The Miracle of Uruguay

Amid a secular, agnostic society, the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Uruguay faced many challenges and obstacles before it truly came to life. This article tells our brothers’ and sisters’ story, from its first moments to its present, successful reality. We have only God to thank for the amazing things that were made possible through His church in Uruguay.

Uruguay is the least reached country in Latin America. Its society is agnostic, secular and strongly post-modern, and it doesn’t appreciate spiritual and religious values. While throughout the rest of Latin America, recognition of the values and contributions of religion are accepted, considered and included in society, in Uruguay not even Catholicism – which is notably nominal – is taken into account for its influence, opinion, and actions in the daily life of the nation.

Numerically speaking, although there are no specific census figures and measurements, projections and experience seem to show that Evangelicals number only about 150,000, an estimated 4.5% of the 3,300,000 inhabitants in the country. On the other hand, 75% of the congregations have a community of no more than 40 people which makes it very difficult to grow a more sustainable ministry.

Immersed in this context, the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Uruguay develops and fights. Its origins go back to 1960:

It is the fruit of a fresh wind of missionary passion and initiatives of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of Argentina which, in an early and committed effort, sent a pastoral-missionary couple –Francisco and Ester Pérez – to start a church.

In the early 1970s, the Uruguayan Alliance began the national and autonomous stage. It is then that the Alliance began to face alone all the commitment of development, resources, support and initiatives of the rising and weak effort. The UA began to assume individually and nationally the entire weight of the work of God, including plans, challenges, growth, and structuring.

From then on were born the denominational ministry, organizational structuring, pastoral training, leadership development, church planting, provision for meeting space, temple construction, institutional strengthening, and theological education.

In the year 2000, forty years after its inception and already with a defined profile, the Uruguayan Alliance managed to influence the American Alliance to coordinate a cooperation plan for establishing the Theological Education Project and planting of a second church in Montevideo, the capital. That process began in 2003. In 2014, with the cooperation of the Alliance in Chile, the planting of a third congregation for Montevideo began to bear fruit.

Today, those efforts, have made 11 congregations possible, 10 of which have their own temples and properties thanks to the commitment of their own people. An Institute of Ministerial Formation has been created, and it is strengthening and restructuring. Two new congregations are also being formed, and there are now 11 national pastors.

Nowadays, the Uruguayan church asks us to pray with them for

• Solidification of the vision, organization and administration of the church
• Development of the church’s missionary vision, passion, and action
• Strengthening of the leadership structure
• Continuing development of theological education

The church leaders also ask us to pray for the establishment and development of the church in the south and east of the country, especially in the capital of the country, Montevideo, where there are only two organized congregations and a third one in formation. Together, they total fewer than 60 members, although they are located where more than half of the population of the country lives.