by Dr. Zuriel C. Bernandino
If a church planter was ever pictured as someone wide‑eyed and ready to change his city and transform the world, that was me. Having been a part of Timothy Keller’s first cohort of international church planters at an intensive training in New York City, I became fully convinced of the vision to start a gospel‑centred ministry in my nation’s global city, Manila. This became my turning point to walk away from pursuing a career in neurosurgery to take on full-time ministry. I was confident, hopeful, and dedicated to serve.
Keller was aware of the tendency among churches in the Philippines to copy ministry styles from the West. He advised me not to do the same with what I learnt in New York. I applied this by serving under my father’s church before planting one. After my first sermon there, my father said, “Stop trying to preach like Tim Keller! That does not work here.” The comment was sharp, but it shaped me to see that each context is different. What works in one city may not work in another, because people hear authority, persuasion, and community formation differently. In the Philippines, people often value relational credibility and contextual familiarity before they trust a message. That meant I had to slow down, listen, and learn the culture, rather than assume a model could simply be copied and transported over.
After a few years of learning the ropes, I felt ready to plant. I started a vision group, and invited people to pray together and dream of a new church. This group met and eventually multiplied into three gospel-community groups—small discipleship communities where people studied Scripture, prayed, shared life, and reached others together. Things aligned for a launch and we signed a full year’s lease on a worship venue. I was pumped. “This is it,” I told myself.
Team morale, hopes, and confidence were high. We launched on the first Sunday of January. After the second weekend, I played pick-up basketball. I picked a pass from the other team, ran full court, and as I went for the fast‑break lay‑up, I felt a body close the gap from behind me and a knee hitting the back of mine. I heard a pop while I was mid-air and I knew, before landing, that something bad had happened. I went to the emergency room and after an MRI, the doctor told me that my right knee’s anterior cruciate ligament had fully ruptured.
“Broken” was not the picture of the strong, Spirit‑filled church planter that I had envisioned myself to be. Looking back, I can see how this moment exposed deep concerns about my calling and God’s timing. It also exposed how much I expected God to build his church through my strength. Paul’s words suddenly became very real: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7). My body, my plans, and even my idea of church multiplication were all clay jars. God was gently cracking them so that the treasure of Christ, and not my competence, would be seen. This truth reframed my calling. God cracks our clay jars not to discard us, but to let his light shine through despite our brokenness.
I went through ACL reconstructive surgery, and I remember well the first night of recovery. I wrestled with the question: Was something wrong with my faith? Did I not hear God correctly and follow him? This is exactly the kind of painful, confusing experience that can be difficult for church planters, where shame, disappointment, and doubt settle in.
I had the desire to regain my strength and play basketball. After surgery, I went through six months of physical rehabilitation. At that medical centre, I met many other “injured” people—athletes, workers, men and women whose bodies had slowed them down and whose lives had been interrupted. Being with them in therapy, I grew in compassion for those whose healing was not immediate. Jesus once compared the kingdom of God to seed scattered on the ground: “He [the farmer] sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:27). Rehabilitation felt like that. I could not see or control the pace, but beneath the surface God was forming in me a deeper dependence on him. Just as the farmer could not force the seed to sprout faster, I could not accelerate healing or ministry results. But trusting God’s work freed me to patiently invest in people rather than chasing metrics.
As a new church planter, I was tempted to chase quick fixes. I looked for them in counselling, preaching, and even in my walk with God. But that season taught me that recovery takes a long time. The Lord gave our church a motto that year: “Slow is fast.” Over more than a decade of ministry since then, that phrase has proven true. The extended rehabilitation of my knee became a living parable for how God builds a church and forms a pastor—not in sudden leaps of visible power, but in patient work over time.
Practically, the “slow is fast” lesson changed how our church approached multiplication. Because I was physically limited, I had to entrust preaching, small group leadership, and pastoral care to others much earlier than I planned. My launch team members learnt to teach, pray, visit, and carry one another’s burdens. We focused not on rapid attendance spikes but on slowly discipling people to follow Jesus in all of life. As Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6). My injury made that verse more than a slogan; it became our ministry reality. I leaned heavily on two guys in our team—Abet and Aldrin. I am grateful that both of them eventually planted their own churches. God used my weakness to shape us to share the work of the ministry. Over time, this has led to new congregations and church plants more than we expected or imagined.
My injury shaped me more deeply as God confronted my assumptions about strength, success, and faith. I realised I had put a lot of confidence in myself at the start of church planting, when my anchor and foundation all along was Christ. Jesus met me in the wheelchair, operating room, and rehab centre. He continues to meet me in the long haul of pastoral ministry.
For church leaders not only in the Philippines but across Asia’s pressure‑cooker cities, where success often means rapid growth and visible results, God’s lesson of “slow is fast” offers gospel freedom. In contexts of long commutes, family obligations, and cultural expectations of strength, God invites us to embrace clay‑jar weakness, share ministry with others, and trust him for the results. What looks like delay could be divine preparation for deeper, lasting multiplication. My prayer is that this story offers encouragement to others in their ministries—that they would trust the Lord’s plan, which is sometimes slower than we expect, but wiser, deeper, and perfectly timed for our lives.
Author
Dr. Bernandino is the lead pastor of Heroes Church in Bonifacio Global City in Metro Manila, Philippines. Their vision is to build Christ-centered communities of imperfect people who love the city to life. He is happily married to Dr. Hannah Bernardino, and they have a daughter named Vashti. He also serves as the Regional Director for Acts 29 Philippines, and is a trainer for City to City Philippines’ Incubator as well as Church in Hard Places’ Manila Cohort.
