Dear Prayer Partners,

As many of you know, nearly 22 years ago, the Lord allowed us to begin our first church in Bogotá, Colombia.  Today, we refer to that work as, the mother church, which is nationally led, and a congregation of 800 believers with 34 daughter works and churches throughout the country.  Now God has given JoAnne and I the challenge of beginning another church in Cartagena, along the coast of Colombia.  It’s a city of approximately one million people.  The language and culture is very different than that of the interior of the country.  It’s like we are learning all over again.  The kink is that we are 55 years old instead of 33.  However, God’s grace is sufficient (Ps.73:26).

Numerous individuals, throughout the years, have asked me how we go about starting churches in Colombia.  In this prayer letter I want to explain how God has led us to form bible believing churches. 

First of all, we pray for our portion of Christ’s “spiritual inheritance” in each city where God has led us to begin a local church. (Ps.2:8)  We literally start churches on our knees, asking God to place in our pathway those “divine appointments” that he has for us (Acts 8:26-39).  We ask him to prepare and open their hearts for the receiving of his word (Acts 16:14).  These are “natural contacts” that he makes for us in our daily lives.  I might add, we begin with unsaved people.  We ask God for “fresh fruit” not believers from other churches (Rom.16:5).  This makes ministry so much easier because we don’t have believers coming to us with bad doctrine or spiritual baggage from their previous congregation.  Besides this, we don’t want to rob sheep (I Cor.4:15) or build on another’s foundation ( Rom.15:20). 

Secondly, we take them through a series of evangelistic home bible studies in order to teach them the gospel and lead them to a knowledgeable and genuine salvation in Christ.  In our case, the majority is Catholic and 99% of them make their profession of faith in Christ by the end of these studies.  These studies are culturally y spiritually sensitive to their religious experience.  So, as you can see, we start with people, not a building. (I Cor.16:19; Col.4:15)

Thirdly, we continue with those who have made their profession of faith in Christ, with biblical discipleship.  These studies also take place in the houses of the new believers. This process usually takes approximately 2 to 3 years.  All the material has been developed to give the basic foundation of the Christian life and fundamentals of the faith.  We aren’t in a hurry!  Our concern is their understanding and living the truths and principles that are being taught. 

Fourthly, once we have approximately 50 faithful believers from the discipleship process in homes, we look for a location to begin to congregate in on a regular basis.  By faithful we mean: 1) in the word and prayer daily, 2) obedience to God’s word, 3) sharing the gospel with others and 4) giving their weekly offerings (in the home bible studies).  This allows us to begin with a strong foundation from which to build the church upon (Mt.7:24-27). This is the moment that the church is officially organized. Of course, before we get to this point we have occasional united studies so the new believers can began to have fellowship with other believers.  One of the benefits of this approach is that they pay their own way from the beginning with their offerings.  Before salvation, the typical Colombian catholic throws a few coins in the plate when they go to mass.  In our discipleship process, they learn biblical giving and begin to obey little by little. This allows each work to be completely indigenous in nature.  In other words, it is their work from the start. Their heart is there because their treasure is their (Mt.6:21).  Our experience has been that these same believers will eventually buy land and build their own facility in due time.

We are now conducting 19 home bible studies each week with 28 people.  The majority have made their profession of faith in Christ.  Most are worked with on an individual basis.  I ask you to pray for God to work in the lives of these new believers, so that we might someday have a model church in Cartagena, Colombia that is capable of impacting the world for Christ.  “Not because I desire a gift: but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.” (Phil.4:17)  

                                                                                                   Paul Clark

Note:  Our new email is:  clark1997@costa.net.co   New phone: 011-575-665-4705

Paul & JoAnne Clark

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