Roots for the “World Mission to the end of the earth”.

Under this title, we will review the story of how in a small local community with less than 50 members, God created a ministry to send to a world mission. A series of miracles that God used to create this house will be quoted throughout this section. It is relevant to state that it never crossed the pastors’ mind that God’s plan for this small community would be to form a ministry and multiply its people. We continuously motivate our disciples to seek their 12 own disciples, which is vital for the multiplication. Nobody thought we would be a ministry with more than 100 pastors. Growing and multiplying was something beautiful, however, the most extraordinary thing was to receive the celestial voice that sent us to missions on the Earth. Now, it is difficult to understand that a small town, with no international contacts and little resources, was able to fulfill the challenge of preaching the testimony of Salvation in cities and towns around the world. Logic tells us that accomplishing that mission would be impossible. The only possible explanation is that, as it seems unfeasible for this small congregation to go on a global mission, that limitation is the reason for the selection. A divine idea makes a logical incapacity become an actual project that is executed successfully at a global level by the power of God. Glory to God! His power elevates, sustains and brings victory to this world preaching project. The principle of “apparent human incapacity” gives support to the idea that we will reach our goal, as the project depends only in the power of God. In that sense, it is understandable to think that our God is leading the world mission to victory, and our success exclusively relies on His powerful hand.

The roots of the ministry that received this divine challenge of preaching around every nation on Earth come from a Baptist community. It was in 2020, just before we crossed the Pacific Ocean, that we adopted the name “world mission to the end of the Earth”, because it made more sense considering our vision and mission. The story begins in 1985 when pastors Enrique Arroyo R. and Maritza González S. and their two children moved to Valdivia, located 800 km. south of Santiago. In that moment, the congregation consisted of 26 members and, because a couple did not like their arrival, they cancelled their participation, so it was an even smaller group. One of the first signs of multiplication was received during a group preaching session in which the 8 adult males of the community were present. That Thursday at 8:30 pm one of the disciples burst into tears. He was usually very quiet and not much of a public speaker, so him crying out loud was something unusual. The reason for his cry was that he was having a vision. Brother Victor started to see that the community temple collapsed to ashes but, in that moment, a huge and sturdy tree grew in that same place and lots of birds came to seek shelter. As none of us knew anything about visions, we overlooked this occurrence but understood its meaning a while later. Spontaneously soon after, we had to deal with a wave of doubts that affected the Christians in general in those days. The main topics were the liturgical renewal, the spiritual authority, gifts, the priestly government and the switch of democratic members into disciples of Jesus. The changes that were made produced a progressive increase in the fervor of praising. The commitment to faith increased, they developed a passion for praying, there was a spill of gifts and the Holy Spirit started to guide us through dreams, visions and prophesies. The first ones to learn were the pastors due to our general lack of knowledge on the matter despite our seminary studies. The biblical texts gained a whole different meaning. Matthew 28:19-20 was the absolute authority. Facts 1:8 became a living force. God was asking us for a deeper level of daily commitment. A new concern appeared at this time too, in regard to the liberation of evil spirits, a task that pastor Maritza focused on with great enthusiasm. She created a clinic of liberation and internal health which caused a big impact among the different churches in the area. Followers traveled up to 150 km. to be healed. It is necessary to make clear that this renewal was happening autonomously. The pastors that preside churches had not seen the miracles and had no connection to other pastors that were going through the same. In hindsight, we can see that it was God who was guiding our increase in numbers and the faithfulness of our disciples.

Years later we experienced another decisive event. A Brother received word which said: “tell my servant to fast and retreat for 90 days, because I will renew him”. Pastor Enrique didn’t know people could hear God and he didn’t have any fasting culture either, which made him doubt the dream. However, because God said, “I will renew him” and the start date for the fasting was the same day of his birth, he obeyed. On day 20 of fasting he listened to an audio tape in which the preacher insistently said that “all of those that wish for the anointing of multiplication, place your hand in the receiver and you will get it”. The pastor didn’t know what the anointing of multiplication was, and he had always doubted the tradition of placing the hand in the receiver, but with the intention of receiving the anointing, he did it and he thanked God for the blessing. Just in those same days, Argentinian pastor Ditto Benedetto was in Chile to visit his son, so he paid a visit to this pastor. When he reached the room’s door, he stopped and said: “this is where I stop. I cannot interrupt God’s work. I see over you thousands of multiplications that are hovering around. I don’t know what it means, but I have witnessed in my spirit that God has visited you”. Without saying any further, he respectfully left the place. The blessing of his renewal was fulfilled. He was the pastor of a small church, who despite doing many actions, never gained new followers. In the following years, the multiplication started. The room in the temple was so crowded that extra furniture had to be brought in, and they gained more and more disciples each year.

In April 2001, another event occurred which radically changed the way in which the community work was done. A group of disciples, along with the main pastors, participated in an interdenominational meeting of churches which was held in a beautiful Pentecostal community in Santiago. This church had experienced a great multiplication, going from 500 to 2,000 members in 5 years, by using the Government of the Twelve model. Undoubtedly, the massive multiplication they experienced was a mathematically-impossible miracle, taking into consideration that, in Chile, the average attendance to Evangelical churches doesn’t raise above 100 members, and it hasn’t change in decades. What happened in that community was impressive and holy. For that reason, pastor Enrique decided to get to know the project from up close, so he traveled there with pastor Maritza and a group of 20 people. When they listened to their type of music and modern dancing, and insistently hearing the calling to be “the disciple that gains disciples”, they watched it and went back to their city. They were seating in a gallery with no more than 100 pastors from different denominations and behind them, some pastors were shouting against the dancing and preaching. They said that the house pastor was insane, and everything that happened in the location was harshly criticized. The disrespectful behavior crossed Pastor Enrique who, during a break, invited pastor Maritza to seat in front, far from the critiques and accusations. As soon as they sat in their new places, he had a vision: they were waiting for the second part to start and the minister was preparing some instruments, when suddenly a table with a lot of plates on it appeared. In a second, the plates disappeared and there was only one left, and a voice was heard saying “eat”. The voice was powerful and with authority. The pastor understood that the vision presented the divine instruction for them to adopt the model of the Government of the Twelve. It was a fundamental element for their multiplication and for the order within the community of the ministry. The model was very efficient in the formation of new disciples and in the development of their faithfulness, service and passion. It also strengthened the core of the government and allowed to define a main objective: go and make disciples.

There was criticism coming from other churches in our city and throughout the country too, but the Spirit of God gave them strength to face these attacks. When the critics were able to lower the energy and push away our disciples, it caused pain, but God would comfort and bring peace into our hearts. One day the pastor was expelled of the city’s pastoral fraternity without explanation. The national Baptist organization searched for a way to remove him as well, which in the end they did, although it wasn’t official. He was ousted from the system and discredited within the community of Baptist churches in the country. When facing this difficult situation, God acted as a lawyer and shield. Pastor Maritza suggested to pay attention to what God did for them every day and to try and forget the sad situation he had experienced. The congregation was only slightly affected by the accusations, and if two people walked away, God brought six in. The new generations of disciples were also an important boost because, due to their need for attention, they kept them happily occupied and that kept the pain away from their hearts.

Another memorable moment was when God assigned to them the mission of forming a school, challenge that was accepted by pastor Maritza. She created a project and fought for it with wisdom, faith and effort, which yielded outstanding results. In a decade, she founded four schools. The hectic schedule in the field of education were not an impediment for her to maintain her pastoral tasks. Day after day, she attended her duty at the church keeping in mind the community of Valdivia, but also national and international conferences, and the constant trips that were necessary to regularly activate the new communities in other regions.

In regards to the multiplication of the ministry, the pastor wholeheartedly declares that it was not a fruit of planning but rather because “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”, Facts 2:47. One day, when there was just one community in Valdivia, a Brother told him about a dream: he said the congregation reunited in the port of the city, and he heard a voice saying “go south”. Not long after, with no further action, several disciples received job opportunities and moved south. In those cities, they replicated the model and had a spiritual war around the city. They started preaching in their neighborhoods, organized cells at their houses, and that was how most churches were created. The main pastors traveled to strengthen and confirm the faith of the new disciples. With that same objective in mind, we later instated an annual meeting of communion and consolidation that is attended by more than 1,000 disciples coming from all around. In those same years, God illuminated them with the tent model. That is to say, self-financing, which has been key in the task to establish more communities in other cities. Without this model, it would have been impossible to expand to so many cities. As you can see, several miraculous acts have marked our advancement.

In 2012 we had more than 100 pastors. The ministry was getting stronger and multiplying. One Saturday, once the annual meeting of the church was finished and the people were praying on their knees, pastor Mario Cayul received a vision for the ministry, but he wasn’t able to share it. The next day in the morning, he asked pastor Enrique if he had read his email, which he didn’t do until later that day, thus being pastor Mario the only person that knew the content of the email. It was Saturday morning and the founding pastors had been assigned to direct the goodbye party for the delegations. At a certain moment, pastor Enrique asked the assembly to pray. Once the prayer was finished, pastor Adan from Temuco asked to speak and publicly said: yesterday I had a dream in which God said: “it pleases me to have given you to the nations”. The dream caused great happiness and revealed an important blessing. Spontaneously, the entire assembly claimed gratitude and brought Glory to God. The Spirit of gratitude and adoration was strong, and, on the speakers, you could hear the people’s praising and the prayer of pastor Milton. Then, pastor Maritza on the microphone asked pastor Enrique “do you know what they’re saying?” and without waiting for answer she continued, “God is saying that he is sending us to the nations”. The pastor was surprised and expressed his happiness and gratitude to God, and then asked for an applause for Him, which was the closing of the meeting. Later that day, he opened his email and he was enormously surprised when he understood that, Milton’s prayers and Adan’s dream were the confirmation that every prophesy needs to have. The vision is a strong order and God is sending us to the nations. The vision more precisely states: “Nations of the Earth. Today I give you all these pastors from my heart”. In 14 words, God strongly defined the overall task of the ministry. That divine voice provided a new vision and dimension for the mission: The Owner of everything gave this people to all nations on Earth. Now we were able to understand that God had guided our actions, added more disciples and made us new people. The vision made us understand that God had miraculously formed a group that was now commanded to go out to different nations.

A divine voice made us dream about nations, and the way to do that was for some disciples to move to other countries and open cells and form communities, which made a lot of them to dream and pray for certain particular nations. For the next 5 years, communities were opened only in Mexico, Argentina and Perú. Almost unnoticeably, it was clear that it was not the way to obey the voice received in the vision. So, one day, pastor Enrique called all main leaders of the ministry to do a detailed study of the Gospels, which was very successful. We observed that the model that Jesus used to do His mission was different from the one used in churches today. Jesus with His disciples would roam around cities in Israel, publicly preaching the word of Salvation. He didn’t baptize nor opened communities, and only finished his mission once they had roamed every city. Although the differences with the traditional model were evident and we had to accept that there were two models, it was something difficult to do. Many national leaders weren’t able to do so. Later, in John 20:21 the Divine Help appeared, and it provided us with the key to our actions. It was thanks to John that we were able to understand that the model Jesus received from the Father was the one Jesus wanted us to use throughout the nations. This passage in the scriptures gave us the biblical foundation that confirmed the specific manner we had to put into use to accomplish our mission, and that was the same Jesus did in Israel. On its own right, this model acquired the category to be the “original design of the mission”, which can be summarized as follows: “The disciples advance by roaming and publicly preaching the testimony of Salvation, through every town and every city. They don’t form any communities, and the baptism and formation of disciples is reserved to those called to be disciples for the mission.”

After having the original design clear, we were ready to begin our world mission. On October 28^th, 2018 we had a public preaching session in Punta Arenas. We held an event with more than 1,000 disciples from all around Chile, Argentina and Perú, and a group of more than 20 witnesses stayed afterwards to preach in that city, and other cities and towns in the Chilean-Argentinian Patagonia. It was a beautiful challenge, and up until now, we are just about to cross the Pacific Ocean to start preaching in New Zealand.

To finish off this brief history, the only thing left is to give Honor and Glory to our God who created a village out of a rather small church and, to our blessing, sent us to initiate a world mission which consists of starting the biggest wave of world testimony of our century, as prophesied by Jesus: “And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”