‘We need to ask why churches are stepping back. Is it fatigue? Disillusionment? Lack of theological grounding?’
PANAMA CITY — As missions leaders from across the Ibero-American world gathered for COMIBAM 2025, one seasoned voice offered a long-view perspective on the movement’s development, challenges and future.
David Ruiz, former executive director of both COMIBAM and the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission, sat down with Christian Daily International during the April 22–25 gathering to reflect on four decades of missional growth in Latin America and the road ahead.
With deep roots in local church ministry and continental mobilization, Ruiz has spent his life building structures and relationships to help Latin America take its place in global missions. In the interview, he shared his personal journey into missions, insights from COMIBAM’s formative years, and his vision for how Latin American churches can continue to respond to the Great Commission in an increasingly complex global context.
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A grassroots calling
Ruiz’s missional journey began unexpectedly in the early 1980s, when his local church in Guatemala, led by theologian and strategist William Taylor, began to grasp the biblical mandate for global outreach. “In 1983, our church had a shift in understanding,” Ruiz said. “We began to think seriously about reaching the unreached, even though, in Latin America at that time, there was very little infrastructure or imagination for sending missionaries.”
This awakening came before any formal training institutions or agencies had been established in the region. “We were pioneers in a context where there was no roadmap,” he added.
Eventually, members of his church helped launch the planning process for what would become COMIBAM — Cooperación Misionera Iberoamericana — a collaborative missions platform across Latin America, Spain, and the Latino diaspora. Ruiz later became pastor of that same church during what he called its “golden era” of mission involvement. “It wasn’t about me,” he emphasized. “The church had already caught the vision. We became a model of how a Latin American church could engage globally.”
The church’s growing role in the regional missions movement led to more opportunities for Ruiz to serve in leadership. He was invited to serve as COMIBAM’s executive director, where he helped lead both strategic congresses and an internal reevaluation process to shape the movement’s long-term identity and mission.
In 2000, Ruiz became executive president — then the top leadership role. “The Lord gave me the privilege to help plant 23 national missions movements across Latin America,” he said. “It was a time of tremendous growth and consolidation.”
He articulated three pillars that would become central to COMIBAM’s identity: the centrality of the local church in mission; the supportive but not dominant role of mission agencies; and the necessity of training centers to equip churches for effective cross-cultural engagement. “Those three components helped the movement gain maturity and traction across the region,” he said.
Sharing lessons beyond Latin America
After completing his term at COMIBAM in 2006, Ruiz took on a new assignment as associate director — and later executive director — of the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission. There, he sought to contextualize the lessons learned in Latin America for other regions of the world.
“I had the opportunity to visit countries in Eastern Africa and Eastern Europe and share the model we had developed,” he said. “In several places, they tried to adapt those insights to their own realities.”
Later, Ruiz returned to direct a mission agency — Avante Español — with a fresh mandate: to send missionaries from Latin America, not just to it. “We began the process of recruiting, training, and sending Latin Americans to the ends of the Earth,” he said.
Yet as he sought to scale up this work, he encountered a critical obstacle. “We realized that many churches weren’t ready to send,” he said. “They lacked vision, structure and theology for missions.” That discovery led him to launch the Missional Church Network, an interdenominational platform aimed at helping churches understand their role in God’s global mission. “We work directly with pastors to help them see the biblical vision and take practical steps to become sending churches,” he said.
A movement in transition
Returning to Panama for the 2025 COMIBAM congress, Ruiz offered a historically informed perspective as one of the elders of the movement. He noted that today’s COMIBAM looks quite different from the one he helped shape two decades ago.
“There’s much more diversity now,” he said. “In our time, the key players were churches, mission agencies and training centers. Today, you see a broader range of initiatives — Bible translation, ministry among the poor, indigenous peoples, people with disabilities. It’s exciting to see that expansion.”
He also sees a generational transition underway. “Many of the current leaders were participants or junior staff during my time,” he said. “Now they’re leading, and that’s very encouraging. It shows the fruit of long-term investment.”
At the same time, Ruiz acknowledged that COMIBAM’s leadership today faces new pressures. “There are strong expectations from global and regional organizations that want COMIBAM to support their agendas,” he said. “We experienced that, too, but I think it’s intensified. I don’t envy those leading now — it’s not easy to navigate those dynamics while trying to maintain an indigenous vision.”
Ruiz also suggested that this gathering represents a new phase in the movement’s life cycle. “For many participants, this is their first COMIBAM congress,” he said. “They don’t carry the same history. For them, this event is a starting point rather than a continuation. That brings new energy, but it also means rebuilding identity from the ground up.”
North-South dynamics and the struggle for mutuality
One of the broader challenges Ruiz addressed is the evolving relationship between the Global North and South in missions. As Latin America and other southern regions have emerged as mission-sending forces, questions of power, representation, and mutual respect have come to the fore.
“The good news is that the global church is beginning to recognize what God is doing here,” Ruiz said. “Leaders from Africa, Asia, and beyond came to this congress to observe and learn. That’s a sign of growing respect.”
He also noted a rise in Latin American leadership within global organizations. “There are now Latin Americans heading international agencies. That’s significant — it shows that the region is not only sending missionaries but producing leaders of global stature.”
Still, he cautioned that certain colonial patterns persist. “Some organizations still see us as heirs of a movement that began in the North,” he said. “But that’s the wrong framework. The Lord is giving us the baton — not handing it down, but placing it in our hands afresh for this generation. It’s our call, not just their legacy.”
Ruiz also expressed concern that Latin American voices are often excluded from strategic planning conversations. “We’re invited to participate in programs, but not in shaping the vision,” he said. “That’s a challenge. We need to move from token inclusion to meaningful partnership.”
Signs of plateau and post-missionary drift
What stands out as a major concern for Ruiz is what appears to be a stagnation in local church engagement. “While the number of missionaries being sent is increasing, we’re seeing a plateau in the number of churches actively involved in missions,” he said. “And in some cases, churches that were once leaders in the movement are no longer sending. It’s as if they’ve entered a post-missionary phase.”
Ruiz called this trend deeply troubling. “Between the first COMIBAM in 1987 and today, the church in Latin America has grown tremendously,” he said. “But if that growth doesn’t translate into missionary engagement, we’ve missed something vital.”
He urged leaders to address this issue directly. “We need to ask why churches are stepping back. Is it fatigue? Disillusionment? Lack of theological grounding? Whatever the cause, we must reawaken the church to its global calling.”
Looking to the future
As COMIBAM 2025 concluded, Ruiz outlined three hopes for the movement going forward.
“First, I pray that this congress won’t be seen as just an event but as the beginning of a process,” he said. “Especially for first-time participants, I hope they return to their churches and agencies with a renewed, challenging vision for the nations.”
Second, he hopes COMIBAM will gain greater respect and inclusion in global mission conversations. “We shouldn’t just be implementers — we should be at the table where strategies are shaped,” he said.
Finally, Ruiz called for a renewed commitment to the centrality of the church. “In recent years, there’s been a drift toward agency-driven models,” he said. “But the church must be at the heart of missions. That’s how God designed it. And that’s what will ensure the movement’s future.”
This article was originally published at Christian Daily International
Christian Daily International provides biblical, factual and personal news, stories and perspectives from every region, focusing on religious freedom, holistic mission and other issues relevant for the global Church today.
