A Hub of Global Ministry
How God Is Using the TMAI training center in the Philippines to Reach the Nations
For those with a lot of experience in global missions, there’s one clear evidence that the work of missionaries has had a lasting impact on a country. That’s when the church in that country starts sending its own pastors and missionaries around the world.
The ability to evangelize, train, and commission people for the work of global evangelism is proof that the gospel has taken deep root in a country and isn’t in danger of fading away anytime soon. Mark Tatlock, president of The Master’s Academy International, points to the Philippines as a great example of that. Across the island nation, a strong network of churches and The Expositor’s Academy, the country’s TMAI member school, is striving to be a strategic hub for evangelization, pastoral training, and now, missions.
“Mature churches become sending churches,” Mark said. “In the Philippines, there’s a highly developed network of evangelical churches, along with the TMAI training center and eight satellite campuses throughout the country training pastors. They have the resources to not only strengthen the church in the Philippines, but also to train pastors in neighboring countries, including predominantly Muslim countries.”
Mark recently traveled to the region and witnessed firsthand how the Philippine church is mobilizing its people for the work of missions. He also saw a growing desire for pastoral training and biblically grounded, reformed churches across Southeast Asia. In God’s providence, the Philippine church is ideally situated to meet this moment and lead the effort to provide training and biblically sound resources throughout the region. And one of the main reasons it’s ready to lead throughout the region is because of the decades of faithful ministry by the president of The Expositor’s Academy, Sean Ransom.
Sean, an alumnus of both The Master’s University and The Master’s Seminary, has served in the Philippines for twenty years. He moved to Manila in 2004, not long after graduating from The Master’s Seminary. His first decade in the country, Sean—a native of California—worked to build relationships with local churches.
Gradually he began to provide more and more training for pastors and leaders. Specifically, he taught men how to preach expository sermons. While many of the pastors had preached for years, even decades, they’d never learned how to exegete a text. They quickly began to see the value in what Sean was providing, which was simply passing along the training he’d received at The Master’s University and Seminary.
Through that first decade, Sean and his family plowed by themselves. As interest in training grew, Sean prayed for more families to join them. God answered that prayer. Today, five missionary families have joined the Ransoms in Manila. Together, they provide leadership at The Expositor’s Academy, which is currently training more than 500 students, preparing them to be faithful expositors in the Philippines and beyond.
Sean and his team even had the privilege of sending some of their graduates from the Philippines back to California to be fully equipped for ministry at The Master’s Seminary. Two of those men have already graduated from TMS and have joined their faculty in the Philippines. The growing team speaks to both the need in the Philippines and also the opportunity to train pastors and strengthen the church throughout Southeast Asia.
When Sean moved to the Philippines two decades ago, he found a significant interest in expository preaching. That was in no small part because of the widespread influence of Grace to You, John MacArthur’s media ministry. Since the 1980s, John’s voice had been broadcast throughout the country. Pastor John’s simple, effective style of preaching endeared him to Christians, particularly church leaders. So when Sean came to the country from TMS, there was a built-in interest in expository preaching.
“Not long after I came to the Philippines, a guy contacted me and told me he came to Christ through Pastor John’s ministry,” Sean said. “This man told me he reached out to Grace Community Church and asked them if they had sent any missionaries to the Philippines. I was the only one. So he contacts me and tells me his remarkable testimony.
“He used to be a drug user until he was given a cassette of Pastor John’s. He listened to it at least 30 times and was saved through John’s preaching. He then started giving John’s tapes to other people. God used this man to provide students and a church to train them in. That’s one of countless ways John’s radio ministry laid the groundwork for the pastoral training we do.”
Again and again, Sean has seen John MacArthur’s massive influence on the church in the Philippines. And he’s had the privilege of following that influence with the kind of pastoral training that was entrusted to him by his faithful teachers.
“Like most places in Asia, the Philippines has historically been a receiving point of missionaries,” Sean said. “But in the last decade or two, the church here has started to realize that they shouldn’t only be on the receiving end of missions work. They also need to send missionaries. A lot of the churches are starting to see that in Scripture and they are asking how to do that. Because some of those churches are small, we’re trying to partner with as many of them as we can to train men in the context of a local church. When their character is tested and their training is complete, they can be sent out. And because these missionaries will be coming from the Philippines, they can get into a lot of closed-access countries. That’s exciting.”
What Sean is living—and what Mark saw during his recent trip to the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia—is the fleshing out of the Great Commission model John MacArthur has built into the family of ministries connected to the John MacArthur Trust. From the pulpit of Grace Community Church, John’s sermons reached the Philippines through Grace to You. John’s teaching contributed greatly to evangelizing that country, bringing souls into the kingdom. Back in Southern California, God used The Master’s University and Seminary to train Sean Ransom and fully equip him for ministry. Over the last two decades as part of Grace Ministries International and TMAI, Sean has built an institution that is training the next generation of Philippine pastors and missionaries.
“The Philippines is a remarkable example of how the family of ministries works together,” Mark Tatlock said. “Grace to You taught the truth. The University and Seminary trained Sean and the rest of the team, preparing them to build the church. TMAI and GMI sent them to this strategic location. Through all that, the Expositor’s Academy is becoming a hub where men are being trained to preach the Word of God, churches are being strengthened, and now churches are striving to send their own to replicate the gospel work that has happened in their countries. It’s a remarkable story of grace, and testament to just how effective these ministries are as they work together.”
