Thank you for your prayers and support. I am writing to secure your prayers for some new pivotal growth in my ministry.
The Lord has done some great things in the church-planting experience in and around Guadalajara. He has gotten three new churches started. He has provided the key men and resources to get these churches started. The churches are all doing well and growing.
I have learned a lot in these three new church plants, being a catalyst for two of them and even pastoring one of them for a short time. A great strength of the Mexican people is their love for people and their wholehearted willingness to get involved in things like a new church plant. It seems that they can do the work of planting churches themselves, for the most part. They just need a little help with the organization, vision, how to, and finances.
I believe the next step to broaden our efforts and influence to help churches across Mexico to plant new churches is to get pastors excited about the possibilities, help them see the obvious biblical principles, and show them how to make it happen in their part of Mexico. There are more and more churches producing Bible college graduates who want to be used of God. They need someone who can line up the church planters with the churches to help them.
I have been praying much and seeking counsel from my sending pastor and from Mexican pastors who have been successful in church planting in order to develop a thorough plan of action. We need God’s provision of the right national pastors for the new churches, the training and resources for these pastors, and the direction of the Lord as to where these new churches should be located.
Pastor Shubal Stearns and the Sandy Creek Baptist Church in North Carolina were responsible for starting over 1,000 independent Baptist churches in the United States between 1750 and 1829. These church plants brought a spiritual awakening to our country and changed the whole fabric and fiber of our culture. I believe the Lord could do the same in Mexico as He works through key Mexican pastors and churches.
Please pray with me as I continue to seek the Lord’s will regarding the details of how to best serve the pastors and churches in this effort and prepare accordingly.
Yours for souls,
Chris Sage