Central America and Mexico
Central America: Reaching My First Million
By David Pursifull
I was a young pastor working in a mid-size city in central Mexico when God began to give me a vision to reach a million souls. Reinhard Bonnke had been a tremendous inspiration to me with his prayer for a million souls instead of a million dollars. I remember asking God for a strategy to reach this same goal and consequently began to pursue ministering to the masses through radio programs and television spots. Our church was able to secure a radio-station license in Mexico, which was a huge miracle and had never, to my knowledge, happened before in Mexico. Our station was an educational station, but we were able to teach biblical principles and play Christian music. Although it was a great first for evangelical believers, it was still too slow at reaching the lost.
Then Pastor Larry Stockstill got the idea of Surge and invited me to come on board and work on his team to reach nations. The vision was to continue the work we were doing while also building a team of men that we would partner with to raise up new leaders to plant churches. We would join our resources and training materials in order to prepare more pastors for harvest.
In 2000, we began assembling a team of men to reach our zone, which includes Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. In our first meeting together, we began to plan the first wave of church plants. To my surprise, the team set a goal of planting 97 churches throughout our region, a goal some denominations had taken 25 years to accomplish. At the end of the church planting year, we came within just a few churches of accomplishing this goal. I was astounded!
I began to realize that there are key components to planting churches at an accelerated rate in the unreached areas of the world while continuing to plant churches in the metropolitan areas. The first component is networking without the desire to build your name or your ministry. This allows fluidity and flexibility to move quickly without politics and boards to slow the process down. It is also a kingdom-minded philosophy of ministry. Networking takes full advantage of what is already in place to spring farther and faster. The key to networking is solid, real, genuine relationships.
The second component of accelerated church planting is the development of leadership. Small-group ministry coupled with a wave of leadership training worldwide has caused multiplication of leaders on a global scale. The harvest is so great and so ripe that we need every hand on deck and every available reaper to move into the harvest. The idea of multiplying leaders is God’s heart and is also a key to accelerated church planting.
The third component is the educating of the Western world in how best to impact and sow into nations. Pastors across America and the world are coming together to ask the national apostolic leaders of their respective countries what the best strategy is to reach their countries. This has changed from the idea of formulating all the strategy in America and the Western world and then implementing the strategies without consulting the international leaders. We are now seeing churches networking together and accepting their new role in world harvest.
Our team has continued to plant churches throughout our region, and thousands of churches have now been planted. Mountain regions that formerly had almost no Gospel witness now have churches started. A conservative estimate is that the entire global team has planted over 20,000 churches, more than 5 million souls have been saved, and over 1 million people are being discipled in the churches that have been planted. Together with Pastor Larry’s global team, I have seen the prayer I prayed as a young pastor answered: “God, give me a million souls.”
This is the most incredible time in the history of the world for the harvest. Just imagine what is going to happen as we continue to work together to reach cities and nations. I am dreaming bigger and believing God for greater things. Imagine what God wants to do through you, your business, and your church!
