Editor’s note: This is the fourth part of a multi-part story highlighting a family in Spain who has partnered with BILD since 2016. This story focuses on the Monroy family’s process for developing leaders and equipping individuals in their church for the works of the ministry.
The New Testament offers a set of teachings found in the Apostles’ letters written to the early first century churches that instruct Christians how to live their lives in community with each other as Christ’s family.
Understanding and living out these teachings have reinforced the Monroy family’s stewardship of planting and establishing churches in Spain. In the previous stories of this series, this can be seen as Mario, Amuy, and their three children have understood the Church as a family, opened their home as a mission center for progressing the gospel, and as they continue to cultivate opportunities to share the gospel with friends and neighbors.
These ideas have helped the Monroys establish their own family in Christ’s teaching, and they are laboring to establish families and individuals in their church to do the same. This continues as people engage with each other throughout the week and during the church gathering on Sundays.
Mario gave an example that his son, Josiah, is the only teenager in the church and when he invites his friends, the rest of the church learns how to care for, interact, and work with younger people in a natural way. This intentionality with the teenagers could be as simple as younger married couples talking about relationships and what it means to find a good wife or husband. Or it’s inviting young children over to make cookies. Or it’s a group of young married couples studying together because they realize some couples in the other house church in Madrid have needs, so they have made a plan to meet about marriages.
“In this process, we are learning too,” Mario said. “We try to let them have freedom so they can have ministries that occur naturally. We want other leaders and people in charge of this so they take ownership.”
As deeper relationships develop within the church family, the spiritual gifts of those within the church start to emerge and are recognized. After a base group within the church studied BILD’s Life Development resources and completed their Motivated Abilities Pattern (MAP), it allowed each of them to think about their unique design and purpose in God’s plan and their contribution to the church. “We did this together, and it helped them think about how each person was going to fit with each other and the work they do in the church,” Mario said.
Studying the Life Development resources is a one- to two-year process to help people understand how their motivated abilities and gifts align with God’s plan for the church, Mario said. “In Spain, people don’t like to make life plans. They don’t like to think about what will happen in the next few years,” he said. “In this process, learning the idea of legacy is very hard for them, but when they learn about it, they love it.”
While planning ahead is a foreign concept for many, Mario said it has paved the way for deeper understanding and life transformation. Mario shared that recently, one leader and his family were reviewing their entire lifestyle. “They felt many of the things they were doing in their daily life had caused them to lose perspective of the kingdom,” Mario said. “While they were trying to put this in place, they knew they had to do it together with their kerygmatic community. It was beautiful to listen to them say this. It tells us about the struggle they have inside to do this and take ownership of it.”
During the week, different groups meet to study BILD resources like The First Principles Series or LifeN, which paves the way for Sundays to be a time to gather as a church and celebrate their new lives in Christ together. “Sunday is our celebration as a church,” Mario said. “It’s not a study of The First Principles or LifeN. We tried that and we soon understood that it was not working. So for Sundays, we choose a bible text to study, but we are always open if someone has a question or is struggling with a life situation.”
As families within the church are becoming established and their lives are being transformed because of the gospel and biblical teaching, it has led to the natural progression of recognizing leaders and planting new churches. “The churches in Spain start in our house,” Mario said. “As people start coming, we start gatherings and discipleships. When we see they are ready, we say, ‘now you have to open your house. We need to open our house for a new group.’”
Mario shared one example when he and Amuy had been discussing together a leader who Mario thought would become an elder. “I didn’t say this to anybody, only Amuy and I talked about this,” he said. “One Sunday in our gathering we were having a socratic dialogue and talked about this issue, and all the people said, ‘Hey! It’s (this person)!,’ and this is the person I was thinking of. In that moment, all of the people knew this person was the elder to take care of the new church. So it’s interesting that I can see how these people mature, according to the principles we see in the Bible and The First Principles Series. It’s because all of the church is growing together and can identify the mature people.”
The Monroys are encouraged to see the maturing of believers within the church. “I have planted churches in Panama. I have planted churches in Guatemala. Now I am planting churches in Spain,” Mario said. “It is the first time I really felt that if I move from Spain, the people will miss me, but the church will keep moving forward without us. This is something we didn’t experience in Panama or Guatemala, and this is something we like a lot.”
The establishment of believers as they gather together and are engaged in each other’s lives throughout the week has not only led to maturing in their faith, it has opened their eyes to God’s kingdom and His plan through His Church and their role within it. The next story will focus on the church’s engagement with BILD’s global church network and Mario’s training of church leaders in Latin America.
Read more stories in this series on the BILD stories website here:
Spain: Understanding the Church as a family
Spain: The home as the church’s mission center
Spain: Cultivating opportunities for church growth, establishment, and expansion