Embracing Diversity and Mutuality: A 40-Year Journey

EMQ » July – Oct 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 3

Collaboration and Partnership 

Summary: The mission field is changing as more foreign and national partners work together towards shared goals. The development of Every Community for Christ Philippines offers an example of what this looks like.

By Abegail Lyn “Abby” A. Galzote

How does a mission field with tremendous diversity move forward in a mutual, collaborative manner? What is happening in the Philippines today through Every Community for Christ Philippines (ECC PH) provides one model.

With around 7,640 islands, of which about 2,000 are inhabited,^[i] and 186 languages,^[ii] the Philippines is diverse. The Filipino culture is a mixture of indigenous, Asian, and Western influences. Because of these differences in culture, language, and geography, there is a great diversity among the Filipino people. 

In addition, the Philippines has 42,027 barangays (neighborhoods or villages).^[iii] Statistics given from the Philippine Churches Update show that about 23,214 of these barangays have no church.^[iv] In those barangays with churches, most are Catholic with a wide variety of other denominations and independent churches. This level of diversity becomes a huge and difficult environment in which to achieve mutuality in mission and purpose.

ECC PH is an NGO, registered with the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission, and led totally by Filipino leadership. It is committed to the vision of church planting saturation throughout the Philippines in cooperation and collaboration with other churches and organizations. But it didn’t start there.

ECC began as the church planting teams of the national denomination – Faith Evangelical Church of the Philippines (FECPI). The denomination was started by One Mission Society (OMS) in the 1980s, totally led by foreign missionaries and focused on just this one denomination. How did ECC get from where it was to where it is today, and what have we learned?