Robust Churches Planted in “Hard” Communities—la Verbena’s Story
Indigenous groups, like the Kekchí, are normally very difficult to enter with the gospel. God showed there a surprising way the gospel could catch fire in a people group. Could the same thing happen in an old inner-city neighborhood where there was not one resident Christian family available to help? Following the Christ’s four-step Great Commission strategy that opened the Kekchi Indian people to Christ, God worked with equal power in a crime-ridden barrio in the heart of Guatemala City! Methods were different, but Christ’s basic four-part strategy was exactly the same.
La Verbena, in 1984, was an isolated urban eyesore on the very edge of a deep canyon. It was controlled by criminals and was never entered by the police except on rarely-conducted army-scale raids. It had one or two one-room Pentecostal churches, an abandoned cemetary where firing squads sometimes executed prisoners, an insane asylum, a TB sanatorium, dirt streets with no sewage, and less than 300 tiny houses. A Baptist church in a better neighborhood paid starting-rent for a meeting place that had been a red and black bar and brothel. The church commissioned the Lindwalls and four teenagers to start a Baptist church there. Two and three coats of white paint later, the mission was opened for a full schedule of normal church meetings. Weeks passed, and only one visitor ever appeared and then disappeared. (Read more)
Meanwhile, the children from the houses around the new chapel met with the team two times a week for happy “Bible parties.”—informal VBS type meetings with lots of games added. They were encouraged to invite their parents to visit the church, but no one seemed interested. Lindwall awoke to the fact that he needed to visit the families, and he started to do so about every third Saturday. (He was director of the Guatemala Baptist seminary through the week.) He made quick calls, declining the opportunity to sit down or take refreshment. He congratulated the families on their wonderful children (No exaggeration!), got acquainted with the family, asked if he might briefly pray for the family according to any needs it might have. He politely left, without a single word about the church or its services. He repeated the process three weeks later, getting an update of the family’s prayer needs, and again left without a word of invitation to the church. Still another three weeks later, he returned door by door with the same routine. That time, however, he left saying, “By the way, on Sunday evening we will have a film,” explaining what it would be. “If you have time, we would love to have you and the kids there.” That Sunday night was the birth night of a new Baptist church because nearly all the families showed up. Shortly after, one night per month was declared the monthly birthday celebration of the community. All with birthdays were called to the front and a Christian birthday song was sung in their honor. Each was given a long-stemmed rose followed by a prayer for the group. Then, the entire congregation came forward congratulating the celebrants. After a normal service and message, coffee and cake were served to all! The neighbors loved what they saw and began to attend regularly.
The workers did not wait for the preaching ministry to bring families to spiritual decisions. Instead, the missionary couple and one of the youth went into the homes of those who attended and taught an evangelistic series of Bible stories called “People Who Knew Jesus,” The families responded, receiving Christ as Lord in their homes as had happened among the Kekchi. They were then presented to the church and quickly baptized. In a little more than one year, a young Guatemalan pastor was called and fully supported by the church, having a near capacity attendance of 60 to 70. The young church started a branch Sunday school with about 30 children and youth in a neighbor’s courtyard on the other side of the barrio. Today, the church has its own two-story building in the very center of the barrio, with a splendid pastoral family, a remarkable choral group, and a bright testimony in a neighborhood that is, itself, greatly changed for the better. The La Verbena story is another testimony to God’s use of Spirit-led Southern Baptist denominational life. The missionary family was able to dedicate time to the task because of their full-time support by the SBC Cooperative Program. The resulting new church quickly joined and supported the Baptist convention in Guatemala and, interestingly, supported the Lottie Moon Christmas offering from the beginning, sending annual gifts to the International Mission Board. The Cooperative Program works in both directions!
In La Verbena, the Great Commission pattern was the same as among the Kekchi: Go to the lost, disciple them, baptize them, and train them, putting them to work as missionaries among their own people. This pattern is the essential strategy of the Church on the March missionary network, anywhere in the world.
