One thing leads to another and another in Spirit-led missions movements.   The explosive growth of Schools for Christ in public schools in Central America has brought the gospel movement into close cooperation with school districts and municipal governments.  Through the Church on the March in Central America, it is currently happening in four different countries with governments that range from conservative to Marxist.  It will be enough to say that Christian professionals now have many doors open to give conferences on subjects that are useful to government leaders and employees, educators, business people, pastors and Christian leaders and parents.    The audiences are gathered in cooperation with municipal governments and local leaders of different kinds.   The professional-level conferences are given from the perspective of the Biblical value system.   The Bible is freely used but the efforts are not narrowly sectarian.   They widen and re-enforce the movement to teach Bible in the public schools and minister to the parents of the children in their moral and spiritual leadership of their families in a culture that is under heavy attack by criminal forces.    American Christian leaders in many fields are needed and invited to inquire.   The same is true for Christian educators and experienced pastors.

The Church on the March has secured a beautiful scenic plot of land in a hidden mountain valley just above Guatemala City and within a short drive of Antigua, the former Spanish colonial capital of Central America and southern Mexico.   There, it will build the first “Institute of Transformational Leadership” in Latin America.   When finished, it will have 64 hotel quality rooms, two auditoriums, two cafeterias, a coffee shop, swimming pool, recreational areas and gardens.   These will be used to provide year-round conference-training to public servants of every kind—government leaders and workers, educational leaders and teachers, business people, etc. along with Christian leaders, pastors and pastor-trainers.    It will also provide delightful housing for Christian mission teams at greatly discounted cost.  It is outside the traffic deadlock of Guatemala City, permitting teams to leave for and return from their fields of ministry at any time of the day.   It is also within a mile of one of Central America’s most beautiful modern malls.

To Every Nation and People Now

Twenty years ago, Baptists in the eastern third of Romania were first introduced to the disciple-making materials written and developed in Guatemala by Lindwall.   Under the leadership of CSI’s founder, Rev. Bill Davis, Romanian Baptist churches started nearly 100 new churches in a five year period.   During the latter part of this time, Davis and Lindwall went to neighboring Moldova to work with Baptists in the northern third of that nation, and training approximately 200 missionaries.    The disciple-making strategy and methodology proved to be simple, easily grasped and quickly used in both countries.    Early in 2018, national leaders from both countries have written to say that Baptist work in those parts of the two countries has since tripled in the number of churches, long after the departure of CSI from those fields.   They both attributed the disciple-making strategy and tools received as the primary reason for this growth.    The Moldovans wrote that until these conferences, they did not have any practical literature to use.    We are not aware of any other area of Baptist work in Eastern Europe that matches this growth.

 A participant in this history testifies, “In both European nations, Baptists were discouraged by the lack of growth.   Their strategies were traditional but largely ineffective.   The change-over to the Great Commission strategy and the use of the simple tools were the two things that made the greatest difference–both immediately and in the years that have followed.”

The human originators of this movement realize how much this strategy and its enabling disciple-making tools are needed in every country of the world.   This is true especially in countries where Christians have practically no tools to work with and where older traditional ways of reaching the lost are not working.   Through both organizations, they propose to translate and put on the web, for free usage, a large set of their basic literature in many languages.   The two organizations will work together in this effort and the primary target is to place translations of the literature in the 25 most-commonly-spoken languages in the world along with numerous other languages.   The first 25 languages are spoken as a first or second language by 80% of the world’s population.

This is an effort that needs church sponsorship of the materials in each language.   If volunteers are found to translate the materials and other volunteers will mount the materials on the web, costs will be almost nothing.   Otherwise, it will cost about $100 per booklet to technically install them on the web and perhaps another $100 to translate it. The 25 most-used languages in the world have, roughly, from 25 million to 1.5 billion speakers each!   The materials will be placed on web pages given different names to make them more easily found by Christians and others.   The booklets will include disciple-making materials for children as well as adults and youth.   Also included will be several training booklets for disciple-making workers and churches.  The initial materials for children will include enough lessons for two years of weekly Bible study.   In most languages of the world, children’s Bible lessons are simply not available.  Therefore, this offers hope for hundreds of millions of children who live in lands of spiritual and Biblical ignorance.   The same web pages can be used to make available any other helpful literature that is well-translated and installed on each web page.   In many countries and languages, we believe this will be the most helpful source of Christian literature available.   And it will be possibly the greatest opportunity given to any church to plant and prosper gospel work among vast numbers of the world’s people.   Each such church will become known for the assigned language group it is transforming through this powerful gospel outreach.

The stories above reflect the beginning of just one Great Commission movement and can give hints to God’s servants anywhere about God’s secrets for victory today and until the End comes.

In 2005, the Lindwalls were surprised to be sent by God back to the United States .   They had planned to complete their lives in their beloved Guatemala where they had their friends, a growing ministry, a house and offices and even their burial plots!   Immediately following their decision, God raised up a powerful and young Guatemalan leader, Carlos Diaz Cano, to lead the work there in ways that were not yet even imagined.   In the USA, new foundations were to be laid for surprising ministries that no one had anticipated.   The Holy Spirit was and is in full charge of all long-range planning!

Wherever the Holy Spirit leads, broad horizons call.   A conscious return to the literal fulfillment of the Great Commission seems to be the missing factor in Christian work today.   Bright Christian minds form their plans and then polish them and polish them again.  But the results remain disappointing.  This is even more so in an era when nations are purposefully turning away from God.    Common people, like the first barefooted Kekchi believers, are honored with success simply because they choose to obey the Lord Jesus.   They obey him literally following the last command on earth coming from his lips.

The following breakthroughs are being given to this movement.   Others are urged to join it.   But many others will be called to still other Gospel movements that the Spirit will give to them—in many parts of the world.   The Spirit will reward them and honor them to the extent they cling to Christ and his clear orders.

Jail Outbreaks

The Holy Spirit seems to prefer starting great things among the humblest of circumstances—whether among barefoot Indians at the end of a long dirt road or among children in a crime-ridden community with open sewers.  In prosperous Collin county, Texas, where would He lead?  You might have guessed—with undocumented Hispanic prisoners in the local county jail!

Lindwall still continued to lead Guatemalan work from his Texas home, training Carlos from a distance.   He was settled in Texas for three years before he seriously started to practice the Great Commission there.  His conscience led him to the county jail, three miles from his home in McKinney.  He asked if there was a need for a Spanish Bible teacher.  The answer was “yes” although many weeks would pass before he could be fitted into the schedule.   Finally, he was given a class of about 20 Hispanic prisoners, who bored by inactivity, came to hear what he might say.   Most knew little about the gospel and were poor examples of their religion.   Lindwall spoke words that came as much a surprise to him as it was to them!    “I have come,” he said, “to train you to be missionaries.”  (Read more)

Over the years, he had written disciple-making booklets for Great Commission work in Guatemala and, through Church Starts International, in other nations of the world.   On his first day in jail, he took the first of that series and taught it to the men.   “Now,” he said, “take this back to your dormitories and study it with your companions there.”   The men, touched by God’s Spirit, did just that and soon there were Bible studies going on all over the jail—starting a powerful gospel movement.     Groups were formed of two or three men and of as many as twenty.     They naturally met every day of the week for interactive Bible study, prayer, counsel and fellowship.   The first teachers led others to Christ as they, themselves, came to him.

Soon, the groups took on a distinctive name:   “Philippi churches.”  (In Texas prisons, they are permitted to be called, instead, “Philippi Fellowships.”)    Nearly 20 centuries earlier, two prisoners in the jail in Philippi of Macedonia testified to their fellow prisoners and God used them even to bring the jailer and his family to Christ.  These were not visiting missionaries.   They were prisoners with bleeding backs and their legs locked in stocks.     While Lindwall was privileged to plant the first seed, the Philippi prison movement is given life by ministries of the prisoners themselves, as they are endowed with new life and purpose by the Holy Spirit of God.

A greater surprise was in the offing.   Lindwall started receiving letters from his former students.   They typically said,  “I have been transferred to the state prison in __________ and have started the Philippi ministry here.   Would you please send me our hymnals and Bible studies?”   Soon, the resources needed for the ministry outpaced the missionary’s personal resources.   But God, through Lazaro Chapa, a leader in the Dallas Baptist Association, introduced the missionary to Mario Alberto Gonzalez, director of the organic church department of the Baptist General Convention in Texas.   Mario smiled at Lindwall, telling him that churches in prisons were one variety of organic churches, and that his department was ready to help, assuming responsibility and leadership for the ministry throughout Texas.    Meanwhile, the prisoners themselves have taken the movement into more than 50 state prisons and 20 federal institutions.   This has been enabled by the leadership and financial support of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the prayers and support of the Baptist Women’s Missionary Union of Texas.   All happens because of the smooth and easy inter-relationship that binds a state convention, several associations, active members of churches and Spirit-led missionary volunteers.

Christian workers in Siberia, hearing of the Texas work through Church Starts International, have begun it in the prisons of Siberia!   That Siberian prisons would be the first place outside the USA to receive this prisoner-led movement causes peals of laughter in heaven itself.

The next stage for the Philippi movement is in all the 125 prisons in Texas and well over 1,000 prisons in the other states.   Outside help will spread it much faster than prisoner transfers have done.   Thousands of Baptists and others are already ministering in every prison and in thousands of jails in the USA.   Many teach Bible while others have other important ministries.    They can and should continue to do those ministries, but they can use their opportunities to give their prisoners information about the prisoner-led Philippi effort to win prisons to Christ from within their walls.   There are many different prison ministry organizations, but the Philippi prison ministry appears to be the first to do its work through the prisoners themselves, under local prisoner leadership.     Churches and volunteers working in jails and prisons are urged to get in touch with the Church on the March for information on how they can assist prisoners in this way.   Readers in other nations are likewise urged to make the same connection.

On a desert highway in Guatemala, in 1962, God spoke clearly to Lindwall letting him know that he was to go as a missionary to Cobán—a remote place beyond two mountain ranges reached by a six hour drive from a paved highway on a narrow dirt road.   Lindwall knew nothing about the place but told his wife about this call.   A woman of great courage, she quietly answered “OK.”  In 1963, they moved their young family there and started learning the Kekchi Indian language, the dominant language used throughout that area.  They had completed their study of Spanish just two years earlier!  While studying Kekchi, the couple started disciple-making efforts at three different locations, including two coffee plantations.   On one of those plantations, they found an Indian who spoke both Spanish and Kekchi and had been saved in prison years before.   He and another man there were the only born-again Christians likely to have been found in an area of more than 100 square miles.   The dominant faith of the area was spiritism and the religious rulers of the area were witch doctors.   (Read more)  For the first three or four months, there were no signs of spiritual results or decisions among the workers on the plantation.   Then, one night, a man and his wife, accompanied by two little children, came out of the darkness and said, “We will obey the Lord Jesus!”   In the following weeks, other families followed their example.    Other Southern Baptist missionaries were assigned to the area and before the couple left for the USA on furlough, 18 Kekchi Indian families had been baptized and were training to be missionaries.

How did God begin this work?   The missionary took a light plant, projector and a film series on the Life of Christ every Tuesday night.   It was an instant hit and worker families from all over the plantation came for the only diversion available anywhere.   When he brought the light plant, it was the only time any of them saw lights at night when darkness brought immediate boredom.   As they saw the film series, for the first time they learned about Christ.  Every week’s message was simply a commentary on the film they had just seen.   Boredom became the Christian workers’ best friend and the three Indian believers made good use of it.   Talking to a fellow worker, they asked, “Would you like for us to come to your house to sing tonight?”   Of course!   So they came, bringing two candle-power of lights, and sang gospel songs in Kekchi.  To this, they added a Bible reading, testimonies about their lives in Christ, and prayed for the family.   “Did you like that?” they asked.  Of course!   Would you like us to come back next week on the same night and we’ll do it again.    Soon they had a six night schedule of home visitation-meetings.   Soon, neighbors went with them and the houses, with dirt floors, walls made of bare upright branches and roofs of palm leaf, were filled with happily standing neighbors—with as much candle-power as there were families present.

Manú, a typical householder, would eventually tell them, “I am ready to obey the Lord Jesus.”   “What about María, your wife?   Is she also ready? “   “No, not yet.”   “Well then, don’t announce it yet.   Wait till she is ready.”   As a result of this unorthodox method, whole families were saved and none of the families were later lost by religious differences.  They did this without consulting books on the subject.  (None existed in Kekchi anyway!)   They did not consult the missionary on the subject.  But the Holy Spirit was with them and His instructions were surely the wisest they could get.  The salvation experience was a moral commitment to Christ and not just a questionable affirmation of Bible truth.

Christ’s Great Commission was lived out to the letter, in the order it was given:   Go out in to the world, make disciples there of the lost, baptize them upon their declaration of obedience to Christ, and train them to do everything he told them to do, including these four steps.    Not only were souls saved—saved to become instant missionaries.  They immediately joined in the nightly missionary procession and took their parts in the program.   Baptists have long said, “Every Baptist a Missionary.”   The Kekchi not only say it but they mean it!

The new converts began to leave the plantation and establish farms in the jungle lands at lower elevations.  As soon as they had their first harvest in and their families’ lives were secure, several of them agreed to dedicate three weeks a month to their farms and one week to seeking villages in the jungle and to teach the people about God and the new life given in Jesus.    One would walk into a remote village and ask, “Can I sing you some songs tonight?”  Of course!   And the church-planting process was started in that place.  As a result, Baptist churches began to spring up in ever-widening circles in a vast wilderness area.  The Lindwalls did not return to work in the Kekchi areas, but other IMB missionary families gave their entire missionary career to the movement.   By latest count, there are more than 50,000 Kekchi Baptists.   This movement began with two Kekchi men and a woman and a young IMB missionary couple.   This spiritual movement was the fruit of the Cooperative Program of Southern Baptists in which God used the International Mission Board as His chief agent.   With Cooperative Program funds and those of the Lottie Moon Christmas offerings, the International Mission Board sent this first couple to be followed by a growing crew of IMB missionaries for most of five decades.   This gave birth to the Kekchi Baptist Association that is a part of the Convention of Baptist Churches of Guatemala.    This demonstrates how Spirit-led denominational efforts can yield great fruit.

Lindwall became convinced that similar things could happen elsewhere and dedicated the following years of his life, even to the present day, to finding how many thousands can be brought to Christ by simple programs of Biblical disciple-making.   This is the purpose of the Church on the March, and, through it,  God is answering many prayers!

Pastor Hue Nguyen is revered among Vietnamese Christians as a survivor of 6 years imprisonment as a preacher of the gospel in a Communist jungle prison camp.   Trained by Lindwall in conferences conducted by CSI and Bill Davis, Hue has incorporated the CSI materials in an ambitious missionary training program called the Vietnamese Missionary Institute.  Hundreds of Vietnamese men and women have been trained as missionaries in both North and South Vietnam through these efforts.   The disciple-making strategies first promoted by CSI in Europe are those at work in Viet Nam as well.

Bro. Hue’s daily question is “What more can we do to win all Vietnam to Christ?”   One answer is to publish an attractive Vietnamese magazine that reaches Vietnamese in the USA, Vietnam and other parts of the world where Vietnamese immigrants can be found.   Bro. Hue is driven as an evangelist, but one who patiently disciples the lost with the Word of God and wins them to Christ in the process.   He says that the only kind of evangelism that works among Vietnamese is that based on a careful teaching the Word of God to those who know nothing about Him.    Hue is a member of the board of directors of the Church on the March.