Monterrey News

New series of May: Miracles

2010-05-06T12:42:00.000-07:00

May 2
It's not too late!
Speaker: Sergio Handal

May 9
I don't know where to go!
Speaker: Sergio Handal

May 16
I don't have a promising future!
Speaker: Sergio Handal

May 23
Starting all over again
Speaker: Oscar Gutierrez

May 30
The miracle has to be today!
Speaker: Sergio Handal

Great opportunities ahead!

2010-04-27T11:29:00.000-07:00

Once again we surpassed the 200 people in attendance to our weekend service. Great oppostunitiea ahead: this is what we can clearly see in the future. Our church is in a growth stage and lass weekend we started our services at the Presidente Intercontinental Hotel in San Pedro.

It was 9:00am and everybody was full of excitement. Musicians, technicians and volunteers, we all added up our energy and enthusiasm to prepare every little detail. The new meeting place is almost 3 times larger than our previous one. Despite this, it seemed a small place to receive all the people from both of our services. Now they're all combined in one service at 12:00pm. More than 200 people including children came. The kids have now been split into 2 groups that separate kids from 3-5 years old and 0-3 year-olders. This allow us to have more specialized programs for each group.

At 12:00pm the rows were being quickly filled and we had a lot of first-time visitors. Our strategy has been to connect these new visitors to a small group if their desire is to get to know God in a more personal way. The message inspired everyone to live Fearless at a time where insecurity is taking over the city. We were taught that we can have hope because we can trust and pray to God instead of worrying.

The following weeks and months are critical. We believe we can have 2 services on the weekend. We had, indeed, 80% of occupancy and therefoe need to be thinking about more choices for people. Your prayers are always welcome because we have a lot of work ahead of us!

Images of our new place

2010-04-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

Coffee break

During the message

We had over 200 people in attendance

Before the service

Praying

Generous fundraiser

2010-04-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things that can test our hearts more than anything else is how we use our money. Jesus was very straightforward by saying: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". At our young church, we had the opportunity to take this principle to practice by generously giving to a vision greater than ourselves: to make a disciple of every non-believer.

For the first time in the history of our church we asked our members to participate in our annual project called Vision 2010. Our goal was to raise $26,000. Being still a small church, God proved faithful as we engaged in this 'entrepreneurial risk'. Indeed, through very generous and faithful hearts He provided almost $29,000 in pledges.

These pledges will be coming in all throughout the year and they will be useful for moving to our new meeting place, for paying the rent there, for improvements in our sound systems as well as visual equipment, cases and the like.

While many could question our strategy, we are willing to take this kind of risks because there is a city of 4 million people who desperately needs hope and that needs to know this God whom you and I know. With no doubt, we are in the greatest business we could be in: the business of bringing people to Christ. Therefore, we will spend every resource trying to turn people who are far away from God into his disciples and followers.

These are some important things you can pray for:

Faithfulness from our members to fulfill what they've pledged
Grace before the people at the new facility
That new people may be addes to our small groups

Interview with Javier Morones

2010-04-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

Javier is an enthusiastic and dedicated young man. He's a student at the Tec of Monterrey and he's an active part of the church's college ministry. He also plays in our church's band and he's just a great example of someone whose life God is changing and will continue to do so. Javier has been in our church only 3 months...

1- How did you end up coming to our church?

I started attending church because of the influence of Mark and Macie Gonzalez. They are part of the short-mission team that pastor Rodger brought from Texas in January. I met them at Tec and I spent a lot of time with them that week. I wasn't a christian then but I became really interested in knowing these guys that made such a long trip just to talk to students about God. One of those days, Macie asked me if she could pray for my problems and it wans't until then that I realized what was missing in my life... Macie's prayer showed me that her faith in God gave her hope and that was exactly what I was missing. I wanted to feel what she was experiencing and that's why I accepted their invitation to Great Commission Church.

2- How do you feel now?

Very happy and fortunate. My encounter with God has allowed me to fix many aspects of my life where I was having trouble. Besides, it has allowed me to become a happier person and a more whole one. Addiotionally, I've met a lot of people who have made me feel accepted and loved.

3- How did you realize you are on your way to Heaven?

It took me some time but after being involved in two small group meetings, I finally made the decision to believe that Jesus really came to die to save me and I prayed. I talked to God and I let him come into my life. He's changed it in such a way that I understood that I cannot go far away from Him and that through His Son I could have eternal life with him.

4- How do you see yourself 5 years from now?

I see myself as a fulflled person, a true example of life for those around me. A succesful man and with God's help, a leader like the ones who now teach me how to live and grow to become more like Jesus.

5- What are you currently involved in?

Right now, I'm involved with the music ministry, I sing on the weekend services as part of the band. It's something I enjoy very much and makes me feel happy because I'm helping people sing to God and be closer to Him. This is exactly how I feel, whenever I sing.

2010-04-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

We are starting a new series on Sunday at a new location:

Date: Sunday, April 18, 2010
Time: 12:00pm - 1:20pm
Location: Hotel Presidente Intercontinental
Street: José Vasconcelos # 300 (Esquina con Lázaro Cárdenas)
City/Town: San Pedro, Mexico

We can't wait to have you with us!

New location: April 18th

2010-03-18T14:29:00.000-07:00

It is official now. On April 18, we will move to larger location. We've already signed our contract with the Intercontinental Hotel in San Pedro. This shall be our new meeting place for our weekend services.

We are all very excited about this. We outgrew our current location about three or four months ago and it's time fow some change. This new room has space for 350 people whereas our current one can only fit around 90 people. So you can see the difference is important. We think it matches perfectly with this year's goal to have 300 people attending our weekly services.

As part of our strategy, we will go back to having one single service at 12:00pm instead of two. This will encourage people as we all worship together and everybody gets a chance to know each other. We hope it will not take long before we break it down to two services again. Hopefully, we'll be able to do so by September when we have our annual massive outreach program.

We encourage you to pray for us. This change involves a step of faith in trusting God He'll provide for music and sound equipment and many other related expenses. But we trust God, and we know that when He asks us to move, He'll bring in all sorts of blessings.

What a mission team can do!

2010-03-10T13:10:00.000-08:00

It is just unbelievable how much you can impact other people's lives through a mission trip, not to mention the amazing benefits you'll personally draw from it.

In the past month of January, just as in previous years, a mission team from Fellowship Church in College Station, Texas took a bus to cross the border and spent a week supporting the work our church is doing in Monterrey. It was an incredible experience for them and for us. I bet some the members of this team did not know for sure how that week was going to change lives: theirs and that of many students from Tec.

Today, there are several students that knew very little about Christ involved in our church. You may read more about one of them, Javier Morones, in a recent post. This is perhaps, one of the most obvious harvests we've had because not only have new contacts hung around the short-term missionaries but they have come to church, they've started attending a small group and their spiritual journey has just begun.

For our church, receiving 10 new people as a result of the hard work of these brothers, is one of the best ways to be supported. That's 10 potential workers added to our fields, and 10 eternal destinies changed. We are so thankful for this kind of partnership and would like to receive many more teams like this one who'd be willing to step out in faith and contribute to the advancement of the Gospel in this country.

If you wish to receive more information about mission trip opportunities, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can write to info@grancomision.org.mx and we'll get back to you with more information about how you can start organizing one.

An exciting new step!

2010-03-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

God has been so faithful in this church planting effort here in Monterrey. Our church has grown to break many church growth barriers in spite of the little time it’s gone by since we started.
Indeed, we average 200 people in our weekend services attendance and all without any major advertising or media efforts. The brothers and sisters are encouraged and feel motivated to bring their unchurched friends over the weekend. A major part of our efforts is directed not only to welcoming them on Sunday but also to “close the back door” and have them become an active part of a small group.

We now have 9 small groups in different areas of the city and with very different profiles. Some aim at high-schoolers while others focus on married couples. Our leadership team is now composed of 18 men most of whom are locals. Despite this blessing we realize there is hard work to do. These 9 small groups and 18 leaders are not even close to being enough for the harvest God is preparing in this city.

Some of our goals for this year are the following:
• Weekend attendance of 300 people
• 18 small groups
• 36 leaders (both small group leaders and their assistants)
• Move to a larger place

If we want to sustain this growth, we are urged to move to a larger place. We are no longer capable of growing in our current meeting place (a Holiday Inn Express) and we do not want to place any barriers to the church’s growth. Therefore, we feel God is saying we need to move. Literally, after months of looking for places and praying for doors to open, the same chain of hotels has given us the opportunity to move to a nicer, bigger and more adequate facility where we’ll be able to fit up to 350 people on a crowded day. This is the Intercontinental Hotel in San Pedro, one of the nicest hotels in all of the exclusive San Pedro area.

So far so good. But if it were so easy it wouldn’t be fun at all. It is three times more expensive to be in this place than it is at our current gathering place. The logistics and investment in equipment goes beyond our current possibilities. But God is the kind of God who calls things that are not as though they were according to the verse in Romans 4:17. And, indeed, He’s proved to be faithful with a very generous local congregation.

This is the reason why we’d like you to be a part of what god is doing. Some people can only give their time and skills, others can only pray, and others can only share their resources. Our question today is: how do you see yourself being used in our church? Through prayer? Through your time by coming on a mission trip? By generously giving financially? We pray God would bless your decision to give a part of you for the lost in Mexico.

• If you desire to contribute by praying, this newsletter can help you identify some of the key prayer needs
• Should you decide to come on a mission trip, please contact Carlos Garcia carlos.garcia@gclaweb.org or visit www.reachinglatinos.com
• If you’d like to donate via Paypal with your credit card, please do so by clicking on the Paypal button

• In case you prefer, you may send a check to our GCLA office in Miami. Please click on the "Give online" button for more information on how to do it.

Our new series: March 2010

2010-03-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

Our new series is called ICTHUS: the Encounter. Please join us. This weekend, pastor Steve Hutmacher from Cedar Creek Church is speaking on His cause. Welcome all of you English speakers

Our new series: the Four Faces of Love

2010-02-15T10:39:00.001-08:00

Our new Series

2009-12-31T13:13:00.001-08:00

Some of our new leaders

2009-12-08T07:08:00.000-08:00

Our leadership has been growing. We'd like you to meet some of the new and young faces of our leadership team. We've interviewed three of them and asked them to share part of their experience with us.

When did you accept Christ?

Oscar Gutierrez Jr: 11 years ago

Raul Garcia: It was a little more than 2 years ago. It was right after some people from church got baptized.

Gabriel Niño: Almost 3 years ago

How do you feel about being part of the leadership team from church?
Oscar: Actually really excited. I feel privileged and most importantly grateful to God for the opportunity that He's given me.
Raul: Before I started serving God, this was something I'd never thought of. But when you make this decision you suddenly realize how much you've grown. There was a moment when I stopped to think about the work God was doing in my life. All of this has actually filled me up with joy and a certain feeling of fear at the same time.

Gabriel: In one word: privileged. I feel happy to be a part of this in this moment of my life and my desire is to grow in leadership.

What ministries are you serving in?

Oscar: I'm a memeber of the band and I co-lead the high-school small group.

Raul: I'm part of the band, I also help with the church's setup. I'm being trained to become a small group leader and right now I assist Alex in the direction of one fo the college small groups. I plan the games and help with the food in the small group.

Gabriel: I'm involved in the artistic production ministry at church, I also teach Sunday school for kids. I participate as an actor in some plays, I'm being trained to become a small group leader. Our house is open for many church meetings and gatherings.

How do you want to be used by God in the future?

Oscar: I'd like God to use me as a tool for serving and making things easy for church plants.

Raul: there are really many things you can think of or that you can imagine. Maybe what God holds for me is totally different than what I'm thinking but I do know that it'll be a place where I can be of great influence to others.

Gabriel: I'd like to expand the artistic ministry at church, especially art and design. My vision there is to show unchurched people a fresh new insight of christianity, not in a religious nor legallistic way.

What is your favorite leadership verse in the Bible?

Oscar: Colossians 3:17

Raul: 1 Samuel 16:7

Gabriel: Proverbs 3:5-6

Who are some inspiring leaders for you?

Oscar: my father Oscar, Arturo and Paulino Galvez from Honduras

Raul: I really admire lots of leaders but perhaps the ones I admire the most are Henry (my mentor), and pastors Sergio and Oscar.

Gabriel: Colombian president Alvaro Uribe

Our new series: Christmas is so much more!

2009-12-03T19:01:00.000-08:00

This is the name of our new series. We will have a special Christmas program on December 13 at the Presidente Intercontinental Hotel on Vasconcelos. Everyone is invited to come and bring friends and family.

Costume parties at small groups

2009-11-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

A lot of our small groups made costume parties as an evangelistical event. Instead of celebrating Halloween, we decided to invite people to our small groups where we would share a great time of fellowship, food, costumes and biblical instruction.

Here are some picture we'd like to share with you from our different small groups.

Christmas program coming up

2009-11-24T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody! We are getting ready for our annual Christmas program. This year, it will be at the Presidente Intercontinental Hotel in San Pedro. Our creative and drama teams have been preparing and will perform our Christmas musical called "Nico". We are getting ready to invite lots of people and re-invite all those who have visited our church at some point this year.

This will be a good evangelistic opportunity. Please include this event in your prayers because it will represent a major investment in resources. We are praying about raising $1,000 usd just for this event as this is what we will invest in rent, coffee break, printed material, etc...

Be a part of a mission experience in Monterrey!

2009-11-15T21:31:00.000-08:00

Being part of a mission trip is always something that will change your life one way or the other. Hopefully, it will bring changes to the way think, to the way you do things, to your lifestyle and to you comfort zone.

Here in Monterrey we've been blessed to have so many mission teams come down in the past. All of them, one way or the other, have enriched God's work and the church's plan and mission. People have heard about Christ. Others have shared their faith for the first time in their lives; others have strenghtened friendships and become more involved with their local church.

The truth is, it is meant to be an experience that will draw you closer to God and stretch your faith. By the way, if you've ever been a part of a mission team, I'd like to invite you to share your comments about it (while answering, please keep this question in mind: how did it change your life?)

Our church here in Monterrey would like to extend a warm invitation to all of our readers and friends to come to down here whether you lead a team here or you're just part of it.

We'd like to welcome 8 to 10 teams in 2010. Here are some of the things you'll be able to be a part of:

Connect with local families from church
Reach out to students on campus
Reach out to the community
Serve in our weekend services
Serve the poor by giving away your time and resources
Get involved in a ministry for deaf young men
Grow spiritually
Share your faith, your story
Make new friends
Leave your comfort zone

If you want to be a part of this please contact Isaac isaac@mtychurch.com or Carlos Garcia carlos.garcia@i-gcla.com

We look forward to your comments

College student small group multiplication

2009-10-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is a special month for the college student small group. We will multiply this small group this month and we will now have two small groups lead by young college students.

One of the small groups will meet near the Tec and the other one will continue meeting in Sergio's house. This is the result of a full year of work and of course God's grace. Now each of the small groups will have about 10 members. We pray that many more leaders and small groups would emerge from these two small groups.

We also pray for the lives and character of these new leaders who will have a great challenge and responsibility before them.

Edgar and Jenny get baptized

2009-10-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Our church's youngest couple, Edgar and Jenny, got baptized a few weeks ago in a small ceremony that made us all feel very happy and encouraged by the lives and decisions of this family. In this picture, they are together with their beautiful daughther Sofia.

Jenny's family who lives in Saltillo (important industrial city 1 hour away from Monterrey) came to the ceremony and it was a great time to share with them as well. Congratulations on this important decision and we pray God would use you guys to reach many other couples like you.

Some picture from the retreat

2009-10-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

The leadership team praying for the event

Nelson and Lucy

The band, as usual, doing a great job

Andrea bungee-jumping

Ricardo's birthday

Adrian was the host

We had a great time of worship

Jorge and Andrea announced their engagement

Some of the members of the band

Rock with me!

A great time at our retreat!

2009-10-07T08:27:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, we had a great time at the retreat at Cola de Caballo. It was our very first one at the church and as you may remember it was originally meant to be held in May but due to the flu that spread at that time we had to postpone for September.

GCLA director, Nelson Guerra, came to Monterrey with his wife Lucy to share with all of us some very inspiring messages. By God's grace, more than 150 people showed up at the conference. Beside enjoying amazing 'spiritual dishes', everybody was able to enjoy great times of fellowship, sports, friendship and love. "It was my first retreat ever and I really enjoyed it" says one the people who attended to whom we spoke.

Upcoming events

2009-08-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

We are thrilled with what's coming up in the next weeks and months in our church. We are praying about all these events and we want to invite you to do the same.

"Andrew" Project

Just like Andrew in the New Testament introduced Peter to Jesus we want to follow his example and bring so many people to Christ. We want to help them get closer to God and experience a life with a purpose. During the month of September, actually for three weeks, we will have a Series called 'Promises'. Inspired in all the wonderful and comforting promises the Bible has for us, we hope we can invite dozens of people. But not only that, we will work towards adding them to one of our small groups. So please, keep this project in your prayers. (We thank Cedar Creek Church for their artistic assessment in this campaign)

Our annual conference: Jesus Christ

Back in April, just one week from the start of our conference, Mexico entered one of this year's saddest episodes: the swine flu. It forced us to call off the conference and reschedule it for September. So now, we are eager to finally have it but as usual, the enemy of God will try to interfere with His plans. This is also an important thing for which to pray. The good news is that now more people will be able to come to the conference, more people want to be baptized and we are confident the Lord will speak to our hearts and bring new challenges as well.

End of the year wrap-up

We pray we can finish this year with more than 225 people. We're almost there and these events united with the small group's hard work and of course the Lord's grace could exceed all expectations. Our 2 services are packed and once again the 'what-to-do with meeting place' question arises. Please pray that our faith would remain in the Lord and that we would trust Him in finding a better place to meet.

Let each member become a minister

2009-08-31T16:25:00.000-07:00

A vital part of our church strategy has been making a disciple out of every non-believer. This is actually our vision. Recently, God has been teaching us that, as part of the discipleship process, we need to focus on letting each member become a minister. But... how do we do that? Simply by engaging in serving opportunities.

Hence, we strive to create new ministries that go with our vision and, even simpler, to get everyone serving and contributing with their talents, skills and spiritual gifts to the growth of the church. This is why we've campaigned in our small groups and church services. We want everyone to try different ministries and serve God where their contribution is maximized.

Ministries such as kids, greeting, the band, service production, coffee break, web design, sports and others have offered opportunities for us to serve others.

Membership gathering

2009-08-31T15:54:00.000-07:00

In the past month of August, our church held its 1st membership service. This meeting was intended to gather of all of the new members that have been added to the church. We are very glad to say that God has brought nearly 75 people to our church whom we can consider members.

Typically, the profile for being a member is being saved, having been baptized, attending and getting involved with a small group or ministry at church. To some degree, we can consider these people as little soldiers that will be willing to go to the front line when needed.

Irma, Imelda and Karla

Not only has God given us this blessing but 80% of this group is formed by Mexicans. So we are happy to see that the Lord is building his Church in Monterrey.

Fernando, Carlos and Sergio

A testimony from Beatrice from Singapore

2009-08-26T15:37:00.000-07:00

The first thing that came to my mind when I decided to go to Mexico for my exchange was, “Will I be able to find an English-speaking Church?” That was definitely on the top list of my worries because my level of Spanish was ‘muy mal’ to begin with. Hence, I prayed really hard that God will lead me to a church in Monterrey.

Thus, began my weeks of searches on the Internet for a suitable church. Yet, by the time I was due to leave in 2 weeks, I only managed to find a church blog in English. Out of curiosity, I posed a question on the blog, asking whether there were services in English but did not get a reply then. Soon enough, I was on my way to Monterrey feeling slightly unsettled yet very excited. “God will provide”, I assured myself.

The first week I was in TEC, I checked with people around me for information on churches but due to the majority of Catholics, I was once again disappointed. When my first Sunday in Monterrey came, it was the 11th of January, I remember. It was a very cold morning and I woke up early because it was too cold to sleep. The night before, I prayed to ask God for wisdom and courage to attend the only church that I knew of online, it was called ‘Gran Comision Monterrey’. So that morning, I set off on my own to find the hotel that they worshipped in. It was at Holiday Inn in San Jeronimo. With the slip of address in hand and my coat tightly wrapped around me, I boldly approached one of the taxi drivers near school and showed the driver the address. He nodded and drove off. I sat at the back all tensed up and cold, not knowing how and when I will get to my destination. (It was on this ride that I experienced how people drove in Monterrey…)

In the taxi, I prayed in my heart that God will let me meet nice people in church and that language will not be a major barrier in getting to know people. The minute I stepped into the hotel, I knew that God had already answered my prayer long before I prayed it. Everyone whom I met greeted me with a big smile and the familiar, “Hola, Como estas?” Besides saying “Muy bien”, all I knew was “Hablas Ingles?” Haha, it was quite a funny experience being greeted in a very unfamiliar way especially since we never have much physical touch here in Singapore. Basically, I was overwhelmed by the warmth and friendliness of everyone and the many tall people I met. *A special thanks to Alex Handal for doing the first translation for me that week and to Monica for sitting beside me!

From that week onwards, I decided to stay on with the ‘Great Commission Church’ and have since grown to love the people there very much. ‘Great Commission’ is different from my church here in Singapore in many ways. For one, it is small and cozy and is held in a hotel. Secondly, the many familiar orders of service I had were also not present, for example, we take the Lord’s Supper once every month. These differences allowed me to appreciate the differences that churches all over the world have. Yet, the never-changing similarity we have is that we aim to worship and honour Jesus Christ, the sole foundation of all churches.

After hearing the many stories from people in Great Commission, especially how Pastor Sergio, Oscar and Senor Hector moved with their families from Honduras to Monterrey to fulfill God’s calling, I was deeply touched and respect all of them for the work they have accomplished. May God continue to pour out his blessings upon His church as you all strive to spread His light and word to many in Mexico.

I look forward to the day when I can return to this second home of mine. It has been such a blessing to meet everyone in church and I thank God for His grace and his faithfulness in leading me to find such a wonderful church.

Blessings,
Beatriz de Singapur

Church update

2009-06-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

It's been a while now and we want to let you know what God has been doing with our church lately.

One of the most exciting things is how God has been raising local leadership. There are more Mexican leaders now in the church than ever before. Marco, Rodolfo, Pablo, Adrian are only a few of the good men God is raising. We are also in the process of training new leaders so they can be the cutting edge of new small groups.

One other thing we are trying to encourage is for every member to become a minister, an active force in serving God in different or even new ministries. We are providing opportunities for people to enroll in different ministries we have such as music, kids, ushers, offerings, greeting... There has been a good response so far but we want to see more.

You might also remember a family that's part of our church and about whom we talked in the post: 'Interview with Anabel'. We are all very happy about the newest decision they made which is to get married. As you can see in the picture, Anabel and Rafa both decided to make a commitment about their relationship before God and this obviously shows the desire they have to follow God and his principles.

Last month we held a special gathering for people who have visited us recently. Usually, every church has a different name for it. The results were very encouraging: that night, more than 60 people showed up and 5 people came to know Christ as their personal Savior. There was an opportunity for people to ask questions, clarify perceptions they have about the church and we were also able to add many of these people to our small groups. Next month, we will have our very first membership class and we expect a similar number of people to show up and make the decision to serve God.

Multiplication of small groups

2009-05-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

We started the year with 5 small groups whose members range from junior high kids to couples with kids in college. Up-to-date we have 7 small groups and we are praying 2 more will start very soon.

This is very encouraging for us because through these small groups we wee more leaders emerge. Indeed, they help us connect all the people who attend the Sunday services with the small groups. What we wish to see is people getting saved, baptized and engaging in a closer relationship with Christ. We do this through through in-depth Blible studies and discussions, lots of friendship and a life of service and of reaching out to others.

Among these small group leaders, we already have 3 of them who are locals. In fact, one of these small groups was formed with people from Monterrey only. This is encouraging for us as missionaries because God is starting to raise his church here with its own people.

The Swine Flu and our church

2009-05-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

As you may already know, the Swine Flu affected our country tremendously. Not only did the public health system become fully alert but the touristic, economic, financial and security systems were also deeply affected.

None of us at church was directly affected by this pandemia. Nonetheless, we had to call off our conference for which more than 100 people had already signed up. It was a little disappointing since it was our very first one but we know God is in control of this kind of situations.

Now, we will hold the same conference in September and we hope to have even more people signed up. Over one weekend, our services were also interrupted but we encouraged all the people and leaders to meet in houses to continue with the Bible studies that are part of the discipleship system.

We are confident that behind something unexpected and apparently bad, God is sending a huge blessing and new opportunities for his church. We recall what happened in Honduras and Central America in 1998 after hurricane Mitch devastated different parts of the region. A huge wave of opportunities came with new churches that were started, thousands of homes that were built and hope for families and people and actually entire nations.

Help us pray that God would use us in this process and that our faith may be stronger.

Exciting plans for 2009!

2009-01-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Every year comes with new expectations, dreams and plans that we want to fulfill. Being a young church, we are entering a new stage of growth. These are some of the exciting things and events awaiting for this year:

Our 1st local conference "Original"

As some of you may already know, GCLA offers once a year a big conference in San Pedro Sula, Honduras where some 5,000 people from almost all of our churches reunite for 3 days of explosive and intensive biblical exposure. We have such speakers as pastors Herschel Martindale, Mark Darling, Jeff Adams, Lee Powell and many others...

Now, our church in Monterrey will have its very own conference for the first time. Director of GCLA, Nelson Guerra will share with us some of the challenges we all face doing the Great Commission and will also help us be better equipped to fulfill such a mission. We pray a great number of Mexicans will join us and make the decision to live their lives for this commandment.

2. Moving to a larger location

We have already started our service at 11:00 am in addition to our big service of 12:30pm. By God's grace, every weekend we are getting new visitors and our 12:30pm service is currently reaching its maximum capacity. We are encouraging some of the most committed people to come early to the eleven o'clock service to leave some more space for the second one.

We will soon start both a local and an international campaign to gather the resources to be able to move to a larger place in August. We are praying for a place called "Atlantis" which holds about 2,000 people and fits perfectly to our needs. Your prayers are always a blessing.

3. A leadership explosion

We currently have 5 small groups with 5 small group leaders. It is our desire to see these numbers double by the end of the year. We are praying actually for God to give us even more according to what he says in Ephesians 3:20.

Of course, this is a major challenge but we cannot think of a better way to quickly start new small groups, churches in other cities and why not, eventually, churches in other countries than by multiplying leadership. God commands us to look for men and women with a heart after Him and to teach them, train them to do the work.

Awesome college student outreach

2009-01-21T10:54:00.000-08:00

Last week was a very fruitful week by God's grace. With the help of a mission team from College Station and the Univeristy of Texas A&M, we were able to reach out to dozens of students at the Monterrey TEC campus.

The week started with several teams going and meeting local students, talking to them and even sharing Christ when an opportunity came up. Throughout the week, God kept giving us wonderful conversations with students and we wrapped evrything up on Friday with a party at Alex's house.

Amazingly, more than 20 students we'd contacted during the week showed up! It was so much fun to see them all gathering and getting to know some of our own students. It was a very positive contact with them and we hope it will result in more people coming to the small group and church. There are some that have already started coming to church and we praise God for what He's doing.

We also have a lot of work following up with them and we appreciate your prayers since this has usually been one of the most challenging tasks: to be able to connect them to the church and small groups.

Wrapping up 2008 / Goals for 2009

2009-01-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

We asked Pastor Sergio Handal to share a little bit with us what 2008 meant for our church and what we want to see in 2009.

MN: What was the most memorable moment for you as a pastor in 2008?

Sergio: Every time Mexicans make the decision to accept Christ and their Savior and then decide to serve Him, my heart is filled with enthusiasm. I've felt this way several times this year. It's definetly been a great one!

MN: What was the greatest challenge you faced?

Sergio: Our greatest challenge has been in ministry. We've been learning at a fast pace in this area. Our struggle has been in the financial area. We moved to Mexico right at the edge of a world crisis. We've had to spend a lot of time thinking about this instead of investing it in the church itself. But Gos has been faithful. He brought us here and He will keep providing according to His will.

MN: How do you visualize 2009 in terms of what God can do?

Sergio: Our expectations are high because God is mighty. These are some of the goals we are setting for this year:

Leadership: to have 10 small group leaders and another 10 people in the process of becoming one (10 people being trained)
Small groups: to have 10 small groups all over the city
Attendance: to have 225 people by the end of the year in our weekend services
Ministries: to see at least 5 new ministries starting
Conference: to have our 1st annual conference
New location: to move to a new space that could fit +300 people
Cadereyta: starting a small group in this town (30 km from Monterrey)

Ephesians 3:20

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen

Musician profile: Raul Garcia

2009-01-21T07:15:00.000-08:00

Raul is an enthusiastic, talented young man from our church who's only been around for 2 years. However, his heart for the Lord has led him to serve in a ministry where he can use his abilities and skills despite being unchurched before.

MN: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Raul: I'm 19 years old and I'm a Law student at the UANL. I came to the church about 2 years ago. I love music and everything related to art. I also like soocer and videogames (Haha!)

MN: How did you come to church?

Raul: It was through my brother Jorge. He invited us and brought the whole family.

MN: What has been your experience serving in the worship team?

Raul: It's been a great experience. It gives you a much better vision of all the work involved behind a single service. It makes you realize how valuable your contribution is.

MN: Why did you decide to get involved?

Raul: At the beginning it was just the desire to play an instrument but while I was doint it, I realized there is a much more powerful reason... to serve God! And there is no better way to do such a thing than to do it with what you like or what you're good at.

We pray God would continue to use young men and women like Raul. We are sure there are many more here in this city and we can't wait to meet them and help them grow, as Raul has, and help them develop the conviction in their hearts to serve God.

2008 goals being met

2008-12-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

Last year, our leadership team thought it would be wise to set some goals for this year. We prayed about an average attendance of 150 people by the end of the year. So far, God has been full of grace and He's allowed us to go above this number.

Indeed, in the last 3 weeks we've averaged 163 people and every weekend we see new people coming. Of course, if it were all about numbers we'd be satisfied but we know it's much more than just growing numbers in attendance.

Every person that walks in through those doors has a different story, a different background and a different challenge but they all have one thing in commom: they all need God desperately in their lives, whether they know it or not! Our job is to close the back door. Our job is to help them connect with their Creator and their Savior.

In sum, we feel encouraged by what God is doing in our church. Nonetheless, it is just one more reason to grab the shovel and hammer and get to work. Discipling men and women is a fantastic job God wants us to commit to.

Soccer outreach

2008-11-24T10:20:00.000-08:00

Soccer is a big pasion in Mexico and therefore a great means to reach out to people. Our church organized a soccer tournament 2 weeks ago and it was a great opportunity to meet new people and kind of connect them to small groups and church.

Every small group from the church organized a team and played in the championship. From the younger high school players to the more experienced 'oldies'. We had a lot of fun and the interaction among small group members resulted also in deeper friendships.

We now introduce the teams:

The Universitarios' team

The Jr. High and High School team

The young couples' team

The "Retros" as they called themselves

"We felt accepted..." Interview with a new member

2008-10-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

On Sunday morning, Dianita is usually standing between the two groups of seats at church. She’s enthusiastically singing all the songs the band plays. She’s only 3 years old. Her parents are listening attentively to the Bible study while her brother is learning Bible stories at the kids’ area.

Anabel, her children and her husband have started to come to church recently and it has been a great blessing to welcome people like her and her family who are just thirsty of God’s word. For this issue, we interviewed and asked her what God has been doing in her life and how her life has changed considering she wasn’t close to God.

MONTERREY NEWS: What have you liked the most from our church?

ANABEL: Well actually everything! We are very united (I say we because I consider myself part of the church). I like the small groups a lot even though I haven’t been able to attend one. I like the fact that we live together even outside the walls of the church and the friendship. I also like the messages from pastor Sergio and pastor Oscar. Each one of the messages is a great motivation for me.

MN: How has your life changed?

ANABEL: Too much! I really have no words to explain how my life has changed. Being close to God and accepting the fact that Christ died for us has really changed my life 100%. I cannot miss a Sunday because that’s where I get the energy for the rest of the week. My family, my friends and my husband Rafa say that my life has changed for good and this makes very happy. Rafa also feels very comfortable and not to say our kids: Diana loves the music and Betito always says “Don’t take me to the games but please take me to church”. We feel accepted the way we are and we love that.

MN: How do you visualize your future?

ANABEL: Umm… good question. I see myself happy learning about God and teaching my kids His Word. I would also like to serve but I know I need to learn a lot. I would also like to teach the kids at church. I have had challenges keeping my family united but I have a lot of faith that everything will be all right. In sum I see a bright future serving God and another baby too!

Dear readers, as you can see God is doing an awesome God in the hearts of Anabel and her family. Pray that God would continue to grab their heart and use them to influence many people in this city.

Music to our ears... the band is growing!

2008-10-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Be still and know that I am God

Psalm 46:10ª

Through hard work and a lot of grace, our worship team has seen what God can do with those who are willing. The Lord keeps attracting musicians to the church, some of which have stayed with us, and keeps bringing out talents from people who are already part of the church.

Aaron Ortiz joined us on the keyboards since May, Eric Prince has played drums wit us a couple of times, Raul Garcia has joined on guitar since September, and in October, Abdiel Gaytan has joined us in guitar as well.

The result has been better quality of music and enthusiasm from band members and the church as well. We hope to be prepared to grow into two worship teams by the end of the year, and thus be able to serve the church without burning ourselves out in the long run. This will also help more people join; music is a very time-consuming passion.

College student small group

2008-10-24T07:37:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters,

We are very glad to bring you updates about the college student small group in our church in Monterrey. After 3 months of having started this small group we can already thank God for his faithfulness as we start to bear the first fruit.

We initially started with a group of young men and women from different colleges. We meet once a week and talk about different important topics with the purpose of teaching them biblical principles. There is a great environment of friendship. We have currently 14 college students.
Right now, we are organizing the core group and we are planning the next few months with evangelism, discipleship, service and recreational activities. We also want to focus on the development of new young leaders.

As Colossians 1:28 says, we want to help them become mature. Please pray for all of us as we embrace God’s grace to achieve all these objectives.

By Hector Reyes (small group leader)

New visitors!

2008-10-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Our new series and new project has started and God has been faithful bringing more people to our weekend services. On every service, for the last two weeks we've had new people coming and visiting and our 12:15 service is practically full.

Indeed, we have reached our maximum number of chairs that can fit in the current room we have. We are praying about moving to a larger place by February 1st, 2009. Right now, there are many places where we'd like to move but none of them seems affordable. This is the kind of issues we enjoy having and we will be praying for our next step.

The Andrew Project: hoping to fill needs

2008-09-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Regios (the people from Monterrey) are known to be good administrators, good stewards of the money and resources they have. On the other hand, there is a great pressure for having the latest car, for living in the best area of the city and keeping up with a fancy lifestyle.

I recently heard a spot on the radio about a famous truck. It said something like this: "Become the envy of your boss... buy a Hummer". And people start borrowing money, credit cards become so popular and suddenly we are pursuing this fantasy just because you want others to know we are special. We try to show off and impress others so we would be heard or respected. And there is no greater mistake than to try to project an image we're not.

Image versus essence, appearance versus character. These people need to know and realize that our value does not come from what we own, or from our education: it comes from knowing what Christ did for us on the cross.

In the month of October we will have the second part of our Andrew Project. The first part in April gave us about 60 more people to our weekly attendance. We pray God would bring even more this fall. We want to serve these people and immediatly after they come to the weekend services we want them to connect to a small group.

We encourage you to pray for this project and for all the souls we want ot see saved. We have no doubt, God can use this series to transform lives.

Consolidating our small groups

2008-09-19T16:18:00.000-07:00

Small groups are an essential part of our church. Many of our Mexican friends are gathering in one of them. And this is the place where everybody can grow in deeper relationships and a closer relationship with Christ. This is the simple vision of our small groups. Yet, it is a challenging process that requires a lot of hard work to be accomplished.

Jesus said: "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." John 21:16

These are the different small groups we have in our church today:

One for high school students
One for college students
One for young couples
One for families with kids
One for singles

We pray we would soon begin another one for young couples. And something we are really excited and happy about is the fact that many of these new small groups we are hoping to multiply will be lead by Mexicans. God has raised Mexican men and women who have embraced our church's vision and are now being trained to be able to lead small groups. We believe this is an important step in the fulfillment of our mission here.

We want to invite you to join us in prayer as embark in this wonderful adventure.

Terrorism and violence in Mexico

2008-09-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

For the last few months there has been a lot of concern for the wave of violence that the country has been suffering from. It is well known that Mexico has had a lot of problems with illegal drug-dealing, cartels, kidnapping, corruption, etc...

However, over the last few months things seem to have gotten worse. About 2 weeks ago there was a peaceful demonstration in the streets of different cities. Everyone was invited to join the march clothed in white, longing for peace and safety.

The kidnapping and execution of a 14 year-old boy (son of a well known and respected businessman), several more kidnappings and just recently the act of terrorism in Michoacan on Independence Day have turned the situation into a declared war against terrorism and violence. To learn more about all the recent events that have struck us, you can visit this blog http://www.mexicotodayblog.com/ with news in English.

This intention has been clearly stated by the President himself and all of the population. We are living uncertain times, indeed, and we believe as a church that Jesus is the only hope this people have. As a growing church in Monterrey, we want to be able to support the people and bring hope in an environment where everything seems black.

We encourage you to pray for us and this important role we're playing. Additionally, you can pray for all the people in the governement, senate, congress, politicians, judges and authorities so that they may lead this beautiful country in a safe, fair and correct way.

On the verge of important changes

2008-08-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

Among all the challenges we face as a church, the ones we really enjoy having are the ones where we are shaken from our comfort zone.

The church's attendance has been slowly gaining new people. Our 12:15pm service seems to hit right on the target. People enjoy coming to this 'early' service on Sunday. A typical family in Monterrey would get up around 9:00 or 10:00 am. They would later have breakfast, get ready and usually arrive in the first couple of songs of our program. After the service, which usually lasts an hour to an hour and a half, people just stay there talking for another hour. They enjoy a coffee break we offer but even more the time together. Then they head for lunch around 3:00 or 4:00pm. As you can probably see, this differs greatly from the Sunday routine in America.

Our 7:00pm service has also gained many new people but not as many as the 12:15pm one. We are planning to have a big project in October to bring more people to church. It seems like the 150 people goal we have for the end of 2008 can be accomplished if we keep doing what Gos is asking us to do.

In sum, what we have now is one service reaching its maximum capacity and the other one holding people who miss the first service. Some of the options we are considering are:

Starting a 3rd service on Saturday night.

Changing the Sunday night service for the Saturday night one.

Moving to a larger place and having one single big service.

The multi-site option.

We are praying and inquiring about all these alternatives and we are confident God will lead us the way He wants us to take. Your prayers are always a blessing for us.

Vacation Bible School

2008-08-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we had the visit of a large mission team from Fellowship Bible Church.

A group of 20 enthusiastic short-term missionaries joined us for a week to get involved in many social and evangelistic activities. We were able to work on a Vacation Bible School for an entire week with a group of kids from a poor community in Monterrey. These fellow laborers brought an entire program with which they were able to share the Gospel with the kids, serve them, play with them, etc...

The results were surprising and we could see the Lord's blessing all along. We thank these brothers and sisters for their sacrifice in coming down here and serving with us to exand God's kingdom. We look forward to having them again as wll as many other mission teams from other places and churches.

A Mexican-American wedding

2008-08-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Back in June, we celebrated a wedding in our church. Eric Havinga and Paola Jaimes decided to spend the rest of their lives together serving the Lord as a new team.

Eric is a missionary from Chicago and he spent one entire year serving with us as an active part of our church in Monterrey. This is where he met Paola. She is a Mexican member of our church. While they were both serving the Lord and reaching out to more people in our city, God brought them together.

The ceremony in Monterrey was a very special one. Most of the members of our church were there to celebrate with them. Pastor Sergio Handal married them in the same place where we meet every Sunday. Also, Eric and Paola's families were there and this first inter-cultural wedding filled us all with joy.

Now, Eric and Paola have followed the Lord's direction and moved to Chicago (Eric's hometown). Despite being away from these warm lands of Monterrey, God knows their desire to serve and reach out to Mexicans and let's keep our eyes open for what God will do through this young couple whether it's here or in the U.S.

2nd service launch pictures on Flickr

2008-06-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

How to make your vision come true?

2008-06-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

When there is burning yes inside of you, it will be easy saying no to other things that distract you. When there is no vision, the people perish says Proverbs 29:18.

Over the last few months, God has been teaching us a lot on the vision of our church and we believe we have one that honors Him and that our members have been embracing: to make a disciple out of every non-believer. Now, one thing is to know our vision, to memorize it or to say it to others. But, how do we accomplish it? How do we make it real?

Here is a quick & easy 4-step outline that will help us tremendously. It focuses on small group activity:

The Spiral: this is our spiritual formation process. We've talked about this in other posts. The main focus is to make sure every member of our small groups is making progress in the Spiral. We want them to move from one stage to another. From being new-borns to connected christians then to committed, coached men and women of God and finally becoming catalyzers.

Bible studies: these are meant to nourish our people. They are intended to teach important principles and help disciples grow and make decisions in their lives.

Spiritual disciplines: we mean prayer wether it is individual or in group, the Lord's supper, baptisms, fastening, reading the Bible, etc... We need these things to happen every week in our small group gatherings

Every person in the small group should have a Paul and a Timothy

Positive results after 2nd service launch!

2008-06-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

God has been good to us and in general, the results after the 2nd service launch have been very positive and encouraging. God confirmed it was a good step towards the vision.

These are some of the things that have been accomplished:

Each brother and sister has the opportunity to sit and listen to the message in one service and serve in the different ministries in the other one.

In one series our attendace grew 30%
We've constantly broken the 100 people barrier in our two services combined

A lot of these new people that have come have joined our small groups for an even deeper connection

We praise God about this and so mch more that He wants to do.

Our new series

2008-06-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

We have started a new series: Signs! It talks about all the future events that we are awaiting. It talks about all the events around the world taking place right now from an escatological perspective.

We've started our 2nd service!

2008-04-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

With an atmosphere of great joy and excitement, we officially started our 2nd service last Sunday at 7:00pm. There had been a lot of expectations, prayers, training, invitations, etc... to prepare for this new step. For a long time we'd been praying and asking God for specific directions on what our next step ought to be.

God confirmed it on Sunday! The music was cheerful, a festive environment and the blessing to have many new people made April the 20th one of the most memorable days in our short history of the Monterrey church.

We'd love to share with you several pictures and videos so you can have a small idea of what God did during this time. We hope you enjoy them!

Our 12:15pm service

Pastor Sergio

Our 7:00pm service

A little sketch performed by Laura, Gabriel, Dulce and Jonathan

God gave us more!

2008-04-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

Dear brothers and sisters:

Since we started our church we hadn't broken the 100 adults barrier. Not at least without the help of mission teams in our services on the weekend. This has been one of our primary objectives: to have more than 100 souls in our two services. This weekend's attendance report (2nd service launch) surprised us all in a great way: we had 152 people who attended church this weekend! There was a total count of 189 people in both services but some of the people in our first service attended the second one as well. It is a great blessing to see how God is using each one of the members of our church.

Some other relevant data:

Our new 7:00pm service on Sunday night actually had more people than the one at 12:15m. This is the first time, in my experience, that somehting like this happens. We had a total of 42 people who came for their first time. Praise God about this! He outgave us! The 7:00pm service seems to be very convenient to invite people to come to church!

Now, what we can we do with what God has given us?

Be thankful to God deep inside our heart. There is no growth unless God's blessing is there. He has said yes to us!

Understand that we must continue to invite people, not only the ones who showed up this weekend but other people as well. Usually, we have less people who come for the following weekend... this is understandable and it shouldn't scare us... but what if God didn't allow this to happen? What if God actually granted us our prayer of having over 100 people each weekend? Remember, every number is a soul!

Tell all of our friends how nice and useful the messages are. In order to do this we can use the Internet, the phone, personal invitations, Facebook, Myspace, etc...

Understand that God has given us the primary resource (people) so we can accomplish every laborer's task (disciple). We need to remember to take these people through the Spiral. This is such an important task! To be able to start the 1st Bible study with these people would out them right on track. When you multiply yourself in another person and then this other person does the same with someone new, then and only then, the church grows. (2 Timothy 2:2). This is the way to reach the world. So let us not forget that this is an essential part of our ministry.

Get involved! There are so many more things to do logistically now. Not only do we need your time but we also need these new visitors to get involved in a ministry so they do not feel just as 'visitors' anymore.

Support financially: we need to raise $260 more dollars every week to cover what we pay for the 2nd service. This means praying to God so He would provide us with $1,040 extra dollars every month. If this is God's work, He will provide for it! He is our greatest donor!

Thanks for your service and for showing your love. God holds amazing things for this church and we can sum it up in this simple vision: making a disciple out of every non-believer.

God bless!

Our new series

2008-04-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

"How to have an attractive personality?" is the name of our new series of messages that we just launched along with the start of our 2nd service. Peolpe are always interested in knowing about their personality and others' as well.

The series is focused on how to identify your own temperament and highlight your strenghts and minimize your weaknesses. It is also focused on taking your relationships to another level by a better understanding of the personality God has given each one of us.

Pray that it would be a series that would fill people's needs and be sensitive to the unchurched who visit for their first time.

Sunday service video

2008-04-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Starting a second service!

2008-03-07T16:29:00.000-08:00

After many many weeks of looking for direction, praying, fasting and getting advice God has finally confirmed what the best option for this church is in terms of a next step: we're starting a second service!

Go ahead and mark your calendars for Sunday, April 20th at 7pm at the same Holiday Inn Express we've been meeting. That's right, we're staying in the same place and we have extended our contract with this hotel to now start a second service at 7pm.

The grat thing about a second service is the flexibility it gives our contacts to come to church. Now, they won't have to be stuck with only one time but they will have 2 options instead and at very different times on Sunday. We are still praying about starting a service on Saturday night but for the moment we need to focus on what God is leading us to. Also, it will give all our current members and visitors to get involved and serve in an area without having to miss the message. They will now be able to serve in one service and actually attend the other one. We are praying this process would bare much fruit.

We have begun praying and have started our campaign towards the start of this second service. We are preparing with materials, printed invitations, an email campaign, maybe some media advertising... All of this involves a flow of resources in order to welcome our visitors the best way possible. It is a step of faith which we consider necessary if we want to reach our 150 people goal by the end of the year.

Here are some things you and I can pray about:

Wise decisions in this process
Messages that would touch people's hearts
A seeker's heart for everyone attending this new service
A stream of friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, classmates that would accept our invitation
Bold and compassionate one-on-one invitations from us
Bibles, books, New Testaments, gift cards to give away to the newcomers
Ideas and creativity for our campaign
A constant income to pay for the space
Financial gifts to cover the campaign and equipment maintenance
More laborers
God's grace!

We will keep you updated with the latest updates in this extraordinary journey. Thanks

Monica Vazquez's story

2008-03-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

Monica (right)

Monica is a dear friend of ours and has been recently attending church and small groups. We wanted to share with you her story (one that she has personally written):

My name is Monica Vazquez. I am an 18 year old photography student from Juarez, who lives in Monterrey. I have been involved with church since I was six. It was not until two years ago that I actually and truly accepted God into life and heart. However, it was not until a few months ago that I began to understand His love.

When I was little I remember loving God, but only because my dad did. When I started thinking about it in a more serious manner (2003), I went through what I call my two years of hell. During this time, my walk with God slowed to a halt—where I lost almost all , if not all, my faith. In 2005 I decided to leave things at "peace" with God. However, the wounds were still to fresh and I still could not believe that someone, who according to my dad "loves me so much" could let those horrible things happen to me. Later that year dad came home with "wonderful" news—we were moving to Dallas. I kept asking God why? Why, right when things were getting better you throw this bomb at me? So once I arrived in Dallas there was only one thing I knew for sure: I was getting out of there ASAP! I knew that was not going to be any time soon, so during this time, my "peace" with God began to grow a little. However, I was going to get out of there with or without God.

When I got to Dallas, I still thought I could do anything by myself. I thought, "I’m smart, strong, and I get or do whatever I set my mind to." When I graduated I realized something, I would not have been able to stay strong through the move, adapting to a new culture, with my morals, and through stereotypes without Him. Though I still did not believe it was all for love, I mean He had put me through two years of hell, I guessed He felt bad.

Right after I graduated high school (2007) I came here to Monterrey. My parents made me take a year off and do an associate degree—I decided on photography. When I got here I did not really think about church, until October 2007. I had to go to Juarez, I remember going into the waiting area of the airport where I sat and read, but then this man comes up and asks if I was reading The Six Most Important Decisions of Your Life by Sean Covey. I said, "yes," and he said, "everyone in my family has read a part of that book but none of us has actually read the entire book." This interaction started a conversation. You know how sometimes you see someone and you know the question about God is going to come up sooner and later? Well, I knew it was coming, and I was prepared to just tell him I was Christian. I was not even going to mention that the aunt and uncle with whom I was living were Catholic. However, the question came, and I told him EVERYTHING! I told him about my aunt and uncle, and that I had not been going to church since I got here and as words kept coming out of my mouth, I did not stop them. I guess at, that point I realized my situation had to change.

This man was Pastor Sergio Handal. He told me he was pastor at this church (the Great Commission Church of Monterrey) and that I should visit. The first time I went, I was so nervous. I did not understand why, but at least my dad came with me. It was not until the third time that I went alone. As I went and went I realized that when Friday came around, I began to get really excited and happy. I would wake up early every Sunday, I would wake up early to go to church—I could not believe it! Out of the 3 churches I have gone to in my life, this was the first one in which I actually felt happy. I felt the love all around, they were all just so nice, and they accepted me just the way I was something that had not happened in any of the other churches. It was the first church I could call my family.

A few months ago, some problems started to go on with the family. My faith was faced with some major obstacles. I thought that "it" was happening all over again. Only this time instead of getting mad with God and letting go of Him, I was drawn closer to Him. I was not going to let go of Him for any reason! And that was when I realized the huge mistake I had made the first time, I was so dumb! How could I have ever thought that all that had happened to me was His fault? Everything was my fault. If I would have had the faith enough to trust in Him, everything would have turned out fine and that with Him nothing could harm me—nothing would have happened!

Ever since I came here, I have lost most of my fears. I think I needed to figure my faith out without daddy being there to fix everything. However, my dad never gave up on me, even when I was rude and disrespectful 75 percent of the time I talked or was with him. And for that I am truly thankful.

I do not know what the rest of my life holds. I do not even know if I want to stay in Monterrey and attend college here. At least, over these last few months, I can say that I have learned one thing: wherever I go, God is always going to be by my side. Whenever I fall, His hand will always be there to grab. Even though there were people in my life, throughout all of my problems, it was always God who heard me when I was hurt the most. It was always Him who grabbed my hand whenever I was scared, and it was always Him who would come back for me when I was completely lost.

Young couples' small group - part 3

2008-02-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

An environment of friendship, learning from the Bible and... really good food!

Young couples' small group - part 2

2008-02-29T23:24:00.000-08:00

The most important thing that we need as parents is...

Young couples' small group 1

2008-02-29T23:15:00.000-08:00

Pastor Tom Brown from one of our churches in El Paso, TX is sharing with all of these young couples how to raise their kids with a balance of love and discipline.

Jesus: our new series

2008-02-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

Jesus... with no doubt, the most influencing person on Earth ever to live. The most admirable character and the one who changed the course of history for eternity... In March, our church will host a series of messages focused on the person of Jesus. We will explore his fame, his power, his death and his resurrection.

We believe it will be a fruitful series of messages, especially in this month and over Easter, which is the time we celebrate his death and resurrection. Unlike in the United States, Easter in Mexico is not a time when people flow to churches. Most of the people take this time to travel, visit friends and family, go to the beach... so it's always a challenge in terms of attendance.

What are some messages that have been remarkable in your church around Easter time? Please share with us what you think God has used to bless you churches.

At one of our services...

2008-02-27T15:12:00.000-08:00

Missionaries

2008-02-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

These are all the missionary families that moved from Honduras to start the church in Monterrey:

Pastor Sergio and Loyda Handal

Children: Sergio, Alex, Andres and Loydita (and 2 nephews)

Arrival date: November 2005

Pastor Oscar and Mary Gutierrez

Children: Oscarito and Karla

Arrival date: July 2006

Juan Manuel and Claudia Caceres

Children: Cristian, Aby, Isabela

Arrival date: January 2006

Isaac and Jenny Pineda

Children: David and Natalie (on the way)

Arrival date: February 2006

Allan and Dora Handal

Children: Allan Andres and Elizabeth

Arrival date: May 2006

Carmen Castillo

Arrival date: June 2006

Hector and Claudia Reyes

Children: Hector David, Dulce, Ana, Andrea

Arrival date: August 2008

Give online

2008-02-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

This is how you can give online:

It's safe
It's fast
You can use your credit card
You can use Paypal even if you don't have a Paypal account

To give through Paypal, click this button:

You will be redirected to our Great Commission Church's Online Donation Center (GRAN COMISION A.C.)
You will enter:

The amount for your gift
Your information
The person or project you wish to support

Thanks a million for supporting our church, our missionaries and special projects.

Facing a new challenge: the hearing impaired!

2008-01-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we take for granted the communication we share with other people. We don't even realize the blessing we have of being able to hear and speak, to have attended a school and to be able to interact in our society without any limitations.

One of the brothers attending our church, Noe Rodriguez, has started a school for the hearing impaired called IDIS. It is the only school in the state of Nuevo Leon where they actually teach sign language. It is one of four schools in the country where it is taught. Inspired by his father, who was deaf, he started this organization aimed at serving, caring and teaching the hearing impaired how to communicate with others. IDIS focuses on teaching sign language as the primary language. In Mexico, 99% of the deaf young men and women of high school age do not know how to read or write.

Indeed, instead of considering the children as disabled, IDIS focuses on viewing them as bilingual (sign language and spanish).Our church fell in love with the project and we have formed an alliance with them. There are currently 15 students from all parts of Monterrey attending school. These students come from disadvantaged economical backgrounds. We are overwhelmed by the challenging task of meeting their needs. We would like to serve as a channel of blessing for this amazing initiative. As always there are many ways you can get involved with IDIS:

sponsoring a kid

volunteering (teaching mainly)
bringing mission teams
coming for 6-12 months to learn sign language

pedagogic materials

supplies

office equipment

etc...

We will keep you updated with stories, pictures and our desire to make a difference in the lives of these kids; and to let them know about Jesus' love for them.

To move or not to move: that is our question!

2008-01-21T15:39:00.000-08:00

Our church, by God's grace, has been growing to the point where we have needed to ask ourselves: should we leave the Holiday Inn and move to another place with more room and capacity to hold more people or should we open up a 2nd service and stay there?

What is your thought about this? There are many variables, factors and alternatives we have to consider:

Moving to a larger place involves more money to pay more room

Moving to a larger place would result in a single big service at the same time

Opening up a 2nd service also implies more money because we'll be renting the same place for more time

Moving means a possible loss of people on the way

Staying brings up the question: should we have our 2nd service the same day (Sunday night) or change the day (Saturday night)

Opening another service implies more options and flexibility for our visitors

Opening another service means doubling our efforts in time, energy, logistics, etc... especially if we have our 2nd service on a different day

This is a thrilling dilemma to have, it is! So we want to ask YOU: what would you do? If you were in our position what do you think God would lead you to?

We'd like to open up this discussion and get pieces of wisdom through your advice. Please, feel free to interact leaving your comment, suggestion, story, point of view, word of encouragement or anything that the Spirit leads you to sharing with us.

Our discipleship system: the Spiral

2008-01-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

We are very excited and feel very blessed to finally have our discipleship system called the Spiral all set up now.

Not that we didn't have one before, but now it is easily summarized in the chart you see in this post.

God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Whoever receives Jesus Christ has a new life with meaning and purpose.

This world is in need of men and women with a heart to teach others everything that Jesus Christ commanded.

The Spiral is the spiritual formation process that helps the new believer’s growth. It also aids the mentor in assisting the disciple in his spiritual journey.

The goal is to establish him/her in the faith and prepare him/her to live according to the great commission’s purpose.

The Spiral consists of four phases: Enlist, Establish, Equip, and Expand.

----------------------------------

1. Enlist – from Christian to connected

This phase is to promote the spiritual growth of the new believer.

The goal is to Enlist the new believer in the local church.

The result of the first phase is the Connection.

2. Establish – from connected to committed

This phase is the integration of spiritual habits in the life of the new believer.

The goal is to Establish the new member of the church in the faith.

The result of the second phase is Commitment.

3. Equip – from committed to coached

This phase is about the formation of the believer’s spiritual path that is growing in maturity.

The goal is to Equip the small group members.

The result of the third phase is Coaching.

4. Expand – from coached to catalyzer

This phase is about the disciple multiplying his/her life in other people’s lives.

The goal is to Expand and send the disciples to fulfill the Great Commission.

The result of the fourth phase to live for the Cause.

Our church on Facebook

2008-01-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

This year, we have joined Facebook and we are happy to interact with friends and people who want to get to know us better. So far we've added a user in Spanish but we will soon have one in English. To be able to interact with us, you'll need your own Facebook account.

These are some of the things you'll be able to do there:

Know more people who have a heart for reaching to people in Monterrey
Stay updated with the latest events
See pictures of events and people in our church
Donate to the different causes and projects in a safe way
Express yourself
Participate in forums
Read a daily verse
And much, much more

New series for a new year!

2008-01-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

2008 is here! Our church has started this year with a new series called: "A New Start". We will be speaking about a new Spiritual Start which will focus on the importance of a close relationship with God in this year. Also, we will speak about living this year according to our church's vision: to make a disciple out of every non-believer. We are in this world and we need to do 3 things in order to reach to people: 1. Start conversations. 2. Spend time with them. 3. Be visible to them.

The 3rd week we will learn and be encouraged on how to relate to people, how to have good and fruitful relationships with others. And finally, we'll talk about your goals for the year 2015. We need to think ahead of us and live with a future perspective, thinking about the legacy we will leave on this Earth.

Merry Christmas!

2008-01-07T16:02:00.000-08:00

Mexico struck by rain and floods: Tabasco update

2007-11-12T22:29:00.000-08:00

In 1998, when hurricane Mitch settled in Honduran territory for several days it marked the country with one of the most devastating weeks of its history. Only months and even years later, by God's everlasting grace, we were able to see the purpose of God's will in that hard situation.

Mexico has suffered in the last days one of its worst natural disasters in the history of this country, if not the worst of all! So far, there are more than one million evacuees, 70% of the state is still under water and light-to-moderate rain is still expected in the next 72 hours. Despite the fact that the level of the water has started to go lower, it will take years for this area to be similar to what it was.

The need for material, financial, emotional and spiritual support couldn't be any more obvious. When hurricane Mitch hit Honduras in 1998, Mexico was one of the first countries to extend support to us. Today, God has brought us to this country and we feel in debt with Mexico. That's why we've joined our forces with dozens of organizations, churches, businesses, companies, individuals, soccer clubs, athletes, rock stars, celebrities, governement and, as a church, would like to contribute to the relief of millions of people in Tabasco and Chiapas and the restoration of those states.

Not to mention the great opportunities to share Christ with others that will result from this. After Mitch, only Samaritan's Purse, through their relief efforts, built more than 6,000 homes in coordination with our church in Honduras. That lead to several church plants, new Bible groups in different communities, the acknowledgement of the people of Honduras and their authorites and the favor of them, thousands of salvations and ultimately the glory of God. Our only objective is to show Mexicans how much God cares for them.

We have already initiated a first stage of relief among people in our church. We are extending the invitation to you so you can push towards the finish line with us. You can partner with us in several ways. Our response will impact this country. You will find practical ways to get involved in our previous post.

Luke 6:38

"Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Support our brothers in Tabasco

2007-11-12T22:20:00.000-08:00

These are some practical ways you can partner with us and support the affected people:

GOODS:
* Milk in powder
* Medicine and pills
* Bottled water
* Food in cans
* Can openers
* Blankets
* Clothes
* Diapers
* Repellent
* Anti-fungus cream
* Cotton
* Pills to purify water
* Plates

Collecting centers: Handal Raudales family's house in Monterrey
Carlos Pereyra 1228 - Colinas de San Jeronimo
Contact Eric Havinga (011 521) 81 80152335 from USA
(00 521) 81 80152335 from Latin America
(0052) 81 83152862 (0052) 81 83780938

CASH:
We are receiving cash donations in the following banks:
1- Banamex (bank)Name on the account: Gran Comisión AC
Account number: 678 7396702
SWIFT: BNMXMXMMABA: 02100089
Clabe: 002580067873967022

2- GCLA
Great Commission Latin America
12905 SW 132nd Street
Suite 2
Miami, FL 33186
USA
Please write on the memo: Monterrey Church/Tabasco

3- Paypal:

Kids costume celebration

2007-11-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

With all the excitement about costumes, trick or treating, candy and the fun that comes with those things around Halloween the kids at church had a costume celebration as well.

However, this was not a celebration about wicked characters, dead coming from beyond or evil. It was a nice opportunity to teach the little ones about Jesus who triumphed over death, about great Biblical heroes that are now in Heaven and the great things they did while they were living on Earth. They were also taught about the importance of sharing Christ with their other little friends who don't know Him so they can also go to Heaven.

The kids disguised themselves and had a lot of fun but the whole spirit was changed. We are happy about this group of kids that's being the reason for some parents to come to church... just because their kids enjoy the time there! Praise God about this!

New small group for young couples

2007-11-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

We are very happy to announce that we are starting a new small group aiming at young married couples. What a wonderful stage of life and whata great time to seek the Lord and look for guidance as new families are emerging.

God has blessed our church with a lot of young couples in their late twenties and early thirties. Some of them have kids, some of them have babies, newborns and some others are just waiting to make that step.

We are happy because we will be able to influence a more targeted age group that share a lot of things in common. Pray that God would bless this small group and multiply it with leaders and disciples. This is also part of our vision: if you remember it says "Making a disciple out of every non-believer". That's what it's all about. Also pray that God would use us to make an impact on these people's lives. So this makes a total of 6 small groups in our church. We pray they would multiply in quantity and quality and they would be a divine strategy for raising new leaders and disciples and transformed lives.

Isabela's birth!

2007-11-09T22:16:00.000-08:00

Merry merry news to you all! Juan Manuel and Claudia's baby girl was born on October 18th. Her name is Isabela and she the cutest new addition to their family and to the church.

The baby and her mother are just fine right now, she's even sleeping through the night! We are all very happy with this as we see God's faithful promise come true. He's blessed us all in this amazing land. Congratulations to Claudia, Juan Manuel, Christian and Aby. We all share this joy with you!

Sergio's birthday!

2007-11-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

Last October 30th was Pastor Sergio's birthday. We are very thankful for his heart for the Lord and his leadership in the church along with Pastor Oscar.

It's been a great blessing the fact that Sergio and his family have moved from Honduras to start this church plant here. We, as team members, feel very proud of him and thankful to God. It's never easy to leave a big church and your country to start from the beginning in a new place where nobody knows you.

We pray God will continue to use him for many many more years and continue to bless him and his family in every possible way. The reward will be waiting in Heaven. Happy Birthday Sergio!

Soccer tournament

2007-10-04T10:55:00.000-07:00

Our church organized a soccer tournament for 2 straight weekends. In total, more than 50 players participated in 5 different teams. A total of 22 games made the tournament very interesting.

The church came up with 2 teams. In these teams we listed all of our friends that we are trying to disciple. The rest of the players were friends of the mexicans that are coming to church so this resulted in a great opportunity for the gospel. We had the chance to testify to them and also, very importantly, we made good connections with them. Now the girls want to make their own teams and are inviting other friends to join them. We hope you enjoy the pictures we took.

The champions

Carlos & Raul

Henry's team: 3rd place

Fernando's team: runner-up

One of the church's teams

Interview with pastor Sergio

2007-10-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

Monterrey News interviewed pastor Sergio for this edition of our newsletter. We wanted to know after several months of being in Monterrey, what's the church like? How's the church coming along? Plans for the future, present challenges and past learnings.

MN: How would you describe Mexicans, and people from Monterrey in particular, in their spiritual life?

Sergio:

Monterrey is a modern city. It is exposed to different lines of thought inspired
by the western society. As we speak, a world class event is being held in this
city: the World Cultural Forum Monterrey 2007. This is a worldwide interchange
of ideas, culture, art, technology, philosophy and spirituality. This is just an
example of what people in Monterrey are living every day.

What we've seen is that people from Monterrey are respectful of God but they
are not involved with the church. In some way, they fear God but they are not in
the same page with churches and their ministers, especially in the Catholic
Church.

MN: What are your plans as a church?

Sergio:

Small groups are full of people. Our spiritual formation process, which we have
called The Spiral, is working great! It is wonderful to see that people who
didn't know God at all are seeking Him passionately and are growing in their
lives. We hope we can start 2 more small groups in the following weeks. We are
also working on preparing the field for a second service on the weekend. The
place we are meeting at right now is starting to become small for the number of
people that visit us.

MN: How would you explain the vision in a simple way?

Sergio:

To make a disciple out of every non-believer. Something we are emphasizing
the members of our church is that we are a church for the unchurched!

MN: What do you see for the Great Commission Church in Monterrey twenty years from now?

Sergio:

A church that has extended to all of Mexico, to different cities. I see many
pastors and leaders raised up and a church that has planted other churches in
different countries in Latin America

MN: What has been the greatest challenge you have faced as a church?

Sergio:

There are 2 major challenges we've faced: knowing the culture and becoming a
relevant church to this city. The process is not simple, however the church is
growing consistently. Another important challenge we've faced is our finances.
Missionaries have been unable to work due to strong legal restrictions. In
addition, their support has dropped in most of their cases. This has lead us to
kneel before God because so far, the conviction of the brothers that have moved
to Mexico has been to do God's will here in Mexico.

MN: How have you dealt with this challenge?

Sergio:

With joy, faith and hope. Gos has been faithful to us! The enthusiasm is
good! Of course we are conscious our needs lead us to stand and ask before His
throne.

MN: How can individuals, churches or organizations participate in what God is doing in Monterrey?

Sergio:

Sending mission teams from their churches for instance. Sending missionaries
for more extended periods of time. Praying for wisdom for each one of our
leaders and also supporting us with funds, which are so much needed in this
particular stage we are going through. There is many new people wanting to get
involved, learn and grow and we need to be able to provide materials for them as
well as materially investing in their lives, so we can serve them and meet some
of their needs.

MN: What do you love about Mexico?

Sergio:

Its culture, people and of course... its food!

Digging deep: GCLA

2007-10-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

GCLA is our mother organization to which our church in Monterrey is submitted. We work under their coordination and as a part of a whole strategy. To know more about GCLA, please watch this video.

Adrian's testimony: before & after

2007-10-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

My name is Adrian Rivera. I'm 29 years old and I live in Monterrey, Mexico. Since I was a little kid, I've been involved with church but it wasn't until the age of 15 that I made the decision to give my life to JesusChrist (however, I wasn't part of Great Commission Church yet). At that time, in 1993, I was living in Tegcucigalpa, Honduras because my father is from Honduras and my mother from Mexico, so I'm kind of a mixture of the two cultures and I've lived almost half of my life in each country.

In November 1999, I moved to Monterrey. Since then, this has been my home. When I moved, I practically disconnected from my church. The reason was maybe the fact that I didn't know any churches in Mty or maybe the fact that I was more concetrated on my new life on my own. Or perhaps I saved it for "later" and I didn't think it was "that important". But there is no doubt God has a plan for each one of us.

In November 2004, my parents were still living in Honduras (they live in Mty now). They were Juan Manuel's neighbors. Juan Manuel is one of the missionaries that moved from Honduras to start the church here. In that particular month, Juan Manuel and other members from the team made an exploratory trip to Monterrey. My parents gave him my phone number and this how we got connected for the first time.

After Easter 2005, I had the opportunity to travel to Honduras and to get to know the rest of the missionaries that were about to move down here. I was also able to attend GCLA's yearly conference in San Pedro Sula. In the summer of 2005, there was another exploratory trip to Monterrey. This was another chance to stay in touch with the missionaries. The communication was fluid between pastor Sergio and me. Tenths of phone calls, hundreds of emails, thousands of MSN chats and only after this thorough process, pastor Sergio's family finally moved from Honduras and the first of several families to come.

Since then, I have been reconnected with serving God, attending a church and being part of a new family of friends and brothers & sisters. In March 2007, I became a part of the staff for the church in th area of production of our weekend services programs and media. To be honnest, it wasn't an easy decision nut the privilege of serving God is greater than anything the world can offer you.

Many have been the changes in my life. One of the most noticeable is my weight. I lost 53 lbs. by God's grace and the support of other members from the church who encouraged me to join a special diet program. With this and some exercise also I was able to go from 265 lbs. to 212lbs. and the numbers keep going down!

I'm sure this is just the start because I know great things are going to happen here in Monterrey. However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" 1Corinthians 2:9

Why do people not go to church in Monterrey?

2007-09-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

Monterrey has a population of 4.1 million people. Out of these 4.1 million, 2 million people don't go to church. This is almost half of the people that never go to church. The reason?

Recently, we had the visit of a team from Cedar Creek Church in Toledo, OH. This is one of America's top 10 fastest growing churches. With their help, we conducted a study in the 2 main campuses of Monterrey: the TEC of Monterrey and the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon. We asked over a hundred people if they regularly attended a church. If the answer was no, we would ask them what are some of the main reasons they or their friends didn't go to church. Among the alternatives, we would ask them to select all that apply:

It's boring
It's not relevant to my life

Too hypocritical

Time choices
Too busy

Transportation

I'm not interested in church

I don't believe in God

Other:__________________

Are you interested in the results? This is what we found out:

The two main reasons why people don't go to church:

It's boring! 75%

They're too busy or not interesed 25%

Other reasons why they don't go to church

"I don't believe in the church (organization)"

"They ask for money"

"Nobody invites me"

We would later ask them if a church could address these issues if they would consider visiting at least once. This is what they said:

70% said yes

3.7% said no

26.3% did not answer this question

Finally, we asked them what are some of the main things they are looking for in a church. These are the choices we have them:

The message

To be able to understand the minister

Fun and excitement

Friendships

That it may be relevant to my life

Other:_____________

These are the top three things they're looking for:

Relevance in their lives: #1

The message: #2

To be able to understand the minister: #3

Other things they said they were looking for in a church

"Be closer to God"

"Get to know God"

"Worship"

"I want the church to speak more opnly and directly to me about things that will personally help me"

"That it may more dynamic, not so boring!"

This research has left us with some very useful information. We want to be that church that would address those issues and would bring more unchurched people to be part of the family.

Ideas how to connect with people

2007-09-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Steve Hutmacher, pastor at Cedar Creek Church in Toledo, OH shared with our church ideas where and how to connect with people. We all participated in this exercise and came up with our own ideas on how to connect with people in Mty. This is what we found out:

Neighbors. They are there, next to you. And sometimes we don't even know their names.

Parks. Usually families go there, they are relaxed and it is also a great opportunity

Sporting events. Soccer is THE sport here in Mexico. Local soccer teams and games are a great way to break the ice.

Restaurants. What if you consistently go to the same Starbuck's, same day of the week, same time? You'll probably get acquainted with waiters, regular customers...

Bible Discussion Groups.

Campuses. Great place to share opinions and thoughts. Students always want to engage in a discussion and be heard

No strings attached events. Activities where you serve people and they ask themselves why you are doing such thing. Why else than to show them God's love?

What are some ways you relate to people outside the church?

Planning on starting a 2nd service

2007-09-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Our only weekend service for the moment is on Sundays at 12:15m. It's been a great service. Typically, the service will last 1 hour and 15 minutes but usually our friends stay up to an hour after the service just talking to each other and enjoying a coffee break.

After that, we usually go and eat together and then get ready for 2 hours of soccer. This makes Sunday a very special day for the families that come to church. Now, this service is quickly reaching its full capacity. The pastors of our church have now decided to start a new church service. When? Probably around October.

We are still thinking about what the best day and time would be. We have basically two options: Saturday evening at 7pm or Sunday evening at 7pm maybe. We are still praying and checking with the people from the hotel if this would be a possibility or not. The great thing about having multiple services is that you give people the freedom to choose what's more convenient for them.

The Christian Bubble

2007-09-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Some of us may be already familiar with the term. It refers to this environment within the churches where you closest and only relationships are within the church.

Now, is there something wrong with having deep relationships within the church? Didn't Jesus want us to love one another with the same kind of love that He has for us? So, what are we doing with these relationships outside the walls of the church? I'm sure this subject can be of a lot of debate among the christian atmosphere. But, what is the balance, if there is one, that we need to keep?

Jesus said "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." John 17:15. So Jesus knew we were still going to be in the world for a while. He didn't want us to remain in the Christian Bubble all the time but also to go and become fisher of men. Now, don't get me wrong in this. I'm not saying we shouldn't have best pals that will encourage us to love God more. I'm saying that those are not the only relationships we need to have.

In our church in Monterrey, we are in the process of changing this culture. It is not in our DNA to make friends and get closer with non-believers. In our next post, we will brainstorm different ideas about going after the lost.

Piñatas for the kids at the Topo Chico

2007-09-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

Recently we spent an entire day with the kids at the Topo Chico. These are the kids we've already written about. They live in one of the poorest areas of Monterrey and our church is bringing a tiny bit of God's love to these poor kids. We are partnering with some leaders (who are family with pastor Nacho Pecina in San Antonio, TX) and we are working towards showing these kids a part of God's love for them.

On this opportunity, we brought piñatas for the kids and the fun was on! They had a great time and we were also able to show them how much God loves them. We usually bring clothes for them, food, supplies, etc... With the help of the mission team from Cedar Creek Church we worked on building some benches for their moms who attend a Bible class twice a week.

You can see, the reality of this community. It's hard but at the same time challenging for us. There are so many opportunities for us to get involved. If you would like more information about this ministry, please give us your name and email and leave a comment.

Sharing with students at TEC and UNI

2007-09-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

The Tec and the Uni are the two largest universities here in Monterrey. We spent several days talking to students and getting to know them. The results have been great! Some of them have come to our small groups, soccer or other activities we have.

You can see some of the pics of these students.

On the left picture: Ramon, Luke (Cedar Creek) and Ellie at the TEC cafeteria. They are some great friends we've made and studying really hard at the TEC. On the right picture, Luke and two other students at the UNI. We are praying about a strong college ministry on both of these campuses. Of course, we are praying the leaders of these ministries. One first step we are trying to take is the creation of specialized small groups. One of them, would be the college student small group.

Our vision

2007-08-17T13:41:00.000-07:00

Our vision is simple and powerful at the same time:
We want to make a disciple out of every non-believer. Period.

This is what we breathe and this is what we want live every day of our lives here in Monterrey. God has been faithful attracting people without a church background to our church.

Our slogan is: We are a church for people without a church.
Please pray that God would continue to bring people and that we would be used to transform people's lives.

Let us be united by... soccer?

2007-06-14T15:19:00.000-07:00

That's right friends! Soccer has a unifying component. We are celebrating the Gold Cup in different places in the U.S. and a lot of the countries from our region are represented there! Among those we have Mexico, Honduras, the United States and many more.

Since our church is an interesting mix of different nationalities (hondurans, americans, colombians and mexicans of course) you can probably guess how much fun it has been watching these games together.

This is a picture of a lot of people watching the game Honduras-Mexico in Sergio's place after a Sunday service. Again, this is a great time of fellowship and attracting more people to hang out with us.

Our new meeting place

2007-06-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

As of July 8th, the Holiday Inn Express Galerias is going to be our new meeting place. God has provided this new place for us to meet.

It will be convenient since we will have both of our meeting rooms (main auditorium and kids place) in front of each other. The main place holds up about 80 to 100 people and the kids place is large enough for them to feel like in a playard.

Please include us in your prayers and let's ask the Lord to bless this new place with many more people. Also, pray for the people we already have, so this change won't affect and discourage them.

Moving again by July

2007-05-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

If you read our recent article titled "God challenging our faith" you probably have an idea of what we've gone through in terms of finding a steady place for our weekend services.

Well, now the story continues and the casino is extending its capacity to basically all the rooms in Galeria del Gourmet. Basically, this means we have to be out of that place by July. This time we are moving out of the facility. You probably know the downturns of such situation as in this process, many new attenders may feel disoriented of even worse, not encouraged any more to come to our church.

Although this has also been a challenge for us, God has provided a place where we would like to meet until the end of the year: the Holiday Inn Express Galerias in Avenida San Jeronimo. This is a hotel about 2 blocks away from Galeria del Gourmet (the place we've had). It makes convenient due to the fact that it's in the same area our target is and very close to where we have been meeting.

Sports outreach

2007-05-30T10:18:00.000-07:00

Sports have always been an amazing way to attract young people and to have a good time together. Our youth is not the exception to the rule. Almost every week, we play soccer, basketball or volleyball together. It has been great for getting to know young men who will not come to church in the first place but will immediatly join you if you invite them to play a game.

This has been the case with many guys with whom a relationship has been started and a friendship has been created. There are some of our college students who are very good at becoming friends with the unchurched young men around them. We pray God will use all of us to bring people to Christ, just like Andrew did with his brother Peter.

God challenging our faith

2007-05-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning 8:30am... all of us were early to set up the room where we usually meet. Big surprise! We see a lot of construction materials putside the room and we go wondering "What's going on?" And then we heard the news... the owners of the place were going to lease the facilities to a casino!

It was disturbing Sunday, emotionally speaking. The place where we'd been meeting for church was going to be now used as a casino... that meant no more church services in that same room. Just like that, Boom! God promises not a single leave of a tree falls down without his control, so this represented a big challenge for our faith.

Neverthless, the owners agreed to give us a new room, one that would even be larger and more comfortable. We were facing a huge problem now: the place for the kids. Before this, the kids were in a separate room, comfortably in front of the main room. But now there was no place for the kids. They would be ready to get in any available room and we would find out basically at the last moment.

God has been faithful and we have been able to meet in the same place. You have been looking at some of the pictures of that new place. Many new people have come to our new place and we just pray God would continue to bless our weekend services!

Our church in Monterrey

2007-05-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of what the church looks like. This is the same day when Gabriel , Jorge and Laura got baptized. We enjoyed a great time of fellowship. All the men had a great time playing basketball, volleyball, soccer and football too. The ladies on the other hand had a great time to talk and get to know each other even better. We enjoyed the visit of our dear friends from Cedar Rapids, IA. The Mexican culture as well as many other latino cultures is blessed with a great sense of community, spending time together and family and this is something that we are trying to use to build deep relationships within the church.

We desire to be a growing and influential church in Monterrey. God has blessed us with new friends and He keeps doing this over and over again. Month after month and week after week. Praise Him!

More people getting baptized

2007-05-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

We are very excited to see that many people at church are making important decisions and taking important steps of obedience.

This is the case of three young men who have come to know the Lord very recently and have now decided to get baptized. During a very special day here in Mexico all the church went to a field trip to a Rancho outside of Monterrey. It was a beautiful day where we all enjoyed the sun, eating together and playing sports. But most importantly, we were gathered to celebrate the decision of getting baptized of these three young men and women.

Gabriel and his wife Laura from Colombia were two of the people getting baptized and also Jorge made that step that day. They were all excited and thankful to God because of the wonderful gift of salvation they had received not too long ago.

Congratulations Jorge, Laura and Gabriel for that brave decision! We encourage you to continue knowing the Lord more

and more!

The other face of Monterrey

2007-03-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

Children walking barefoot...

No running water...

Trash all over the place...

People surviving with less than $1 a day...

"Is this a real place?", you might ask yourself. This is the reality of most of the people in Latin America. This is also the other face of Monterrey...

While the city offers numerous opportunities, jobs, industry, comfort, entertainment, commerce, recreation, parks, good highways, safety, a good environment for business, education, health, first class hotels and restaurants... this is still a privilege that a lot of people will never experience in their lives. Monterrey is considered one of the best cities in Mexico to live. Yet, it's still a place with needs and where a lot can be done to help the poor. The Apostle Paul used to say: "All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."

Our church has started to work on a project on an area here in Monterrey near the Topo Chico mountain where people live in miserable conditions. There is a great need for help and for Jesus: there is a huge number of single mothers with 5 or 6 children each; kids don't even go to school, the men of the house are either drunk or high.

There is currently a group of men who are working with the kids of this community teaching them about the Bible, songs, etc... We are taking all of our mission teams from the U.S. to this place so they can help and interact with these kids. We have provided food, clothes, soap, bread, toothbrushes, toys, pencils, books and there is a lot of need for ongoing support for them.

We will post a project that we are working on very soon so you can have a chance to see how you can help. Your prayers will be much appreciated.

Our Outreach Project

2007-03-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Every growing church has a special project once or twice a year to attract people to it. Whatever the name of the project is it consits of a special, consistent and planned effort to bring a large number of people to church and to connect them with the church and small groups. This is an exciting project that God has blessed over the years in different ways and in different parts of the world.

Our church has already planned for such outreach project in 2007. This year, we would like to have 2 major pushes in order to reach out to more people from our target. One of those will be during the month of May and the other one will be in August. The summer is the time when most of the people go on vacations so we are planning to have both projects before and after the summer. This will be our first experience with a major campaign here in Mty. We are planning to advetise using direct mail, radio, newspapers, personal invitations, the Internet, websites... God has put in our hearts the desire to see 350 people on our weekend services by the end of the year. If we want to see this miracle fulfilled we need to make this step of faith. Without having all of the resources, the money to do this, we choose to call on the Invisible as He could be seen.

Easter conference in Honduras

2007-03-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

Every Easter, GCLA organizes a series of conferences in Honduras for all of its churches in Latin America. This year won't be the exception. This year's conference is called Seven.

“How can I get to know Jesus Christ more intimately?"

“What should I do to make sure I won't fall?”

“How can I be sure of a triumphant reception on heaven?”

It is possible that in some point of our spiritual journey we made ourselves these questions. It's also possible that we weren't able to answer these legitimate inquiries. Let us not be discouraged, there are answers to our questions!
It's time to build upon our faith. It's time to increase our spiritual quality. It's time to allow the life of Christ to manifest in our life. We will discover and study the 7 biblical qualities that guarantee positive results for these transcendental questions.

March Series: Heroes...

2007-03-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

Heroes... we all need them! We are all looking for people to follow, to admire and respect. Our world longs to have men and women who would make a strong impact in this society. During this series, we are studying those great characters from the Bible that encourage us to live a better life. People like Abraham, Joseph, David, Nehemiah, Jesus and people like you and me also!
We will engage in a passionate study of their lives, their strenghts and weaknesses but most importantly their intimate relationship with God. This way, we will be motivated to become a hero for those around us!

Our new series

2007-02-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

"February is the month of love", some say. Valentine's Day is February the 14th. A special day for lovers, to give flowers and chocolates and cards too. Well, love may be expressed by all these things, but it is way more than just a romantic, sympathetic feeling... It is a DECISION. Of course, Hollywood will not tell you this, TV series won't either. But the Bible has a lot to say about real love. The mature and undeserved love that God showed when He sent his one and only Son to die in my place and in yours. During this month, we will engage in the quest for God's real, mature and perfect love. We will discover what love really is.

Super Sunday

2007-02-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, we had a great time with our friends from Mexico. It all started early morning with our two services. Over 100 people attended our services. The environment was great! New people are coming to visit every weekend and they are drawing their friends to come with them. We all learned a lot from the Bible as Sergio was speaking about how to take wise decisions regarding the use of your time.

By the way, did you know that if you were to live for 50 years only, you would spend almost 25 years of your life sleeping, eating and doing hygiene habits? What about work? Well, you would spend almost 12 years of your life working. What about the rest? What time do we have for our families, church, reading the Bible, praying, etc... It is a challenge for us to invest our time wisely. Psalm 90:12 says: Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

After church we started preparing for the SuperBowl. We got together and had a great time watching the game. Some of us were supporting the Chicago Bears, some of us the Indiana Colts. We have a missionary from Chicago with us so, you can imagine... Sorry Eric!

Meanwhile, the ladies were practicing their favorite sport: chit chat and playing games. We all had a wonderful time and we praise God for the nice, healthy church He's giving us.

Small groups on the run!

2007-01-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

Small groups are a divine way to learn from God, grow as disciples, serve others and connect with people. We are working hard to make small groups a great place to fulfill God's desire. Currently we have 3 small groups and we are praying to start very soon other 3 small groups. Here you can see a couple of pictures with some of the small groups in action. On your right you can see the high school small group that meets every saturday. There are between 15 to 20 teenagers meeting every week and a huge potential for young leadership.

On the other hand there is a "young professionals" small group which is trying to focus on graduate students. They are meeting every friday and having a good time together. At the same time they are growing as christians and reaching out to the lost in their generation. We also have another small group for married couples and it is incredible to see how couples are growing together in the discipleship system. They are getting baptized, learning how to read the Bible and all of this makes us very joyful.

Jesus said: "Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." The wine (the message) will always be the same. God's Word and principles will never change but the way to take that message and teach it (the wineskins) will constantly change. We pray that our wineskins would be new so that this generation may come to know Jesus. To make a disciple out of every non-believer: this is our reason to live.

Prayer Requests for 2007

2007-01-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

We've started this new year excited about all the things has planned for us. Jesus said: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you". It is our desire to ask the Lord for all those things He's already prepared for us. When you remember us please include in your prayers the following requests:

Wisdom for our pastors Sergio and Oscar.

A bold evangelistic attitude

Our contacts and friends: that the Lord would use us to help them grow as disciples

More resources to operate as a church

A larger room in the same place we meet

Outreach efforts

Social projects: that we would be able to start to help single mothers and the needy

350 people attending church by the end of the year

To be able to start a 3rd service on Saturday if needed

Our current series

2007-01-22T13:54:00.000-08:00

Did anyone see James Bond’s new movie? Do you remember that famous slogan ‘License to kill’? Well we have used this famous icon to start the year 2007 with this series called: ‘Making Good Decisions: your license to succeed’.
Life is about decisions. You take them every day. What makes the difference between successful and frustrated people is the decisions they make in their lives. We want to encourage our new believers and our entire congregation to meditate in the course of their lives to see what kind of changes they need to make in order to honor God above everything.