Church Triumphant Ministries, Inc. is an indigenous outreach to the mountain tribal peoples of southern Mindanao in the Philippines. It is a fellowship of tribal pastors and workers committed to the common goal of providing training for tribal workers who have a burden to plant churches among their peoples and neighboring tribes who are unreached with the Gospel. The official languages of the Philippines are English and Filipino (based on Tagalog) so all the Bible schools require a competency test in English. The problem is that these tribal peoples live in remote areas where the schools only go to fourth grade or don’t exist at all. Therefore these people do not know enough English to be accepted at existing Bible schools. Church Triumphant Ministries was established to meet that need by providing Bible school training in the Cebuano language (the principal language spoken on Mindanao) for those who have a burden to become church planters but don’t know enough English to pass a traditional entrance test.
The vision of Church Triumphant Ministries is to bring quality Bible school training to those who need it most in a language they can understand so they can take the Gospel to tribal people who are still waiting to hear the Good News for the first time. Howard and Barbara Gard, veteran missionaries from America, have trained a ministry team of fourteen people with proven leadership ability and a heart to reach out and train others. This ministry team is now teaching others what they have been taught at two Bible schools, one in Davao del Norte and the other in South Cotabato. Two additional Bible schools have been planned for Davao Oriental and Agusan provinces. The students are given opportunity for supervised ministry while they are being trained as church planters. After graduation they become part of church planting teams who take the Gospel into unreached tribal villages. There are church planting teams currently working among the Ata, Mandaya, Mangungan, Manobo, Dibabawon, Omayamnon, B’laan, and T’boli tribes.
Since the ministry began in November, 2000, there have been 50 churches started and more than 10,000 new Believers baptized and added to the Body of Christ. On February 14, 2003, a peace conference was held at which 60 tribal chieftains representing 900,000 people entered into covenant, rejecting Islam and declaring their commitment to the Creator God and His Son Jesus Christ. Currently there are thousands of villages just waiting for someone to come tell them how to worship the Creator God and to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. When our church planting team arrives to bring the Gospel, entire villages will repent and receive Christ. A church is then established and one of our graduates remains behind to pastor the church and teach the people the Word of God. Our goal is to plant a Bible centered church in every tribal village on Mindanao.The goal of Church Triumphant Ministries is to become a self supporting indigenous work. To this end we have ministry teams who are training the tribal people in how to grow crops and raise animals for food instead of relying on hunting and gathering wild fruits from the jungle. As we teach the people how to grow their own gardens and how to tithe, the new churches become self supporting from the very beginning. The work has not yet developed to the point where it can cover the cost of operating the Bible schools or building the churches themselves. Because our students come from some of the most economically depressed areas of the Philippines, they cannot afford to pay tuition to support the school. The Bible schools are running far below capacity because of a lack of necessary finances. We can train a church planter for $50 a month for six months for a total of $300. We can build a church building for $200. The land is free. We use a chain saw to cut down the trees and turn them into lumber. The only expenses are nails, corrugated metal for the roof, and gas for the chain saw. For a total of $500, it is possible to train a pastor, build a church, and win a village to Christ. These 60 tribal chieftains are begging us to send workers to plant churches among their people. We could plant a church a day if we had the workers to pastor them. We are training the workers as quickly as the funds become available. The chieftains are asking how soon the workers can come. 890,000 souls are waiting to hear the Good News of God’s love for them. They have waited a lifetime for this message. How much longer shall we tell them they have to wait?
If you would like to adopt a student or build a church, please contact Church Triumphant at the address, phone number, or website listed below. We look forward to helping you become a covenant partner with someone who is impacting an entire tribe with the Gospel. If you do not feel that you can commit to $50 a month for six months to train a pastor or $200 to build a church but you would like to help, a gift of any amount will be received with joy and thanksgiving to cover the additional needs of the Bible school, the churches being planted, and the tribal pastors as those needs arise.
Together we can reach these people who are hearing the Gospel for the first time and cause them to become a testimony to the redeeming power of the precious blood of Jesus Christ who is not willing that any should perish, not even those living in remote areas at the ends of the Earth. Will you pray right now to ask God what He wants you to do and then do it?