That visit to Argentina

It was a great privilege to teach and preach in Argentina in August.

Trevor Routley has been in regular contact with a number of Christians in the north of the country who are discovering Reformed theology and in a journey taking in five cities, arranged by Trevor and local pastors and church leaders, I spoke some 21 times over eleven days. I travelled with Trevor and his wife Lucy and Daniel Rolls, who translated for me.

We began in Buenos Aires, first meeting with a small church on a Friday evening and then taking four sessions at a conference substantially of younger people, on ‘Justification and Sanctification’.

At Rosario, further north, I had been requested to speak twice on Sunday on ‘Perseverance and Preservation’ to a group who have had to leave a large Pentecostal church because of their growing Reformed convictions. They meet in a large disused garage. One couple travel one hundred and twenty miles each way on Sunday.

From there we went north towards Cordoba where I spoke one evening to a group of largely Brethren Christians, on ‘What is an Evangelical?’, and fielded interesting questions. In Cordoba I met Sam Masters, an American pastor and his leadership team, addressing them on ‘What does “Reformed” mean?’ before enjoying a late evening BBQ. Sam has set up the ‘William Carey Institute’ to develop a distance learning programme.

Next stop was Catamarca to speak to the First Reformed Baptist Church in that town with their lively young pastor, Samuel Manfrotto. He is a keen musician and the singing was good. They had asked me to speak on a Reformed vision for mission, which I was delighted to do over two evenings. Samuel told us that the Baptist hierarchy cannot understand how he is attracting people of all classes and ages without singing songs from a screen.

Our last call was to the ‘Jesus is Lord’ church in Tucuman whose pastor Raul Oliva (picture with me below - he is the handsome one) came out of Pentecostalism four years ago, losing three quarters of his congregation but still leaving him with well over a hundred and this has grown since then. The ‘leaders’ (some thirty men) gathered for two sessions on Saturday morning; I also preached twice in the evening and once on Sunday, and then covered ‘What is an Evangelical?’ and ‘What does “Reformed” mean?’ over four session on Monday, including a Q&A. This was a great climax to the trip; Raul is a zealous and gifted brother and he and his congregation are hungry to be taught the Word.

The generosity and gratitude of the people was humbling. The whole trip was exhilarating, though tiring. The work among Reformed believers in Argentina is scattered and small but the Lord has led these and others into a more serious and God-glorifying understanding of Scripture through a variety of means (not least the internet) and we should pray for them and for developing contacts between them.