A Decade of Harvest in the Philippines

‍(Editor's Note: As we prepared our Summer 2024 issue of the Pentecostal Messenger, Dr. Labang graciously made time for a brief interview with Global Missions Director Virgil Kincaid. Below we have provided a transcript of that interview.)

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What are the missional goals you’ve established for the Philippines?

At the General Assembly when we first set our decadal goals, I pledged on behalf of PCGAMI (Pentecostal Church of God Asian Missions Incorporated) that we would be responsible for achieving 10% of those goals. That means our goals are to:

• Establish 1,000 new churches
• Train 1,000 new pastors
• Raise Up 1,000 new Next-Gen leaders
• Make 100,000 new disciples for Christ

‍What kind of progress are you seeing since establishing these goals?

At the beginning of 2020, PCGAMI had 560 churches across the Philippines. Since establishing our strategy for a Decade of Harvest we have seen the following progress:

• New churches: 118
• Total pastors: 958
• Next-Gen leaders: 1,000
• New disciples: 7,400

Besides the new churches listed above, we have established 841 house churches throughout the Philippines. The majority of our 1,000 new leaders and 7,400 new disciples are serving within those house churches.

‍What’s working for you? How are you approaching church growth?

Mentoring. After the pandemic, we established 22 centers for mentoring leaders where I personally mentor, motivate, and equip them to evangelize. This has only accelerated in the past two years. Our goal is not simply to get people to the church but to bring the church to the people. We teach them to hear the voice of God and then to go where He says to go and do what He says to do. You must equip believers to win people and to disciple them.

The pastor should not just preach to the people but must equip them to win and disciple others. Big gatherings are necessary (congregational gathering and worship), but the small gatherings (house to house) will reach more people.The Church should be the Church every day and not just on Sunday! Activate the body of Christ for total Kingdom effectiveness.

For example: Pastor Anino, in the Visayas region, pastors a large church in Dumaguete City. He prays and the Lord leads him to an area. He takes a worker with him and starts a house church. He leaves the worker there to win souls and disciple them while he goes to another area with another worker to repeat the process. Pastor Anino prayed and felt God leading him to Bacolod City. He knew no one there but God brought contacts to him and now they have 70 people in a house church. Pastor Anino and his church have planted 23 new churches in the past 4 years.

Global Conference 2026 will be held in Mindanao. What’s exciting to you about hosting the event in the Philippines?

Global Conference is an opportunity for international and national leaders to receive encouragement, intensify their fire and passion for God, to act and think strategically on how to win souls because they will receive a lot of impartation during the conference. It will rekindle the fire of the pastor and the burden to plant churches and disciple believers. Global Conference is a place where we can be fired up, encouraged, and our passion for Christ will be rekindled. We are looking forward to Global Conference 2026 to receive fresh anointing, lasting fire, and new passion and compassion for people.