5,300+ Join YWAM Follow-Up Groups!

We always wanted to see a transformation in the country of the Philippines. Our vision has been to see the Philippines become a launching pad for other leaders to come out of all nations and to see transformation around the world. We planned to reach all the unreached countries in Asia.

Though there was a lot of opposition to the gospel, a lot of people heard the name of Jesus Christ and wanted to follow Him. There was a lot of hunger, everywhere we went to; in the communities and in the public schools.

When we started the journey in 2018, we ministered to more than one hundred and twenty thousand people and more than a hundred thousand people gave their lives to Christ!

Since we began our campaign in Taguig, Philippines, over 127, 000 people have heard the Gospel of Jesus and there have been over 108,000 commitments to follow Jesus! These people have come to Christ in just over seven months of outreach. Trying to break this down, that was about 45,000 to 46,000 people giving their lives to Christ quarterly and about 15,000 weekly. That was an alarming number, and, in a way, it confirms Jesus statement that the harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few.

The biggest challenge that we had was that all of them wouldn’t stay in a Sunday Church.

We discovered that less than 3% of the emerging generation knows what it means to follow Christ or what it means to go to church on Sundays. That means about 97% of everyone under the age of 18 has absolutely no concept of what it means to go to church on Sunday. So, we had to be realistic and look at our strategy to see if what we were doing to see a transformation in people’s lives was that being effective.

And then out of all of them, we discovered that only 1% was willing to stay in discipleship groups and so only 1% of new converts were staying in committed discipleship or follow-up groups. We had to see how to get these people discipled and established in their faith in Christ. We wanted to figure out what it would mean for these people giving their lives to Jesus to be discipled and then to fix the problem of only 1% staying in discipleship groups. We wanted to increase the number to 100% so that every one of them had access to discipleship. We further discovered something that was more alarming; after thirty to sixty days, the majority of the one percent that join the discipleship groups leave!

We wanted to increase the number to 100% so that every one of them had access to discipleship.

We knew that we had a big problem in our hands, and we made up our minds to fix it.

We further discovered that when the location of the discipleship classes is changed from that of evangelism, about 80% of the people evangelized would leave and only about 20% would stay. Sometimes, it could even be less.

What this means is that if they were evangelized in a mall or a church and the follow-up location is not that mall or church, they were most likely to leave.

We decided to fix it!

Majority of the people were evangelized were from educational fields, and so we would go to schools and tell them that we have transformational programmes for them, we would talk to their principals, and we would get either a Yes or a No. We got more Yes than No and when we got Yes, we would visit their schools and explain to them what it means to follow Jesus so they would know that real transformation comes from Jesus Christ and a lot of people were saved.

Transformation begins by reading the word of God and it is ultimately sustained by applying it.

It was, however, difficult to get them to go to Church and that was a significant source of concern. The Lord revealed that we could start the programmes in their schools!

Amid the problem we faced was an opportunity; the Philippines has a history of Catholicism and respect for the Bible, and so it was easier to have discipleship groups in their schools. Having discipleship groups in schools might have been difficult in a country like the United States of America because of their policies. So we learnt to keep the discipleship locations in the same place where they met Christ.

We also found a solution to leadership issues

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.        2 Timothy 2: 2 (KJV)

We mostly like to give new converts established believers as leaders. While this has a lot of benefits, we have discovered that it might not always work. There are times when leaders are just better being some of those who just gave their lives to Christ. This imposed on us the responsibility to disciple these ones at a faster pace than the others so that they can bring up the others. So, we had to teach them what it means to bring transformation to their communities, churches and families. We had a mindset that helped us in achieving this, ‘What you teach new disciples for thirty days is what they would essentially do for the next 30 years’.

The established leaders already have their way of doing their things, some of these ways might not go down well with the young believers, and it might be difficult to get the established leaders to change. It is, therefore, better to get new disciples trained in such a way that they will be able to train others and this we did, while also being careful of not compromising Bible standards.

That is why the majority of movements around the world come from new native disciples and not from the established church leaders who would have to learn new ways.

The majority of movements around the world come from new native disciples.

In whatever you are doing, continuity is vital and so it falls on you that you should bring up other people who will be able to do the work when you are not there. You cannot really say that you are successful until you have successors.

Value Formation Programs in Public Schools

We started value formation programmes teaching Biblical principles, values of integrity, godly relationships, learning how to use one’s mouth to speak life and not death, what it means to follow Jesus, and our identity in Christ.

It is important to teach the coming generation what it means to be leaders that can actually impact society and not disintegrate and destroy it.

We considered the teaching on identity to be important because a lot of people these days are from broken homes with no parents and nobody to guide them through life and so they pick their sense of identity from televisions, radios, videos, and gangs. Unfortunately, most of what they get is the wrong ideas that teach people to objectify women and men to be chauvinistic, alcoholic, use drugs, and engage in other social vices.

The result we had

About 5,300 people were able to join this programme as a result of the fact that it was in their schools. For us, this was a huge win. As a result of the fact that we were able to partner with school leaders, we were able to see transformations in so many people.

Now we have more people willing to join the follow-ups. We are also looking at giving Bibles to everyone who has committed to following Jesus Christ. So far, we have been able to give out over 2,600 Bibles, over 3,600 meals to feed the children, and more than 14,000 people heard the Gospel in Metro Manila and Cavite. We went from 1% follow-up to 76% in one quarter.

We went from 1% follow-up to 76% in one quarter.

With over 100 missionaries coming into our outreaches every quarter, throughout the year, we have more than enough manpower to raise up local leaders to take the movement to the next level.

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?” (Luke 15:4, NLT)

Jesus left the 99 to go after the one sheep. Whoever the Lord has placed in front of you, Jesus has given you the Holy Spirit to make tremendous transformational impact in their lives. Sacrifice time, money, and resources for them and see the greatest eternal rewards from God in it. The greatest joy is seeing others flourish in their fullness.