...And now, what is the next? Asked a group of leaders of my church in Orange County, California the day we finished the inauguration of our building in 1997. Up to that point we had worked hard in the process of discipleship and the fruits were evident. We had sixteen lay pastors serving the 350 members congregation. We had three services including an English multicultural service. Their question re-sounded in my mind for many weeks and months ahead until one day the invitation to become missionaries in Bolivia came to our lives.

Discipleship is a learning process, a precious time to learn that our identity is in Jesus Christ. We learn how to pray, how to worship, how to study the Word, how to have mature relationships with the people who surround us, we learn that we have a gift and that we need to use it and of course, we discover profound experiences with God thru His Holy Spirit. We learn to mature in Christ and discover that following Him means more than Sunday services.
At this point we discover that there are many people in church who are only looking for a Sunday experience based on what they want. At this point we realize that there is people in church only focusing in power issues; the aim for many of these people is to be in power and set their agenda on the community. At this point of the discipleship process we become aware that being a Christian is not about us inside the building. In fact, we realize it is about what happens outside our buildings.

It is at this point that we realize that Christianity as well as any other religions around the world has a set of sacred symbols like communion and baptism, a set of sacred celebrations like Sunday Services with particular and unique configurations and a set of doctrinal ORDUS that must be followed time after time. Nevertheless, Christianity does not end in all these sacred celebrations, on the contrary, because of all these holy configurations something new and beautiful takes place in our hearts and in our community if God is present, this beautiful state of consciousness is what we call THE CHRISTIAN MISSION.

The Christian mission is a conscious state that comes to us only after we summit in obedience to discipleship. We would never understand missions unless we walk with Jesus. It is impossible to reach such a profound understanding of life unless we walk with the Lord when he entered to eat with a thief or when he dignified the life of an adulterous woman condemned by the religious ORDUS of Judaism to die. We would never be able to understand the next step unless we walk with Jesus and ask him why is it wrong to politically isolate my brother and then destroy his credibility in order to win his followers so I can become powerful. We could never understand that missions is about what is outside of our church systems, unless we learn to ask our Lord Jesus: Who is my neighbour and why should I also give my life for him?

The next step...  I answered to my bothers and sisters  in Orange County California on May 1st 2009 is MISSIONS from now on I will not longer be your discipleship pastor, I will be your missionary…
It is so interesting that after one year of Iris passing to be with our Lord, a lot of people asked me and my sons the same question many times: And now what is the next step?  Mario Josue, Seth Bejamin and I agree that the answer is the same the new journey is about THE MISSION OF JESUS CHRIST!