Latin American Emerging Leaders Retreat
An update from Carlos Contreras, Senior Pastor of Gracia Soberana de Ciudad Juarez and Regional Leader for Mexico…
This past week we had the joy of hosting in our sister church in Guadalajara Mexico, a retreat for 13 Latin American leaders that have requested adoption by Sovereign Grace Churches, or have recently planted a church, or are in planning stages to plant a church in the near future. 3 men came from Costa Rica; Allan Monge who planted a church in Cartago 4 years ago and is in his ordination process; Chespi Sandoval who also planted a church in the area of Jacó, and Rodrigo Fournier who is leading a large church in the western part of San José, both of whom have requested adoption. Jacobis Aldana came from Santa Marta Colombia and also has requested adoption, and David del Castillo came from our recent church plant in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, who is progressing well in his ordination process.
From México, we were joined by Enrique Villegas and David Puga from the state of Veracruz, both of whom are in the process of ordination. As well as 4 pastors from 3 churches requesting adoption – Carlos Martinez from Torreón, David Hernandez from the city of Chihuahua and Jorge Luis Gutierrez and Emmanuel Alfonzo from the city of Uriangato in the state of Guanajuato. Additionally, I had the privilege of introducing two men who are currently living in Juarez being equipped to be sent out in the next couple of years to plant churches: Marcelo Torres who plans to plant a church in Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas, and Israel García, who is looking to plant a church in Huajuapan, Oaxaca.
The retreat was organized as a new initiative of the Latin American Fund to help move forward the process of church planting and church adoption in Latin America. Rich Richardson, Joselo Mercado and myself, planned this event as a context designed to expose participants to the values and virtues that have distinguished our rich history as a family of churches. We wanted to expose new and younger leaders to men with a very long history within Sovereign Grace who we encouraged to share from their personal decades-long experience. The general theme of the retreat was “Training Faithful Pastors for Decades”.
Rich Richardson started us very well talking about “The certainty of Pastoral Suffering”. Next day Mark Prater also served us well - sharing via Zoom - some valuable insights into “Leading through Suffering”. CJ Mahaney also joined us via Zoom that afternoon sharing about “How to tend to your own heart”, a theme he has been teaching for decades. And on our last day Steve Shank, one of the founding leaders within our family of churches, shared a priceless talk on “Leading your Family Faithfully”.
After each session there was an invaluable extended time of questions and discussion with much participation from all, including from Hellman Avila, Abelardo Muñoz and Manolo Quintal who also came, as part of our regional leadership team in Mexico, to help with the relationship building among all.
I believe the fruit of this time together met and surpassed our expectations. After 3 days together, men from different countries who didn’t know each other before, went back home as friends. They experienced first-hand what all the speakers emphasized: Leaders in Sovereign Grace never lead alone, that is why we build relationally. And, most importantly, we all got a concentrated extra dose of what it means to be a pastor in Sovereign Grace. We pray events like this will help us plant and build churches in Latin America who faithfully reflect the values that, by God’s grace. we have been given as a family of churches.
