By Holly Meriweather

Santiago, Chile, is a very vibrant, very fast, and very expensive city, which can make ministry there very difficult. The vision for reaching Chile with the gospel – particularly the capital city of Santiago – is to plant a church in each of its eighteen municipalities. The goal is to do so before planting in other cities. 

Missionary Bill Gibson served in Chile years ago and met a young Chilean, Pablo Munoz, who eventually became a church planter. Pablo says that although he was a Christian at the time he met Gibson, he was an undisciplined one, so the two began a mentor/disciple relationship that lasted years. Pablo became the main church planter in Santiago, and his very first church plant became a model for all others. 

Pablo’s involvement in disciple making includes taking the time to work an “upside down pyramid,” working with leaders instead of numbers. In addition to mentoring and discipling, Pablo continues to pastor his church. To this day, Pablo has mentored and discipled all the new church planters in Chile and has become the spiritual leader of the entire movement there. 

The newest church planter is Pablo’s oldest son, Pablito, who is planting the fourth BMA church in Chile with an older disciple. Read his story below. 

I was born into a Christian home and saved at the age of six in my local church, and at the age of thirteen, I confirmed that decision at a youth camp. My father surrendered to ministry when I was twelve, so he has been the foundation of everything I am and what I do, from my salvation to my ministry vision to my involvement in planting churches. He is responsible for inspiring me to plant churches. My father’s love for and dedication to people was a great example to me.

To support my ministry work, I studied sound engineering as a secular job. To help me prepare for ministry, I studied full time for a year at the Instituto Bíblico de Palabra de Vida Argentina, and I have done various DCPI training courses taught by the missionaries of BMA Chile. In my year of study at Word of Life (Palabra de Vida) church, I began to feel called to plant a new church, so my wife and I decided to move from Santiago to a more rural city, San Nicolas, which is more feasible to combine secular work with ministry. 

We began our ministry by building friendly relationships with people in the town, preaching the gospel to them, then discipling them and studying in small groups. But the basis of our work is always evangelism and discipleship.

There is a great need for churches, leaders, and pastors in Chile, especially where we are located in a rural area in the south of Chile. There are many towns in our region, and our vision is to plant a church in every town and train leaders and pastors to have the same vision. Pray that God will bring up leaders.

Johnmichael Poulin, regional coordinator for South America and Africa, has been imploring for more American BMA pastors to go on mission trips with him to South America. He has funds to pay their way, if they will only go. Opportunities to help train Chilean pastors are abundant, but trainers are not. Pray that God will raise up more leaders to go to Chile. Pray that God will raise up more leaders from within Chile.