Monterrey News

Vox Dei: God’s powerful voice

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Cuban-American Pastor Fidel Guerrero from “The Rock”church

Our annual Great Commission Church in Monterrey conference  was held last week at Hotel Hacienda Cola de Caballo. It was a memorable moment as so many things that happened here glorified our God.

It was a time to meditate on God’s powerful hand and his power that strengthens us. We had a great time of worship, fellowship, and  encouragement. This year, pastor Fidel Guerrero from “The Rock”church in Atlanta, GA shared with us part of his testimony and wisdom in several messages during the weekend. Pastors Sergio and Oscar from our local church also shared the importance of reaching out to others and living with a sense of mission in our lives. Nothing really gives us a sense of purpose like living to honor God.

This was a special conference because the very first deacons in the history of our church in Monterrey were appointed. Three godly men, whose character and work had been tested for many months, became an example to follow for the rest of the congregation. Algo, many people decided to get baptized and to take their faith a step further.

We share some these moments in the following pictures. We hope you enjoy them!

One of he bands leading worship

The ladies: Selene, Daniela, Claudia, Laura and Jenny

The kids: Vilito, Camila, Rodolfito, Gaby, Natalie and Elizabeth

Andres, Cesar and Vilo

Some of the youth after the last message

Samuel, Bertha, Marilu, Luis Antonio, Mary, Cristy, Manuel

The kids again

Loyda, Sergio, Fidel and Maria Elena

Karen and her friend

Some of the members of a college group

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Adrian, Henry and Allan: the first deacons

One of the things that most excites people in a church is to see leadership rise. Four years after the church

plant, we see today the first deacons that were appointed. This is great news as these men have been faithfully serving God for months and years and it was a week ago that God, through the leadership of pastors Sergio and Oscar, that they were appointed.

Adrian Rivera became the first Mexican deacon and is someone exemplary and certainly a model to follow in his dedication to the work of God. He’s currently a part-time staff member and is involved in the production of weekend services among many other things. He also leads a singles small group.

Henry Kattan is a Honduran young man who came with the missionary team to serve in the church and to study his Bachelor’s degree at Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo León. There, God has used him in powerful ways in the lives of many other young men and women. He’s leading flourishing small groups and he’s actually leading the college student’s ministry with the assistance of many other leaders.

Henry Kattan giving a couple of words

Finally, Allan Handal is a missionary from Honduras who came to serve and reach out to the Mexicans. God has blessed his efforts and sacrifice made to move to this country and, in spite of tough financial hardships, God’s hand has been with him all along. He’s now involved in leading married couples small groups and his wife is in charge of the church’s women ministry.

We’d like to ask you to pray for these men because they will be the target of the enemy’s plans and their contribution to this church is important. Pray that the fruit they bare will be one that would honor God  and that would help the church grow more.

Pastor Sergio and Adrian Rivera

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During our annual retreats, one thing that brings an ingredient of joy and happiness is seeing new disciples get baptized. Five people decided to take this step of obedience and among friends, family members, brothers and sisters on Christ and the leadership of the church decided to publicly give a testimony of their faith in Christ.

Adrian on what baptism means

All of them have been coming to our church for very little time. Some with absolutely no religious background at all, yet, with a tender heart for Jesus. They are men and women that God wants to use to influence others. That day, one of them brought about 8 family members who do not attend and it was a great opportunity to testify and let them know what our church is all about: the unchurched. Isn’t that what Jesus was all about too?

Your part: (What can you do?)

• Pray for their spiritual growth
• For their decisions
• For the salvation of their family members

Victor getting baptized 

Everybody praying for them

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Two weeks ago, Monterrey made the headlines worldwide for a terrible criminal event: one of the most horrible acts of terror caused by organized crime in our coutry. It only took 2 and a half minutes for these criminals to set a casino on fire and take the lives of 52 innocent people.

Our city has been in shock. People have suffered a great deal and Monterrey is not the city it used to be. Even more recently, members of our church have experienced the horrors of organized crime when criminals have tried to break in their homes with a gun in their hands. Some others have been pulled out of their cars by robbers just to realize a few days later that the car had been found crashed and full of empty cans of beer.

We wonder what’s going on and how it is possible for things to have slipped out of the control of the government. One thing we know is that this has been an opportunity for us to talk to people about God and it seems like more than even they are willing to listen.

So we have tried to take advantage of this situation by inviting people to come to church, by sitting in a coffee shop and talking to them about the love of God in spite of all these harsh events. Today, we had 16 new people who came to church for the first time. All of them heard the Gospel and all of them had the opportunity to make a decision, perhaps the most important decision in their lives: the decision regarding their eternal destiny. We hope they will be able to come back the following weeks so they can be challenged to make two important decisions as well: to regularly attend church and become part of it and to join a small group where the stage is set for them to get engaged in their spiritual growth.

Sometimes we might feel that we can’t do anything to contribute to the solution to this problem but we’re wrong. Actually, the most important thing we can do is PRAY. Indeed, we sometimes underestimate the power of prayer but Elijah prayed and it didn’t rain for more than three years. He prayed again and it started raining again. Joshua prayed and the Sun stopped. We should get on our knees and pray for our authorities: for the President, for the governors, the political parties, the mayors, the police officers, the army so that they would unite in one common cause and that is the one of stopping these terrorists. I think pastor Bill Hybels mentioned that the church is the hope of the world. We couldn’t agree more. The church is the hope of Monterrey!

Therefore, we’d like to invite you to join us in prayer every time you remember Monterrey and Mexico. These are some of the things we can pray for:

• The criminals plans to be stopped
• Intergrity in government officials
• Wisdom so they can make the best decisions that would serve the people
• These terrorist attacks would come to an end
• The hearts of people: that they would open their hearts to God and decide to seek him.

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This month, the women’s ministry organized a prayer meeting to basically connect with God. It was a very inspiring time where all of the participants had a chance to be closer to God by praying for different things: the church, their families, the lost, their leadership, the Andrew Project and many more things.

A very good number of people showed up and enjoyed a time of fellowship. It was also a good opportunity to get more growing sisters involved and have them develop leadership skills among other women. This ministry keeps growing and is making a great impact on women in our church.

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Edgar and his family                      Alex and his wife

     Allan and his family                Isaac and his family

We recently had the opportunity to multiply one of our small groups into two different ones. This was the case for one of the married couples’ small group. The last day , when we were celelbrating the multiplication, there were about 30 people gathered in one of our member’s home.

Pastor Oscar Gutierrez, the pastor in charge of our small groups was there to encourage both groups to continue to do good work for the Lord. He congratulated all of the members who Friday after Friday travel sometimes 45 to 60 minutes just to get to the gathering. He encouraged us to remain constant in this endeavor and that we would eventually see the fruit again. We closed that day with lots of prayer from nearly every member, thanking God for what He had done for almost  a year.

We especially prayed for the leaders since there will be 2 small group leaders and 2 assistants who will eventually be trained to become small group leaders. These are their names: Allan Handal, Edgar Reyes, Alejandro Gonzalez and Isaac Pineda. We’d actually like to invite you to pray for one week for one of these small group leaders. They are engaging in very special work and we know they will be the target of the enemy of God.

These are some of the things you can pray for:

• For their families
• For their spiritual walk with the Lord
• For their leadership skills
• For the people they will be leading
• For another effective multiplication

Are you willing to commit to pray for them? Leave a comment saying how you’ll do it.

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Monterrey is a city that’s about 200 miles from the closest beach but last weekend we enjoyed a day at the beach… inside the city! Well, that was true at least for the volleyball part of it… we still missed the ocean!

Armando and Samantha, a young couple leading one of our small groups organized a beach volleyball tournament for all our small groups to participate in. There was a great crowd from different small groups and besides enjoying a fantastic time of fellowship we were able to draw unchurched people to the church.

In fact there were many people whose first contact with the church was through this volleyball tournament. They were offered some refreshments, lots of fun playing together but most importantly the door to a closer relationship with Christ: friendship from our members that is.

I can’t really say if people received Christ or not that day but one thing I can assure you: their hearts were warmer because of the kindness and love shown by lots of our people. Friendship is the key to many wonderful things for the lost.

Here are a couple of pictures of the tournament:

The crowd cheering for one of the teams

And the winners are…

You can also be a part of this strategy by committing to pray for all the new people that came to the event. Even though we cannot provide you with their names right now we sure can tell you that your prayers will be heard and their hearts will be touched  and prompted to get closer to God.

Who wants to sign up to pray for these folks this week?

You can leave your name if you like

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