelism and discipleship.  It really is that simple.  Many times we answer this great question with a one of our own, “how would YOU plant a church?”  Typically we see people who want to start a church use strategies such as moving to an area where there is no church and starting the process to build relationships  in that community by doing something to meet people, in other words, they make contacts.  Perhaps they do it by starting kids clubs, or with the connections that their kids make at school with hopes of reaching the children then the parents.  Maybe they start a part time job where they rub shoulders and meet people in order to witness and win them to Christ in hopes of discipling them.  Or even start with a bang by passing out flyers and holding events that attract many people whether Christian or non-Christian to come to their new bible study which eventually grows into a church.  I even know one church planter who started a church through a basketball and volleyball league and now the church has 300 members and is nationally run.  What would be your “strategy” in starting a church?

                 Our answer is simple. We need to make contacts.  When we talk about a “church planting camp” we must first talk about church planting.  Church planting (and the Christian life) is about spiritual multiplication.   Being fruitful and multiplying God’s children on this earth.  

                 God has raised us and molded my wife and I  in through our upbringing, taught us and given us certain abilities and gifts.  He has allowed certain experiences and even failings.  With who we are and with what we know (or realize what we don't know), We would start a church by making contacts through the founding of a camp ministry.  Think about it.  All the ingredients are there.  The underlined words that you see up top are just some of the most important ingredients and most essential in whatever church planting effort there is.  Let me list them and then compare them to a camp ministry. 

Evangelism, Discipleship, No Church, Build Relationships, Meet People, Witness & Win , Discipling, People, Bible Study, Grows, Strategy, nationally run.

                Every church planting effort must have a strategy.  Ours happens to be camp ministries.  Camp ministry is for the most part a foggy concept in South America and Chile and dare I say the USA.  Successful Camp Ministries need to be local church oriented.  This means that the camp ministry must help the local churches in their God-given responsibilities.  Those responsibilities can be summed up in a couple words.  Evangelism, Discipleship, & Edification of the body.   So our camp ministry must be helping the church evangelize the lost, it must be helping the church disciple believers, and it must be helping the church in training, building up believers and fellowshipping.  Each of these responsabilities points to the ingredients above.  Best of all, the very nature of the camp while helping the churches with their responsibilities is all the while building up the most essential part of church planting, that is contacts.  In order to plant a church, the most important thing to do is to make contacts.   The camp in and of itself is a natural place to plant and cultivate fruit.  The goal of the camp is for each person that comes in to take their next step spiritually.  As the camp serves the churches, they would bring kids, teenagers, and adults to specially made weeks at camp.   The “campers” would be divided up into groups and would have a Chilean nationals as their counselors.  The ABWE seminary provides ideal candidates to work at camp as counselors for credit and we can recruit mature counselor candidates in the 200 like-minded churches around Santiago.  These counselors will be trained in the art of camp counseling not only helping their campers take their next step spiritually, but forcing the counselor (who is studying to be in ministry) to take their next step spiritually as well.  As kids make decisions we inform their church of their decision so we can establish a plan of discipleship through their local church and headed by one of us and a mature national believer in whom God has instilled the desire of pastor/teacher, all the while keeping this Chilean national the leader of the group elimintating the "transition" from missionary pastor to national pastor because the Chilean is the leader from the beginning.  They are planting churches.

               Our first year of ministry will consist of traveling to individual churches to set up a network to “catch the fruit” of the camp.  When a person accepts Christ as their Savior, then we inform the church that brought him, or the church that is closest to him geographically.  We offer our support to the church and will push for a bible study so that this new believer can be discipled and brought into a caring body of believers, the church.  If there is not a church close we will inform the closest church, offer our help in discipling the new believer in partnership with the church so that the church can spear-head the discipleship effort.  As the new believer grows, so do the number of people attending the bible study whether it be a number from the sending church, or other new believers.  This bible study automatically becomes a target for a new church plant.  We could have many “targets” or places where there is no church.  Even before the beginning of a church plant effort, the national church is doing it, and we will have access to counseling staff who are future pastoral candidates many of which have the desire to plant churches.

                There’s no better combination of ministry!  The camp ministry therefore potentially accomplishes the great task of church planting and will be able to keep the leadership of the new church plants totally national from the beginning to end.   Churches planting churches.  Camp just becomes the catalyst to give these national churches some targets and becomes a practical training ground for future pastors and a training ground for churches to learn how to do discipleship Bible Studies.  The camp serves the church.  We make contacts starting in our neighborhood and working outward.

               The programs of the camp weeks can then be very creatively worked into being “owned” by the national churches.  At the very heart of the camp is national involvement and nationals discipling nationals.  Once the camp is up and running, the churches can take on a very heavy role in speaking at camp, in creating the program, in advising other churches, and in participating in counseling and catching  the fruit.  The end result is nationals discipling nationals.  Churches being planted by nationals.

               We love explaining how it can work.  All the ingredients are there.  All that we have to do is get the ingredients into one pot, our strategy.  Our goal is to plant nationally run churches through camp ministries.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  The camp also will be in an area where there is no church, an ingredient that provides our own target.  The big picture of planting multiple churches just get’s brought down to one and it starts with us, it starts with one life at a time, or as we say in spanish, "una vida a la vez."

Your missionary to Chile,