Multicultural Church Doing Missions Together Local and Abroad

In the previous posts, we have shared the practical impacts on missions of NZ as an Ends-of-the-Earth Country.

First, missionaries have been coming to New Zealand through migrant workers.

Second, the need to send missionaries to local international communities around NZ.

In this post, we will discuss the third implication, which is seeing a multi-ethnic church doing missions together in local international communities and overseas.

I have mentioned this in another post (Slide 6), and I would like to share again how the Baptist mission started in our home province, Iloilo, Philippines.

In 1898, Braulio Manikan, a Filipino living in Spain, converted to Baptist Christianity through Eric Lund, a Swedish missionary. They started the Baptist mission in the province of Iloilo, the Philippines, in 1900. Three decades later, this resulted in the formation of the Convention Baptist denomination.

Based on the latest statistics, the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches has 879 churches and 600,000 members.

Yes, it all started in Spain through a Swedish missionary doing a mission to a Filipino and then doing missions together in the Philippines.

Dr. Elmo Familiaran, co-author of the book, “No Greater Love; Triumph and Sacrifice of American Baptist Missionaries During WW II Philippines, and the Martyrdom in Hopevale” shared with me that in his research through the International Ministry archives, he learned that it was not until the turn of the 20th Century, the beginning of the American colonial period, that Protestant missionaries came to the Philippines.

“Eric Lund was the first missionary the ABFMS (American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society) sent to the country in 1900. In 1894, Eric Lund met in Barcelona a young Visayan native of Panay Island named Braulio Manikan. Manikan had gone to Spain to study civil engineering. He was raised a Roman Catholic and became a Baptist under Eric Lund’s tutelage. Together, they went to the Philippines and established the first Baptist mission on Panay Island in 1900. In February 1901, the first Baptist church in Jaro, Iloilo City (Philippines) was organized.”

Elmo Familiaran

So, applying this to our local church situation, I came up with the missions diagram below:

The Multicultural Church Missions Model

The list below corresponds with the 2018 Multicultural Church Missions Model NZ diagram.

• Multicultural Church – Swedish Eric Lund and Filipino Braulio Manikan joined a local Baptist church in Spain.
• Local International Communities – Braulio Manikan (a migrant in Spain)
• Overseas – In Spain, Eric Lund and Braulio Manikan planned and executed bringing the Gospel to Iloilo, Philippines, in 1900.