MBBC CAVITE
The MBBC’s first congregation was born in June of 1981. It started out as a Home Bible Study in the Sangil Family’s residence in Noveleta. The weeks and months that followed that first Bible Study saw a steady growth of newly baptized believers, sympathizing attenders, and walk-in visitors each week. That was the time MBBC Cavite was organized into a congregation.
The Cavite Congregation served as an “on-the-job” training venue for the first batch of Bible Students of the MBBC. Each month, one of the Bible students from the then Bible Baptist School of the Scriptures (now BABBC), would be assigned to become the preacher-in-charge. Later on, the congregation had a more stable line-up of preachers that stayed for longer periods of time to help establish the work.
The constant growth of MBBC Cavite gave birth to two other congregations in the province. The first was MBBC Imus, started in 1998, and the other is in Tanza, started in 2006.
Today, the MBBC Cavite averages 100 in adults and young people and more than 200 kids being reached through the gospel classes. The work is currently under the leadership of Pr. Crisanto Reyes, a home-grown product of the congregation itself, and assisted by ACTS Preachers’ Sammy Barquia, Rey Baranda and Johnny Nan.
MBBC VALENZUELA
The congregation in Valenzuela actually traces back to the early 80′s, when it first began as a home Bible study in the residence of the Pilongo family. But years of tumult and turbulence had caused the congregation to suffer several setbacks. It was in 2003 that the MBBC Valenzuela Congregation was reorganized into a brand new congregation with a brand new impetus.
Like MBBC Cavite, the congregation of Valenzuela also gave way to the reopening of a Care Station in Tondo. The home Bible study being conducted in the Nolasco family’s residence eventually grew to becoming a full-pledged Care Station. After half a year since the Bible study in Tondo opened, the MBBC Valenzuela is now taking on the next challenge of making their own ministry grow on even further.
Today, the MBBC Valenzuela serves as the beacon of the gospel light in the urban side of the province of Bulacan. Currently being led by Pr. Wilfredo Glinoga, MBBC Valenzuela is now averaging 65 adults and young people, with 175 kids each week.
MBBC NOVALICHES
It was September 6, 1988, when the late Pastor Jorge Mangaron started a mission in Novaliches through the help of our beloved Pastor Dr. Benny M. Abante, Jr. In February 1989, the mission was organized into a church. Pastor Mangaron worked hand in hand with MBBC Sta. Ana until it was able to buy its own property and started building its mown edifice.
Not everyday is promised with a bed of roses, and so, like many of us, God’s work has to go through the fire. April of 1994 in a freak vehicular accident, God took home Ptr.Mangaron, along with three other fellow pastors. It was at this lowest point in the lives of the upstart work in Quezon City that our beloved Pastor, Dr. Abante, came to the rescue.
Our senior pastor took over the leadership of church. Under his watch, the work was able to finish their building program. Later on, after learning of the Cheerful Giving program of the church, MBBC Novaliches was able to buy its adjacent property and a vehicle for the fetching of visitors. Since then, the work continues to grow in Christ.
MBBC Novaliches is one among the very few MBBC congregations whose preacher in charge is home-grown. Like Cavite, it is being led by Ptr. Jose Clemente Ramirez, a fruit of the ministry of Ptr. Mangaron when he was still alive. He is also ably assisted by a set of ACTS Preachers led by Dr. Joy Janobas, a surgeon by profession, and one of the earliest fruits of the BYI High School ministry in the late 70′s, along with Prs. Ruben Respicio, Mario Tagay, Manny Matencio Sr., Sandie Zarate, Jeffrey Zarate, Arnel Almine and Dan Lorenzo.
MBBC ANGELES
This MBBC congregation in the Pampanga’s “city of angels” was born on 1990, shortly after the then Bayanihan Bible Baptist Temple of Angeles City was officially turned over to the leadership of Dr. Benny Abante, Jr. Seeing the need for a true light in Pampanga’s red-light district of Angeles, the MBBC Angeles Congregation took on a new path that was soon met with tragedy, when Mt. Pinatubo erupted just a little less than a year after the work was organized. The eruption cased the upper auditorium of the building to collapse. While the destruction marked the end of a 15-year investment in the edifice, it also signalled the start of a brand new monument for God’s grace.
The work is now under the able leadership of Ptr. Robert Malit, a native of the neighboring province of Bataan, an engineer by profession and a Kapampangan by culture, who knows fully well the heart and mindset of the locals of the city. He leads the work, which now averages 120-130 in adults and young people, and 250-300 in their children’s ministry. MBBC Angeles also has one official Care Station in Cutod, being handled by ACTS Preacher Armand Quiambao, as well as other outreach points in Bamban and Masantol.
MBBC BATAAN
All of MBBC’s local congregations were established first as home Bible studies, that eventually grew to become a shining beacon of the gospel in that given area. MBBC Bataan is no exception to this as well.
The work started in a garage in the native residence of the Malit family in Dinalupihan on January of 1996 as a Bible study. Four months later, the Bible study was personally organized by our beloved pastor into a congregation, officially called MBBC Dinalupihan Congregation. The work has moved to a new location since then, in a place more central to the town, surrounded by commercial establishments and middle-class residential areas. This new location gave way for the renaming of the congregation to MBBC Bataan, giving the work a larger scope of mission field to tackle.
Ptr. Silvano Allorin, an certified accountant and a survivor of religious persecution in the prisons of Saudi Arabia, is now in-charge of the work that averages 110 in attendance for adults and young people and 200 in children. One of the Malits, Pr. Rolly Malit, serves hand in hand with Ptr. Van as MBBC Bataan’s ACTS Preacher.
MBBC IMUS
The first congregation to come out of another congregation is MBBC Imus, a by-product of the growing MBBC Cavite Congregation in 1998.
After moving with his family from Manila to Imus, Bro. Ed Jarabe opened up his residence in Anabu for a home Bible study. That became the precursor to the MBBC Imus Congregation, which was formally organized by the Senior Pastor, Dr. Benny Abante on November of 1998. With most of MBBC Cavite’s families residing in the towns of Dasmarinas, General Trias and Imus, the offspring congregation soon gathered enough people to strengthen their base of workers and members.
The work has gone through various leadership changes in the last 13 years, and is uniquely the only congregation with no full-time preacher in charge. The congregation’s own ACTS preachers are the ones bearing the grunt of repsonsibility for the work. Currently, Pr. Grober Agacita leads as the lead deputy ACTS preacher, and assisted by his own college professor and discipler, Pr. Dolphy Fadriquela. Ptr. Reyzel Cayanan has been recently designated, having been one of its former preachers, to frequent the congregation and help in organizing the activities of the congregation. The work now averages 90 in its adult attendance in two services every Sunday, and 150 children being ministred to through the gospel classes.
MBBC TACLOBAN
The most down-south congregation of the MBBC is the one in Tacloban, Leyte, organized in 1999.
The formerly known Bible Baptist Church of Tacloban was going through a leadership transition phase. Its long-time pastor, the promoted Andres Yerro, was ill and had known it won’t be long before the Lord will take him home. After having received the work from one of BBFPI’s earliest missionaries Leslie Funk, Ptr. Yerro realized that the future of the church would be well and safe if entrusted to a ministry that could best cultivate an otherwise known notoriously as Waray culture. This was where the MBBC came in to the picture.
Pastor Yerro, before he passed on, had officially declared the the church will be under the care of Dr. Benny Abante Jr. upon his death. Early 1999, Ptr. Yerro went home, and BBC Tacloban was renamed MBBC Tacloban.
MBBC Tacloban, like any work of the Lord, has gone through times of trials and testings, and each time they have emerged victorious like gold tried in fire. Knowing that the Lord is far from finished with them, the work continues to shine, especially through a stronger campus ministry, with the help of their members who are mostly high school and college professors in the local city colleges. In fact, each year during their foundation day celebrations in December, our senior pastor would always set aside a schedule to go to Tacloban to lead the evangelistic celebrations there, and always find a jam-packed gym or auditorium full of students that our teachers there are reaching for the Lord.
Now going to its 12th year, the work is being headed by Ptr. Joselito Rabi, a homegrown product and fruit of Ptr. Yerro himself.
MBBC TANZA
After having branched out to the near-metropolis side of Cavite, our MBBC Cavite Congregation gave birth to another congregation, but this time in the sleepy town of Tanza.
Known by natives as a haven for fishermen, the municipality of Tanza itself became a station for MBBC’s fishers of men. It was in early Decemmber of 2006 that Pr. Crisanto Reyes was designated to lead the work, which had a steady growth in the years that followed. The testimony of the work has made an impact, most especially in its immediate community, where they were given almost immediately a chapel place for worship, complete with a provision for a baptistery. As of this moment, the work now has a prospect of buying a possible piece of property being offered at a reasonable price, that could well be the permanent home of the congregation.
Right now, MBBC Tanza is under the stewardship of Pr. Jesus “Jess” Oblema, an Ilonggo and a licensed electrical engineer, who along with his family is faithfully serving the Lord in a heavily tagalog segment of the province of Cavite.
MBBC TARLAC
The northernmost congregation of the MBBC in Tarlac actually started as a mission work, but was not originally affiliated with the Metropolitan Ministries. Its pioneering missionary, however, was a fruit of the MBBC, Pr. Henrinie Cua. During the first few months of the mission work, it was on a steady growth, but not in a significant manner. The preacher soon realized that change was needed, most especially in its authority.
A chance meeting with our Senior Pastor, Dr. Benny Abante, Jr., brought about the solution to this need of the mission work. Several of our pastoral staff went there to help start the work, and finally on April of 2008, MBBC Tarlac was born.
MBBC Tarlac now serves as the Metropolitan Ministries congregational conduit to the central segment of Luzon. It has been very active in campus and community evangelism for the last three years, and has made a significant impact in the hometown of the country’s president. It now averages 70 adults and young people every sunday, with 170 kids in Sunday School.
MBBC TAGUIG
Like Tondo and Valenzuela, Taguig has been home to one of the Metropolitan Ministries’ first outreach points in nearby Fort Bonifacio. But it, too, had some challenges and obstacles to hurdle through.
Finally, in April of 2009, the MBBC Taguig Congregation was reborn, with the Senior Pastor himself officially jumpstarting the work. The work has since moved from its old location inside the former Army fort to Western Bicutan, along the C-5 northbound side. Ministering mostly to families of soldiers and transients from the provinces residing and working in Taguig, the congregation is eyeing to reach the inner segment of the city, whose lifestyle and population are a stark contrast to the fast-changing urban developments in the metropolitan side of the city.
Now on its second year, the work continues to press on under the stewardship of Ptr. Reyzel Cayanan, along with ACTS Preacher Vic Santos. The congregation now averages 65-70 in adults and young people, and 130 kids are being ministered to in the community gospel classes.
MBBC BARRETTO
The newest addition to MBBC’s list of congregations is found in the town of Barretto in Olongapo. Tucked behind the red light districts and situated at the foot of the hillsides of the province, Barretto opened up as a prospect for a congregation through the efforts and desires of the Torres family, who are faithful members in our congregation in Kuwait. The distance of the place from the main church, as well as the unassuming culture of the locals there proved to be quite a challenge for the first set of preachers that were sent there to minister to the people. But no challenge is too hard for God, and in no time, the work grew as the days passed.
At first, Ptr. Silvano Allorin would travel from Bataan all the way to Barretto to assist in the novice work. It was in 2010 that our Senior Pastor designated Pr. Wilson Albor to become its full-time preacher-in–charge. The Bicol native accepted the challenge, and now the work is averaging 30-40 in attendance every week. Their children’s department is now growing to an average of 70 per week.
MBBC Barretto is a proof that God’s Word can reach beyond the bounds of culture and geography.
