Huge Idea from San Salvador

Layo and Luchy Leiva are geniuses. This morning we heard one of the largest break-through ideas for impacting cities--especially from a Campus Crusade perspective. Layo had a chance to explain his ministry model. Let me see if I can put this in words.

Layo and Luchy work with leaders--"Leaders make things happen."

What is in the Campus Crusade box? It is WIN . BUILD . SEND as a strategy and present and future leaders as the target audience.

Layo explained that at a recent retreat with Crusade associates (non-paid staff) and staff they saw all that associates were doing that seemed to be unrelated to Crusade.

One woman has started a group for girls ages 5-12, called "Talent in Action" that will develop musical talent. She wants to be the first to direct a Salvadoran Youth Symphony and has already booked the concert hall of 5000 before she ever convened the young girls. The founder said, "Because of my involvement with Campus Crusade I now know what God has called me to do."

Another woman started a group called Leaders of the 3rd Milennium--targeting 160K youth in southern El Salvador, to help them with vocational and entrepreneurial skills.

Another adoped a village to build and model a self-sustained center of economic growth.

Another had a passion for high schoolers. He's started a website called everybody.com and developed "Wonder League" comprised of 40 soccer teams.

All of these ministries produce leaders who have not been reached in any other ways.

So where Crusade may be the center box. Each of these ministries boxes overlap with the Crusade box in the DNA of WIN, BUILD, SEND. Even Crusade itself (remember we live in a post-modern world) may venture outside the core areas of WIN, BUILD, SEND.

To conserve the fruit of the movement, they will need to think of a new way to do church, since traditional churches have shown that they are ineffective in developing leaders. Of the population pyramid in El Salvador, 60-70% are "poor," 20-30% are middle class and 3-5% are upper class. The church cuts a swath through the middle class but is built on the poor. Churches don't measure impact but numbers. The traditional church is a rural model where pastor is king, which makes this type of church unattractive to leaders.

Need to develop church for urban people...who use internet...who travel and who don't want to be under controlling leaders. They want to contribute as much as anyone else. "We want to be transformational and Win, build, send is not transformational it itself." To do this Layo noted that they had to be more associatate-based not staff based. "We are not asking them to help us come change the world but we are servants to help them change the world!"

For dinner, Layo and Luchi and son "Matt" had us to their house for dinner where we feasted on popusos--a Salvadorian staple.