What's happening? More than 20,000 people (mainly youths) are crammed together in one indoor stadium in Bogota. Large numbers of coaches are dropping people off. Long queues are trying to get in. Street vendors are selling fruit and snacks around the outside of the complex. No. It's not an international sporting event. It's a church in Colombia, getting ready for a service. Actually, it's only a small part of the church gathering together! They manage to fill the 26,000-seat stadium twice every Saturday night and regularly 500 young people come forward to receive Christ in each of the meetings!

There are, on average, five murders each Saturday night in Bogota, which is situated 8,500 feet up a mountain. After cocaine production, kidnapping is the next major source of revenue for the gangsters who hold sway in much of Colombia. The Colombian army, though trained by the SAS and helped by the Americans, barely holds its own against the rebel militia.

The senior pastor of the International Charismatic Mission, Cesar Castellanos, received a vision based on the promise that God made to Abraham in the Bible: "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you..." (Genesis 12:2-3). He understood that this was still valid for today and began imparting faith to those around him so that they would believe for their nation.

The strategy is simple: Just as the Father had 12 men for Jesus through whom He multiplied Himself, so God has 12 persons for every leader. The calling is for leaders to pour their lives into 12 people and teach them to do the same. Pastor Castellanos and his team follow a basic four-stage track: Win, Consolidate, Disciple, Send.

A key weapon in the strategy is what they call 'consolidation'. They were aware that after big crusades only a very low percentage of new converts actually stayed rooted in Christ. So they developed, through prayer, a method of training the new believers. Each one is assigned to a cell and is trained by the cell leader. Through a training module called 'The School of Leaders', the new convert can become a cell leader himself within a year after his conversion. The new leader will keep meeting with his mentor while he leads a new cell, ready to repeat the process with his new disciples.

The training and discipling includes deliverance from demons; breaking curses and generational bondages; inner healing and baptism of the Holy Spirit. They are taught how to evangelise; pray and fast; enter into spiritual warfare; how to live a life of brokenness and holiness before God and man.

In this way they have been able to keep over 80 per cent of their new converts and the church has grown from 8 to 300,000 members in 18 years.

The whole church meets in cells throughout the week and comes together at weekends for a celebration meet ing. The emphasis is not on what happens on Sunday morning but what happens in the cells. Everybody is called to win souls and build their 'downline' cells - this is seen as their main purpose on earth.

Also, the people are taught holiness as a lifestyle. As one young cell leader put it: "We can't achieve success if we are jealous of another pastor who is popular or if we think we know better. We won't get anywhere if we don't submit to leaders and honour them by serving them. The devil wlll laugh at us if we pursue this vision and treat our wives or husbands badly. We can't enter into spiritual warfare for our cities if we have open windows for the enemy - we need to sanctify our lives in order to have the authority to enter into battle for our cities."

They have a big vision of world evangelisation, believing that there must be a wineskin to cope with the coming great harvest of souls. And they see this as not just a Latin American phenomenon, but something for the whole world.

Source: Global Revival News.

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