Surge Stories: March Edition
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA TESTIMONIES
They say it never rains in Lima, Peru. It is on the coast of the Pacific and is watered only by irrigation from an ocean mist.
Well, it sure “rained” there two weeks ago!
We gathered in Lima with about 38 leaders from three Surge regions: Central America, South America, and Brazil. We call this a Surge quad meeting, representing the main leaders from three zones.
We have four quads scheduled in 2017:
1. Lima, Peru (March; South America)
2. Nairobi, Kenya (May; Africa and Middle East)
3. Kharkov, Ukraine (July; Europe and Eastern Europe)
4. Hong Kong, China (October; China, India, and the Far East)
These will be two days of encouragement, vision, and relationship building between the regions.
The meetings in Peru were fantastic. The first day was set aside to minister to the leaders. We dealt with purity, marriage, and spiritual-boundary issues.
On the second day, we moved into the values of Surge and the opportunities and challenges we face worldwide. Each main session was interspersed with powerful testimonies directly from the regions.
Below are a few of those testimonies…
Gilberto Meija // Honduras, Central America
Pastor Gilberto, one of our most powerful leaders, shared that he has been planting Surge churches for twelve years. He has planted 300 churches and supervised each one for five years. The greatest blessing is that not one of those churches has failed!
Gilberto is planning to plant six strategic (urban) churches in the next two years (three per year). The six couples who will launch the churches are ready to go. He is raising $50,000 to launch each church for the first year and is asking Surge to match those national funds for the second year. Each church is in a city of 300,000–400,000 people.
Alcides Morales // Uruguay, South America
Pastor Alcides Morales is the Church of God director of this very secular nation. He shared that in 50 years this denomination had planted 50 churches that averaged 53 people each (a total of 2,500 members nationwide).
Five years ago, they partnered with Surge, and now they have planted 50 more churches and have a total membership of 10,000! They doubled their churches and tripled their membership in just five years as compared to their first fifty years.
Javier Jordan // Mexico, South America
Pastor Javier Jordan has been the Surge Mexico director for 10 years. Javier is an attorney and the new campus pastor of the Surge strategic church in Guadalajara. This church, in a city with fewer than 2 percent evangelicals, has grown from no members three years ago to 1,000 members in five services today!
His next goal is to plant an identical strategic church in the city of Queretaro, which has a population of 1.5 million in the surrounding area. Javier has a vision to do the same thing in Leon, San Luis Potosi, and Monterrey.
Elmer Quintero // Colombia, South America
Pastor Elmer is located in the beautiful coastal region of Colombia. He planted a Surge church three years ago and has now planted 17 other churches. Amazingly enough, 13 of those churches have bought their own properties!
Elmer wants to plant a strategic church in two huge cities on the coast: Cartagena (pronounced cart-a-hain-a) and Barranquilla (pronounced bar-an-kila).
YOUR STORY
Wow! The energy, excitement, and enthusiasm of this Latin American quad were infectious. The Church of God South America director was present at the meeting and shared that they are planning to start 16,000 new churches by the year 2020. The pace of world harvest is quickening!
My takeaway? It’s a wave. It’s a movement. It’s a surge. It is leaders multiplying leaders. It is American churches and pastors partnering with (we feel) the best national leaders in the world. It is a vision for 1,500 more rural churches all over the world in 2017.
Cast in your net. Pray for Surge’s net to hold this great harvest without breaking.
God is making you His hero in your generation, and we are just here to assist you.
This is your story.
About the author
This story was written by Larry Stockstill, the Director of Surge Project and former Pastor of Bethany Church.
Pastor Larry served as senior pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center for 28 years growing the church to 7,000 members and giving $63 million to missions. In 2001, Pastor Larry launched the Surge Project with the desire to see churches planted more effectively. More about Larry Stockstill.
Go to larrystockstill.com where Ps. Larry writes a weekly blog on how to become a long term leader.
