D-day
"D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated...The best known D-Day is June 6, 1944 the day of the Normandy Landings initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II." (Wikipedia)
"No day, since the idea of a new church was first brought to mind until it becomes an established church is more crucial than the day the church goes public"
Please pray for us! We´re grateful to be launching our first public service this weekend for our new church in City Bell: Iglesia Bíblica de City Bell. Its D-day. We are invading the enemy´s territory. We are planting a church in a place where there are no Bible churches.
Here are the three events we are doing:
1. Forum: I will be sharing a forum with two catholic priests of the area. All three of us will be answering six questions related to Easter (How do we know Christ really rose from the dead? What is the central message of Christianity?) This gives us a voice into the catholic community. Many people will be there because there are Catholic priests there. But I will get to speak to them for about 30 minutes (5 minutes per question) This will happen on Friday night.
2. Jazz night: George Rambow will be playing Jazz and we will be serving coffee and medialunas (an Argentine pastry). I have a few non-Christians friends that have said they will be there. This gives people a chance to walk into our church building and get to know us some with the hopes of pointing them closer to Christ. This event is for a broader audience (non-religious folks). This will occur on Saturday night.
3. Sunday service: There will be several believers from a couple of churches joining us on this special occasion. We have already been meeting on Sundays (20-25 adults plus children). But this will be the first time our sign will be up (which will have our web page as well that should be running by then - ibcitybell.com)
Please pray for our protection, health (several of the team members have been very sick), all the details that need to happen, for many to hear the gospel and that God would continue to lead my preparations for these talks.
THANKS SO MUCH!!!! We really appreciate your ongoing, faithful support. Once again, sorry it has been so long since I wrote!
Warmly,
Greg, Caro, Febe, Alaina, Wendy
Posted March 24, 2010 by Greg and Carolina.
Merry Christmas
We hope you enjoy a wonderful Christmas with friends and family!
I wanted to send you two things:
1. A fun video we "made" as a family (you´ll really enjoy this - it´s less than a minute long)
http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/qXhswsFKcoBtTuduVYud
2. and a 20 minute short film that has a sweet message. Someone sent it to me and I started watching the first few minutes and it arose more curiosity enough to watch the whole thing. Enjoy!
http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/film/?film=4dd298f102c77b625cf37a9e7744ac68
Thank you so much for your ongoing support and prayers! We are very grateful! Merry Christmas!
Posted December 21, 2009 by Greg and Carolina.
Learning to Pastor
"Plant a flower and it will last a season. Plant a tree and it will last a life time. Plant a church and it will last an eternity."
What a wonderful season of learning it has been for me and for our family. I am learning more about the church and what it means to be a pastor than ever. We continue to see God´s leading and blessing upon the new church plant in City Bell. We are working in a difficult terrain. In the west we truly live in a post-Christian culture (or to put it another way an ex-Christian culture). Our context in City Bell, Argentina is more like the north of the US or even more like Europe than like the southern bible belt. One author described this period as a new challenge, "The church has never had to evangelize in all of its history an ex-Christian culture." There is a sense in which the culture has been inoculated to Christianity. The purpose of a vaccine is to not get sick. A vaccine puts in your body a form of the sickness (dead or weakened) so that your body is tricked and produces antibodies. This allows for you to never catch the real sickness. Because people have experience false representations of Christianity they think they know what it is and are "tricked" into never catching the real thing.
How have we begun to plant a church in this context?
1. We are building a solid foundation of the first members. A true believer is a member of the invisible church (composed of all true believers of all ages). With so many people that think they are believers we just launched our first membership class. We are helping people understand what it truly means to be a believer and what it truly means to be a member of the Body of Christ.
2. I am preaching against religion to people who don´t like and have been hurt, deceived by religion. I am trying to help people see that we are not the same expression of Christianity that they have been exposed to (in a ritualistic catholic church, in a legalistic or prosperity evangelical church)
3. Visiting people in the homes. This has been a delight. My wife and I have so enjoyed doing this as a family on Saturdays. We visit anywhere from one to three families in their homes each Saturday. I am learning more than ever the value of this as I seek to pastor this new church that is forming.
4. Kurt just finished the first small group using a material called the Discovery Series. We also have been using it with the leaders of small groups in La Plata. It is a great discipleship material that has six great steps to help people learn and apply Scripture into their lives.
5. Next Sunday we have our first baby dedications (our daughter Wendy and Kurt and Lore´s daughter, Lila). The following Sunday we will have our first baptisms (two or three). We are excited about this!
6. I have begun communicating the seven values of our church (this is what drive us): divine dependence, teaching that transforms, authentic worship, One another fellowship, contextualized evangelism, compassionate service, global vision.
It has been an exciting and busy time. We apologize for our slowness in communicating with you.
Growing Family
We have invited Febe to live with us through the end of the year and we are praying about the possibility of her continuing to live with us. Febe is 16 and recently experienced a new birth. She will be one of the people baptized in about ten days. She has lived in many places and was in an orphanage for quite a while. Before she lived with us she was living with her older sister who could no longer have her. So we took her in and it has been a sweet time. In many ways, I have become a father of a teenager overnight. Pray that God would lead us as we make a final decision to have her live with us beyond the end of the year.
Institute
We are finishing up the semester. I am teaching a class on leadership. Just this morning we talked about vision and developing a personal mission statement. I have seven faithful students who have been very teachable and diligent. Pray for strength as they finish up the semester with all the assignments (we offered four classes all together as an institute this year).
La Union
(Our involvement is coming to an end in the church in La Plata. I will be preaching next Sunday evening and then one more time on December 13th. This will be our last Sunday and a chance to say goodbye to the congregation. Even though we will see them from time to time, we will no longer be involved as members. Our stage of ministry there will come to its end. The small group leaders come over to our house every other monday and we will finish that on November 30th.
Trip to Chile and Visit with Ernest
I didn´t get a chance to write you about my last trip to Chile but it was an initial trip to respond to a request for training. This trip I will travel together with Ernest who is from Denton Bible and is coordinating much of what is going on with BTCPs in Latin America. We look forward to having him in Argentina for a few days getting to know him and him getting to know our team. We will then leave together for Chile November 17-20th. We will be speaking at a pastor´s breakfast and meeting with a Bible Institute in Santiago to present the BTCP vision and some of the tools we have to go along with this: the discovery series, man of God, Titus 2. Pray for a fruitful trip and for protection for my family as I am gone.
THANKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!!!
Posted November 4, 2009 by Greg and Carolina.
07-11-2009 Safety, Sickness and the Sovereignty of God
04-15-2009 A police officer's hospitality
01-30-2009 New beginnings
10-03-2008 Skype phone
10-02-2008 Visas, Shots and Protesters
09-04-2008 Travel and Sickness II (photos and update)
07-27-2008 Medical Mission Trip
07-02-2008 A missionary's confession
04-30-2008 Life in La Plata
02-22-2008 Returning Home
01-28-2008 Take to the World
12-22-2007 Merry Christmas!
12-05-2007 An update on Mike Terry (our pastor)
11-27-2007 Please pray for our pastor in Argentina
10-14-2007 WHAT´S A HOME SERVICE?
04-04-2007 TEAM MINISTRY
02-01-2007 Exaltation of The Cross
12-07-2006 What's a typical day look like?
08-30-2006 A burden for the interior of Argentina
05-24-2006 Training Leaders In Argentina
04-05-2006 A New Year of Ministry
01-11-2006 Coming to Texas
12-29-2005 Becoming Familiar with the Aiport
10-06-2005 BTCP graduation
