The Most Important Meeting of the Year

The sun is setting on continued full-time missionary involvement at Christ Lives Bible Church. Last night we informed them that the church has to install a pastor sooner rather than later. We suggested Fransisco be the new shepherd for this flock. With the Barons moving to Texas in the next couple of months and the need for the Ruizes and Mitchells to begin aggressively pursuing church planting opportunities in the Atizapan area of Metro Mexico City the time is now for the church to be on its own. That's not to suggest that we missionaries will not be there for them. We will consult them over issues of constitution development and other help topics but we need to move on. Over the last week the Ruizes and ourselves have been meeting to discuss the last year and plan the future. We have been hashing out a plan for simultaneous cell-church plants using trained Mexican workers. The role of the missionary will be to oversee/mentor and provide the strategy. We will still start bible studies and cell groups but the pastor will be Mexican. By having trained Mexican workers the church starts off running with a pastor instead of waiting till the pastor is chosen many years into the ministry as in the case of Christ Lives Bible Church. What we are doing is similar to what is displayed in the book Church Planting Movements http://www.churchplantingmovements.com but contextualized to the realities of Mexico City. We are very excited by what is being proposed and we hope soon we will see this new kind of church planting model thrive here.