Equipping Gospel-Bearers in Mindanao, Philippines
An update from Jeffrey T. Jo, Senior Pastor of Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministries (CCSGM) in Manila, Philippines, and National Leader in the Philippines...
With the alarming growth of cultic groups in Surigao province in Mindanao, one of which is even being investigated today by a group of Philippine senators, one of our church staff approached me the other day and said, “I am grateful to God that in His kindness, He used us to plant churches in that region 15 years ago and now we even have an ongoing bible training school so we can raise up and equip more pastors who will be gospel-bearers, church planters, and teachers of biblical truth for the generations to come.”
Indeed, it has been our passion for the gospel to grow in Mindanao and to see churches planted in that region. For the past two years, we have been praying and planning how to raise up younger pastors and church leaders in Surigao, for we have observed that most of our pastors whom we started serving alongside 15 years ago, have aged. One of these pastors passed away this year and a lot of them find it challenging to give pastoral care to their congregants due to their health conditions.
With these realities, God gave us wisdom to establish PPI or Philippine Pastors Institute. It officially started on September 2 with 19 enrollees and right now there are 15 committed students from 5 different Cross of Christ Salvation Gospel Ministries (CCSGM) churches in that region. These include eleven men of which some are intern-elders and four women who are either serving in women’s ministry or children’s ministry. Two of the women are wives of our local church elders.
The students should be high school graduates and can understand and write in English. We provided every student an ID, a school uniform, lecture modules and readings in English and a free lunch. Their local church provides their transportation expenses and their pastor’s recommendation letter. They will meet every Saturday from 9AM to 3PM but for the last week of each month, they meet for two days for live-in learning where one of our Sovereign Grace ordained pastors will fly from Manila to Surigao for 2 hours and travel by land for another 6 hours to do a summary lecture of what they’ve learned for the past 6 weeks. In this way the students can be refreshed with what they’ve learned in those 6 weeks, while also giving us an opportunity to assess the clarity and efficiency of our two pastors, Joseph Piamonte (San Miguel, Tandag City) and Ronnie Bautista (Tandag City), who have been teaching them week after week in their own native tongue.
We are currently renting a church facility in one of our churches there and a hotel-like facility for the last week of each month. Our 9-month curriculum covers the basics of the following: Introduction to Theology, Bibliology, Anthropology, Soteriology, Christology, Pneumatology, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, a Preaching Class and Sovereign Grace’s 7-shared values and 7-shared virtues. Our SGC ordained pastors Reynaldo Lacbayo (Cavite City) and Francis Mariano (Imus City), both graduates with bachelor's degrees in theology, will take turns every 2 months to fly to Mindanao to concretize and review the learnings of the students.
According to the reports of our teachers there, the students are like ‘sponges’, eager to learn and have a deep hunger and humility to know more scriptural truths. Though this is just a pilot project, we hope and pray that God will favor us to use it year after year as an equipping arm of Sovereign Grace Churches here in the Philippines. We give thanks to God for the partnership of Sovereign Grace Churches Asia-Pacific region in this inspiring, yet not-without-challenge endeavor. Both the students and their pastors are extremely grateful for the support of SGC for equipping and raising up a younger ‘breed’ of pastors, church planters, and leaders so that the gospel of Christ may continually be proclaimed and for the continuous establishment of gospel-centered churches not only in Surigao del Sur but throughout all of Mindanao.
