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 REACH, Inc. is a lay discipleship movement in the Philippines
that is infiltrating larger sections of society by reproducing
Christ in the lives of disciples. Evangelism and disciple-making
occur in the workplace, in public high schools and on university
campuses where many students will become tomorrow’s
Christian professionals capable of making an impact on every
aspect of community life.
Foundation of the Ministry
Jesus Christ is the consummate model of making disciples.
He banded twelve men of varying temperaments, ideology and
vocational backgrounds. They quarreled amongst themselves
and misinterpreted what he said. Christ faced internal pressures
bringing this disparate grouping of men together and even
lost one. He also faced external pressures of a nervous but
entrenched religious and political order. Yet by the end of
his ministry he was ready to entrust the Kingdom of God into
their hands.
He told them before he left that they would receive power
from the Holy Spirit and that they should be witnesses in
Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
As they moved farther away from the center of the birth of
Christianity with its distinctive Jewish flavor, they ran
into cultural differences. Without changing the message, they
had to figure out how to communicate the truths in a relevant
manner. Not everyone liked how the Apostle Paul did it. But
the Kingdom spread throughout the known world.
Christian history is filled with success and disaster stories
about bringing the message in culturally appropriate ways.
Through the ages, discipleship principles waxed and waned.
In this century, Dawson Trotman was used by God to revive
and popularize this long-neglected theme in New Testament
teaching, through the organization he founded called The Navigators.
Again, as these principles moved farther from the American
cultural milieu in which they were once again popularized,
the teachings of Jesus needed to be faithfully taught while
communicated in a Third World setting far from Western and
particularly American day-by-day experiences.
For this reason, REACH, Inc. was born with its emphasis on
discipling the whole person. As the skeletal structure, it
was incarnated in the flesh through relief work, development
projects, Bible study materials and the family concept expressed
in the Filipino term malakas-angkan (strong family). This
forms the backdrop that forged a contextualized disciple-making
ministry in the Philippines that is suited for the Third World.
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