CHRISTIANITY IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC.

Today, January 26, Dominican Republic celebrates the birthday of the national hero, Juan Pablo Duarte. While it happens, I am refleccting that, in spite of political and social freedom was made possible through Duarte's work, our country still lacks spiritual freedom. I encourage you today to pray for us, specially for the church and its leadership, while the efforts to reach our country for Christs continues... Let me share then, some excerpts of an essay I wrote sometime ago, about Cristianity in my beloved country.

• How Christianity came to my country:
It is difficult to establish dates, denominations and origins, since the first protestant missionaries arrived without denominational identity. The first evangelicals with missionary character arrived at the island in sea expeditions in British and Dutch boats, many of them like pirates.

In 1605, the king of Spain, Felipe III, ordered the evacuation and destruction of the cities in the north of the island. The “reason” for this devastating evacuation was, according to the order, the end of the contraband of British, French, Portuguese and Dutch, who specially brought Bibles and Christian literature in each expedition.

The evangelical Protestants were declared by the Spanish authorities to be associated with the adventurer pirates, but the reason was they could not use other boats to cross the Atlantic and arrive in America. It was very difficult for the Christians to openly introduce themselves in the island during the first 3 centuries of Spanish rule. The restrictions remained until the independence (1844) when the constitution of the new republic established religious freedom. Then missionaries from different denominations started to arrive at the island.


• Ways in which Christianity has spread in the country:
The main ways used to spread Christianity are personal evangelism and campaigns. Education has been an important strategy, since many churches have schools where the gospel is part of the curriculum. Recently, media has been exploited as a tool to spread the gospel after 30 years of external radio ministry (TWR Bonaire’s signal has reached the whole country since 1964) that had a meaningful influence on the growth of the Church.

• Churches strengths and weaknesses:
The church in the Dominican Republic has been enthusiastic about its job of preaching the gospel, but there is still a strong legalist element in the churches of the impoverished classes that prevails, preventing evangelism from being more effective. There are young leaders emerging that are questioning the dead models and non-functional structures. There are youth movements that are making efforts to become more relevant in the communication of the gospel. The local church also counts on the support of several interdenominational institutions that are developing an outstanding work.

WITNESSING TO CHRIST THROUGH MY OCCUPATION

I have such a great privilege to be a part of a home church where there is always enthusiasm to reach others with the Gospel, and, after 19 years of working in radio ministry, I am grateful to God that I can be a part of the team of Trans World Radio. Throughout this network, our evangelistic, family, youth, and Bible study programs reach not only those in our own country, but the whole hispanic speaking population in America.

As director of the partner office of TWR in the Dominican Republic, I have received empowerment from the leadership and I perceive a lot of respect from them to me. I also enjoy the appreciation from many people at churches and ministries in the country. I am very comfortable with my gender and I have a lot of respect for the teachings about women in ministry that many denominations (including mine) hold. I have to recognize that leadership in this level used to be and it still is, in most cases, limited. This is where teamwork skills should be developed, so that some work in the ministry that I am not allowed to do can be done through others.

HOW TO MAKE THE MESSAGE OF CHRIST MEANINGFUL TO MY PEOPLE.

The church needs to demonstrate practical love and compassion for the people. For that purpose, it should be more involved in non-traditional strategies, such as social work. The church needs to present the gospel at a level of language that most of the people can understand, since of the 82% that are literate, 33% have not finished primary school.

In the opinion of some leaders consulted, the current strategies of the church tend to reach people already convinced, while the reality is that there is a large population that rejects the impersonal methods of evangelism. There are people that need to be guided in a process to become a Christian, people with whom it is necessary to argue about the faith more than in the past.

Actually there is a strong tendency or emphasis on church growth (multiplication). As a consequence, it is being promoted as a “light” gospel that many like because it does not mean any change in their lifestyles, and many foundations from the Word of God are missing.

Church growth should be balanced on both sides: quantity and quality. Our evangelism and discipleship strategies should take into consideration that 90% of the population has never attended church, and that around 4,000 villages or towns are still without a Christian church.
In my opinion, it is the responsibility of the church to assist the community in their needs of guidance to prevent problems such as drugs, domestic violence, prostitution, AIDS, etc.

May God bless Dominican Republic!