Church Planter from the Philippines Leads Leadership Training in Norway

“We Adventists love to be different, but if our being different does not make a difference in the lives of others, we are just being weird,” Reylourd P. Reyes recently said. Reyes, secretary of the Central Luzon Provinces Mission in the Philippines, taught outreach methods to Norway church leaders at a leadership training weekend at Halvorsbøle Conference Center, Norway, October 18-20.

Reyes has been instrumental in planting six churches in the Greater Manila area in recent years and has a wealth of experience in sharing the gospel with secular people. He pointed out that many people have a stereotyped perception of Philippine society as highly religious, with big evangelistic events resulting in mass baptisms. It is that, but it is also a secular society where it is necessary to build trust on an individual basis before people are ready to listen to the gospel.

Reyes and his wife, a pediatrician, became frustrated because they seemed unable to reach people with traditional evangelistic methods. They realized that they had to put into practice the principles outlined in one of Ellen G. White’s most quoted statements on evangelism. “Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, ‘Follow Me’ ” (The Ministry of Healing, p. 143).

So, the couple decided that making friends with other people should be their top priority. They met people in nearby cafés, went on road trips, and attended birthday parties. After a while they discovered that their new friends were interested in helping out in ministry activities in the neighborhood.

“If we want to reach the people we have not reached in the past, we need to start doing things we have not done in the past,” Reyes said as he shared insights with participants at the leadership training event in Norway. Even though methods used in the past still work for some people, these methods will not work for everyone.

God commands us not to add mission to our tasks but to live a life of mission. We often have the notion that to be engaged in mission we have to go somewhere, but God wants us to make disciples as we go about the life. If you are a cook, make disciples as you cook.

“Today more than ever we need people preaching the gospel wherever they are,” Reyes said as he urged Adventists to live a life of mission.

“We need to develop rhythms that help us live missional lives,” he added. This type of living should be intentional, consistent, practical, and part of our daily rhythm.

Reyes and his family live on the 20th floor of a 48-story apartment building in Manila. In that building, one of their neighbors sold various types of groceries. Reyes and his wife decided to buy as much of their groceries as possible from their neighbor. Through this simple act they built trust with the woman, which eventually led to her asking questions about their lifestyle.

In the chapter in The Desire of Ages where Ellen White writes about the marriage feast, she reminds her readers how important it is to be socially intelligent. “Social power, sanctified by the grace of Christ, must be improved in winning souls to the Savior” (The Desire of Ages, p. 152). If we are intentional in spending time with new friends and are willing to listen to their needs, we will get opportunities to share the gospel.

White also stresses the need to employ wise methods in trying to reach people with the gospel. Some have simply repeated what they have done in the past: “By following their natural inclinations, they have closed doors through which they might, by a different method of labor, have found access to hearts, and through them to other hearts” (Gospel Workers, pp. 118, 119).

Reyes warned participants to never make people into a project but rather to engage with others in genuine friendships. He told participants how people in his church plants had to learn new vocabulary. Often, we refer to people outside the church as “non-Adventists” or “unbelievers.” These terms are insulting and inappropriate, he said. We must refer to these people as friends, because that is what they are.

The churches that Reyes has been instrumental in planting have developed out of small groups. One of the ways they got in touch with people was by putting their meetings and trips on the social media app Meetup, which is designed to help people connect with groups engaged in activities of interest to them. They would register small group meetings and church outings on the app.

As Adventists we need to be intentional in reaching out and connecting with others, he said. We must not be so optimistic about people coming to us. Reyes displayed a quote on the screen that puts the principle in stark terms. “A church that is waiting for sinners to visit their building is like the police waiting for criminals to visit their station,” he read.

The original version of this article was first published on the Norwegian Union Conference website.