Testing the Waters

I submitted our request to the administrative offices in our community to rent another “hall” in an adjacent neighborhood hoping to have our first Sunday morning worship service there.   

It’s a bit far to walk from one location to the other, but it’s exciting to find those who will help start this new service the last Sunday of February.  

 We’ll start off again with teaching music, have a short service and then have more music classes.  Pray for our strength and God’s guidance.

Team Meet

This is the first time this year that we’ve been able to meet as a missionary team.  Tracey, Maria, Jasmin and I went over the plans for the year to get a jump on the special activities of the month.  And even with that some new activities slipped in.  All of us are glad to be in this church plant and we hope to encourage each other to stretch a little more this year so that others too will be willing to try something new.

Confirming the Selection

We spent the week talking to some of our faithful members to see how they feel about taking a leadership position in the church.  It’s been a slow process of meeting with them and describing or in some cases encouraging them in their new tasks.

Reconnecting with the Old Congregation

 I spend one day a week visiting two men I’m discipling in the community where we had a congregation.  The visits allows me to see others who used to belong to the One in Christ congregation.  It’s been bitter-sweet seeing the old members and wondering what God will do with them.  Will he resurrect a new work or will they come to visit us?  We’re kind of far away, but some have made the journey.

Youth Preparing to Teach

While the group of young people enjoys playing games together and studying 1 John after that.  They’ve got a new task at hand.  I’ve asked them to put into visual form the 20 doctrines that we’re studying for our doctrinal exam in May.  So each group of 2-4 youth is preparing a unique presentation to help the congregation to learn each doctrine.  Wow, talk about a challenge.

Extra Help

Last week our helper from the founding church signed on for another year of service helping us especially in the area of discipling the children and teaching music classes.  Well at the beginning of this week, a young man from the founding church asked me for permission to attend our congregation to also help out.  We’ll enjoy finding a place for him to serve on Sunday afternoons.

Looking for a Worship Leader

We don’t draw much attention to our worship team practices, but they are times to try out old and new songs.  I just thought that I’d give you a glimpse into what that looks like.  The team is coming together into an amazing worship group.  I thought on Sunday, “Wow, what would this sound like if all of our musicians got up to play together.”  Mind you, we’re only a very tiny congregation, but we’ve got potential.

Men on Haggai

Our men’s leader had an abundance of work and asked me to share on something.  So the first thing that came to my mind was put my sermon into a Bible study format with questions and challenges so that the men could ask questions and determine how to best apply the second chapter of Haggai.  I’ll see if they liked it, if they invite me back to share.

A Need for Instruction?

This week we had some conflicts in the church.  Anticipating the need for conflict resolution principles, I’ve been preparing to teach on counseling in a Bible study.  So what did God do?  He used the maturity that the believers had acquired over the months to help them work out the misunderstandings.  And by His grace, they resolved the situation.  So I wonder, is there a need for instruction?  I think I’ll continue preparing for the class.

Homiletics – How to share God’s word

(We should preach the gospel)

The founding church responsible for our church plant is offering classes on how to preach as a refresher for the staff.  They opened up the invitation to the churches in our network.  We were able to have 5 represented from our congregation along with two others who will join us next week.  I’m excited to have more believers prepared to share God’s word in our congregation and at other locations.

Provisions

“While God miraculously provided for our Christmas dinner, because we only had beans and rice to offer the kids; come Three Kings’ Day eve, we had no money to buy the kids any toys, so we decided to celebrate the following day with nothing.  That night my boss, who is not known for his generosity, knocked on the door and handed me some money above and beyond my weekly wages.  We quickly ran to the outdoor market at night to buy the kids their toys,” shared one of the men I disciple.  I’ve retold the story often to families in the congregation to help us see that God is at work.  God has been amazing in sustaining our families in the most unexpected ways.

On the rocks?

Coming to us for marriage counseling, a young couple asked to meet.  But after our first time together, Tracey realized that the husband couldn’t move ahead without knowing Christ.  So John just started discipling him weekly to expose him to God’s word and allow God to touch and change his heart.

Coffee, Tea, Sandwiches & Toys

Yep, just a few days after giving away clothes, food and water to the illegals passing through Mexico, we headed over to the local hospital where most people don’t have insurance and helped some ladies in our church hand out “café de olla” and “pan dulce” (sweet bread).  The night was cold and family members that were waiting for news about patients were camped out on the sidewalk or in a tiny room 100 yards away.  God is good in giving our congregation a heart for those who are suffering.

HOT off of the press…

(this is the title page)

Tracey has been working hard to put out “Statement of Faith” materials to help the congregation prepare for its doctrinal exam.  She just put it all together and will hand out the complete booklet to the congregation to study.  It’s been a lot of work, but her labor will benefit many other congregations.  Thanks, Tracey!

Classes starting up…

 

 The children and students don’t return to their classes until Wednesday, the day after the Three Kings Day, when the little kids get their gifts, but that won’t stop our regular women’s, men and youth Bible studies from meeting.  We’d like to add some classes for couples on marriage and some for the leaders on “conflict resolution.”  Join us in praying to equip the congregation to do the work of serving.

Haggai, a good message for a New Year

God allowed various ones in our congregation to preach near the end of last year that brought much variety for the congregation and lots of experience to the speakers.  This year we started with an Old Testament book that has only 2 chapters, but good advice for starting strongly this year.  God’s got 4 harsh messages to speak to his people.  And in a culture of “mañana” (procrastinating until tomorrow), I trust that he’ll get us off of our seats and working.  Pray for our leaders and their growth.

Tears of Joy

Several hours before our departure, a few women gathered in our new “church” house to put together sandwiches, sort through the clothes and pray for our outreach.  We loaded up and met up with the Central Americans, which to our surprise were mostly poor Mexicans begging on the side of this heavily traveled highway.  Upon distributing food and water and watching the needy families scavenge through the bags of clothes we brought, one of the ladies shared with tears in her eyes, “Thank you so much for letting me come.  I can’t imagine a better use of my time.”

Finding our way around

Having seen immigrants regularly on our way to a local mall, we decided to take a small scouting party to see what we could find.  Luis who is also a Central American who endured the hard trek to Mexico was able to talk to a small group of women and their kids.  He told them that we would come back on Saturday to visit them and to drop off much needed warm clothes, blankets, food and water.  This time around we found a small group, thank the Lord.

Practice makes perfect

We made an early attempt after our meeting with the Bet-lehem staff to hand out food to immigrants passing through Mexico on their way to the States.  We had a pan full of extra food and with a carload of people set out to search the train tracks for stragglers and new arrivals.  To our surprise, we found none.  And asking people who live near the tracks, none could direct us to a place where the foreigners hang out.  So our first attempt to reach out to the neediest parts of our area failed.

Statement of Faith

During our prayer meetings, we’ve been also studying the main doctrines of the faith for our May doctrinal exam qualifying us to officially organize ourselves as a congregation.  I managed to take a snapshot of the adults and youth sweating through another review exam given by Tracey.  I happened to be in the backroom teaching the kids the same, just a little more simply.  The kids were showing off their prayer “journals” for the picture.

From Jack-In-The-Box…

Our churches-wide staff got together by our invitation at our newly rented site in Los Heroes.  While the accommodations were tight, we managed to serve breakfast to both the staff and the invited OneMoreForChrist leaders and had a short devotional.  Our cook was from Nicaragua who formerly worked at Jack-In-The-Box in L.A. and made us a yummy “American-style” meal.  What an international team we have in Los Heroes!

Just for kicks

I couldn’t believe it until I saw it.  The girls’ karate class had a big Christmas party with lots of candy and prizes.  Tracey won a blender (our first win as a family).  And the girls karate-kicked piñatas until the candies flew out.  “Kick a piñata?”  That just sounds wrong!  Take a look. What fun!