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Local Missionaries in Philippines

Map of the Philippines

Population:

108 million

Evangelical population:

13.93%

People groups:

200

Unreached people groups:

30

Philippines

A vast archipelago with 22,549 miles of coastline, the Philippines is comprised of more than 7,000 islands bordered by the Philippine Sea, South China Sea, Celebes Sea, and Taiwan—directly north of the country. Approximately 700 of the islands are inhabited, with 11 containing the vast majority of the population. Luzon in the north and Mindanao in the south are the two largest islands.

Prone to devastating typhoons, the Philippine islands are covered in mountains and tropical rainforests. Around 132 people groups live in the more remote mountainous areas. Philippine culture is a mix of Eastern and Western cultures, including Spanish surnames, towns, and streets; and the widespread use of the English language.

An officially secular state, the Philippines has a democratic government with freedom of religion. The Catholic Church is highly influential, with more than 80 percent of the population identifying as Catholic. A large number of Catholics, however, practice a syncretistic blend of Catholicism, animism, and witchcraft.

The Protestant population is rapidly growing, creating a huge need for trained church leaders. Thousands of rural congregations languish without adequate leadership, falling into unbiblical teaching and moral failure. Thousands of pastors struggle to survive on the meager offerings of their congregations, and many view formal training as an unaffordable luxury.

Approximately 5 percent of the population is Islamic, as Muslims from the southern island of Mindanao, a hotbed of radicalism, move throughout the country. Muslims succeeded in obtaining an independent Islamic state in Mindanao, where Christians have long faced hostilities from Islamic militants and Muslim family members. The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), comprised of five provinces, is free from the national government. BARMM is ruled under sharia law that separatist terrorists such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have long sought, with drastic reduction of rights for non-Muslims, regarded as second-class citizens.

Mindanao’s population is more than 20 percent Muslim, with most centered in the BARMM provinces, where Islamic missionaries arrived nearly 200 years before Spanish Catholic colonization began in 1565. The U.S. State Department has warned against travel to Mindanao since January 2009.

Despite the danger, a Christian Aid Mission-assisted ministry has led people to Christ among nearly all of the Muslim-majority people groups in Mindanao. Other ministries who work in dangerous regions report that some of their missionaries were martyred for the sake of the gospel. Financial support strengthens them and helps the gospel spread in the most difficult circumstances. Other needs include Bibles, motorcycles for missionary transportation, projectors to show gospel films, and funding for training, children’s programs, radio programs, free medical and dental outreaches in poor villages, and livelihood projects.  

Sources: Joshua Project, CIA World Factbook, Operation World, U.S. State Department

A bamboo hut in a grassy terrain in the Philippines

How to Pray for the Philippines

  • Pray that there would be witnesses for Christ soon among every people group in the Philippines
  • Pray for courage, protection, and provision for indigenous missionaries working on the frontlines in some of the most dangerous areas of the Philippines.
  • Pray that God would bring His growing Church to maturity, providing necessary resources, opportunities, and trainers to root them in the foundations of God’s Word.

More stories from the Philippines

Get the Gospel to the Unreached in the Philippines

Native ministry workers reported that an Islamic scholar began reading a Bible they distributed and ordered others from his ethnic community to form Bible study groups in various villages and sent people to share the gospel with his relatives. Another Muslim leader began listening to an audio Bible with the missionary team, telling them he had “goosebumps” when he heard the complete story of creation for the first time.

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Help Victims of Natural Disasters in the Philippines

Super typhoon Goring hammered the islands with gale-force winds, torrential rains and flashfloods in August, damaging some homes and destroying others. Crops were submerged and businesses wiped out. As families were evacuated to government relocation centers, native workers provided aid that helped restore homes and lives.

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A Filipino Christian missionary in a loaded truck with his family ready to travel

Help Open Doors for the Gospel in the Philippines

A native ministry’s church has begun a new outreach that involves the ministry leader joining police and government officials in meetings to teach from God’s Word. This opens the door to sharing the gospel, and another government department has also asked the leader to teach the Word of God to members and beneficiaries of state service in three communities.

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Children in the Philippines sitting outside eating rice and noodles

Help Send Witnesses for Christ in the Philippines

In the first half of 2023, native Christian workers with one ministry planted 10 churches as 155 people put their faith in Christ. “These have been the result of regular soul witnessing and personal evangelism, weekly home Bible studies, mission outreach to seniors and persons with disabilities, sharing the Bibles in hospitals and schools and feeding starving, indigent children,” the ministry leader said.

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Filipino Christians spending time together at their church playing instruments and enjoying refreshments

Help Build the Kingdom in the Philippines

A native Christian worker has started a house church among his relatives, and the ministry that supports him is praying other members of the community will soon join. “Their days now are not only spent in farming and hunting, but they have a special day spent only in worshipping the Lord,” the ministry leader said.

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Help Enable Gospel Proclamation in the Philippines

Praise God that outreaches to various tribes are building God’s kingdom as native Christian workers share the gospel in Bible studies, Vacation Bible School and personal conversations. New Christians have shown marked growth in discipleship; one village elder whose son was jailed on murder charges said he would have retaliated had he not become a Christian.

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