The vision of reaching out to every Filipino with the gospel of Jesus Christ using prayer evangelism as the main strategy was birthed out of the success story we had in reaching out to the whole Anito Group of Companies-a chain of motels and other allied businesses.
When the motel chain was acquired, the unusual multiple use of rooms in a single day was a tell-tale sign that the rooms were being used for prostitution, involving many of the employees. The Christian owners faced a dilemma: purge the hotel of graft with layoffs that would leave hundreds of employees in the street, or lay hold of the power of God to bring about hundreds of miracles. A decision was made: they would speak peace to each of them and bring the kingdom of God to them by praying for their felt needs.
A "pastor" disguised as a hotel services manager was assigned to each of the motels. Prayer rooms were established. Almost immediately, people's lives began to change along with the spiritual climate in the motel. The “pastors” began to gather their congregations of newly transformed believers for meetings during work hours. It was Church in the marketplace. Amazingly, by the grace of God, during the next 18 months 1,400 of the 2,000 employees were brought into the kingdom of God through blessing them, fellowshipping with them, meeting their needs and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.
Ed Silvoso's book, That None Should Perish, made a big impact on us and helped us greatly to establish this strategy in the motels. With these amazing results to affirm that strategy, our team began to think beyond the motel and the company. Through the assistance of Randy Nelson (then the Harvest Evangelism representative for the Philippines) and a preliminary visit by Sr. Vice President Dave Thompson, groundwork was laid for the first National Prayer Evangelism Conference in Manila in November 1999.
The event was a great success. Over 7,000 pastors and church leaders attended. The national and local church leadership which was so fragmented by disunity and other problems started to be reconciled with one another. City reaching efforts quickly sprang up all over the nation, and six months later, three big conferences with Ed Silvoso in the major cities of the nation-Manila, Cebu and Davao-launched a movement we called Light The Nation.
Today, the terms "city reaching" and "pastoring an entire city" are everyday vocabulary in many towns, cities and municipalities. It is commonplace to find pastors working together to minister to entire communities.
In late 2001, Brother Ed started to share the concepts of Anointed for Business and the need to reclaim the marketplace. It was a very welcome and timely message because we were discovering that one of the main reasons pastors in the city failed in fully reaching and impacting the whole city was because the marketplace people were not being recognized and included in the process. Consequently, they were not released to minister in the marketplace.
Today, we are mobilizing the marketplace leaders to minister in the fields of government, education and business. We have conducted two major events towards this end. Solid prototypes have started to emerge in key cities where the church now operates in the marketplace. In the city of Parañaque, prayer meetings have been happening every day at the Mayor's office for over nine months now (May 2005). Twenty-five cell groups formed in twenty-five departments are studying The Purpose Driven Life book, and monthly worship takes place right at the newly-constructed air-conditioned city hall building. Hallelujah.
As we move forward, we still see a deep need for pastors or pulpit ministers to embrace this new wave of God in which the marketplace leaders operate as equally and uniquely anointed for ministry in the city. We also need a good teaching track for marketplace leaders. While it is true that the unity of the Body of Christ has improved by leaps and bounds, the prayer of Jesus that every one who believes in Him must be one remains the main focus in every endeavor.
King Flores,
Harvest Evangelism Associate
Director for the Philippines
