On Panagtagbo and Partnership

A Letter from Cathy Chang and Juan Lopez, serving in the Philippines

Spring 2024

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I thank my God for every remembrance of you, always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Philippians 1:3-5

Dear friends in Christ,

Late last year, I (Cathy) learned a new word, and it keeps showing up in different forms this year:  Panagtagbo is the Cebuano word of “gathering” or “encounter.” Since this word comes from the Philippines, I’m grateful for the ways that Filipino colleagues have invited me to their understanding of it.

Enjoying a morning hike to a religious pilgrimage site, during Panagtagbo

During the second week of this January, over 500 church workers from around the Philippines, commemorated their third Panagtagbo in Maasin, Leyte. Church workers are not only local church pastors but also diaconal ministers serving as Christian educators and musicians. In addition to the local church, these colleagues also serve as military and hospital chaplains, guidance counselors, teachers, seminary administrators and professors. The host for Panagtagbo is the National United Church Worker Organization, NUCWO for short, with both nationally and regionally elected leadership. The best way to describe this event is through the wide variety of activities such as devotions and worship, continuing education, and recreation including physical sports competitions such as basketball and volleyball, in addition to cultural competitions with dance and singing. This was my first time to participate and reunite with UCCP church workers in one large gathering, especially after the pandemic.

NUCWO leadership includes colleagues Pastor Veronica Estayo who previously invited me to preach at her local church and Pastor Maricar Delfun who coordinates the Cordillera regional ecumenical council that co-hosted international participants during the February 2023 Peacemaking travel study seminar. These two colleagues proposed to their NUCWO leadership team that a wider audience be informed about Migrant Ministry, on the first day of this Panagtagbo. My colleague Ms. Snap Mabanta from the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) and I served as resource persons for the presentation called “Churches Witnessing with the Migrants.” 

During this Panagtagbo presentation, I emphasized partnership in the local church, and Snap emphasized the context for ministry and the call for ecumenical advocacy. Church workers might perceive that they should take on the full responsibilities of this kind of ministry in their respective local churches but instead, I encouraged them to partner closely with the lay leadership such as deacons, elders and youth leaders. I emphasized that church workers tap the gifts and skills of members who are psychologists, lawyers and social workers in their churches, so that they could address the needs for psychosocial support, legal training and education. In this way, the local church can fully provide pastoral care and accompaniment for migrants and their families.

Meeting with UCCP LLCDM ministry team to discuss Migrant Ministry

In August 2023, the topic of Migrant Ministry gained more attention when the UCCP National Council meeting took place. Although I have joined different UCCP National Council meetings (similar to the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board meetings) almost every year, representing the need to minister to migrants, the need for an official Migrant Ministry had not yet been conceptualized. This changed in August 2023 when the outgoing Executive Secretary for Partnership and Ecumenical Relations, Rev. Frank Hernando, introduced the need for this Migrant Ministry, and invited the most recent National Council delegates to approve an orientation program for an ecumenically based and local church-centered Migrant Ministry.

The possibility of a recognized Migrant Ministry gained further traction when, three weeks after the Panagtagbo talk in late January, a colleague from PC(USA)’s partner church United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), Rev. Annabelle Uriarte, the executive secretary for the Local Laity Church Development (LLCDM) ministry area, invited me to a team meeting to discuss the conceptual framework of Migrant Ministry.

When I prepared the framework for this LLCDM meeting, I began with Matthew 25, and introduced the concepts of accompaniment and sanctuary with and for migrants. Shifting from this U.S.-based perspective with these UCCP colleagues, I contextualized this Scripture using the Philippine political, social and economic conditions, which calls for both pastoral and prophetic responses to migration. I recommended that the leadership of local churches be informed and caring for the pastoral care needs of members who are migrants and their families left behind. Any ministry with them should start with an awareness of their situations. Plus, I emphasized how prophetic ministry can attempt to address the root causes of poverty understood as landlessness, lack of access to resources such as clean water, and unjust detention and imprisonment.

 After this first meeting with LLCDM colleagues, we decided to collaborate further in developing a concept note outlining the proposed Migrant Ministry. We plan to create another online Panagtagbo – type discussion with pastors who have served, or currently serving abroad, such as in Hong Kong, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. The Rev. Joram Calimutan, for example, is serving in Hong Kong and was one of our co-leaders during last February’s Peacemaking Travel Study Seminar. For the rest of this year, our goal is to finalize and present the final concept note with church-related commissions and governing bodies, towards final approval in an upcoming National Council meeting. It’s exciting and gratifying to reach this point, and we appreciate your prayers for these ongoing efforts.

Through recent activities such as Panagtagbo and the LLCDM team meeting, I’m grateful for the ways that Philippine partners teach me about partnership. Partnership isn’t assumed because I am the partner inviting colleagues into activities. Partnership also happens when partners invite you, according to their timetable and on their terms. Speaking of mutuality in partnership, I invite you, your church, your presbytery, to host the Rev. Joram Calimutan who will serve as an International Peacemaker this September (presbyterianmission.org/ministries/peacemaking/international-peacemakers). A new colleague Frances Namoumou from the Pacific Conference of Churches, from Fiji, is also serving as International Peacemaker. Our family is grateful for all the ways that partnership happens including your prayers and financial support.

Your friends in Christ, Cathy, Juan and Aurelie