The Church has failed in something.” Luis Alonso Lazo, National Coordinator of Church Planting for Church of God of Prophecy, said this after learning that El Salvador has one of the highest numbers of Christians in Central America but is also one of the most violent. This sharp contrast has caused many pastors to wonder why Christianity is not reflected in their society.

Luis recognizes that it is not an easy task to pastor, disciple, or evangelize. They are always at risk of being stopped by the gangs and becoming victims of their violence or kidnapped as spies from other gangs who control the territories.

Sadly, the country has become accustomed to this societal reality and some have resigned themselves to living with the fear. But why hasn’t the Church impacted the culture if the majority of the population is Christian?

Luis participated in a Multiplication Network Ministries’ (MNM) workshop on the need to plant healthy churches a few years ago and immediately recognized that it was a great opportunity for his country.

But first they had to evaluate their established churches by using MNM’s Take Your Church’s Pulse tool in order to discover where future church planters would come from.

“We really needed our pastors to be able to identify where their churches could be strengthened so that they would be equipped to plant another healthy church,” says Luis. Then they could identify potential church planters.

As a result of following MNM’s Stronger Churches program, the leadership of the Church of God of Prophecy developed a formidable plan. “Our goal is to plant around 600 churches by 2020, which means planting around 100 churches every year and by God’s grace we believe we can do it,” Luis shares.

They believe this work is possible because the local churches have been strengthened and feel the need to plant new churches. “The difficulties do not matter to us because we firmly believe that we are called to complete the call God has given us. We also want to see a healthy church representing the Kingdom of God in every community because we believe this country can change. For that we need to accomplish our vision and be intentional in discipleship and evangelism like we have learned in MNM’s training.”