NEW BREAKTHROUGHS
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.
