Fieles 2022 Pastors Conference in Juarez, Mexico

An update from Carlos Contreras, Senior Pastor of Gracia Soberana de Ciudad Juarez and Regional Leader for Mexico…

Our theme for this year was ‘Pastoral Ministry by Grace’ with Dr. Bryan Chapell as our special guest speaker. Again this year, we were joined by our wonderful regular speakers, Jeff Purswell, Bob Kauflin, Miguel Núñez, Kike Torres and Joselo Mercado. As part of the team of men participating, we also had Rich Richardson and Mark Prater. In all, this was by far our best time together in our desire to serve Mexican and Latin American pastors, leaders, and their wives.

Because of space limitations, we had to limit attendance to 400 folks, representing 23 Mexican states (70% of our country represented). Of all those in attendance, 80% were leaders and their wives, from around 110 different churches, making it one of the few contexts where the focus has been primarily on serving those in church leadership. We also had a good number of Latin American leaders that came from other countries like Costa Rica, Colombia, Bolivia, and the USA. Our mission was to encourage and equip called leaders from our family of churches but we were open to all who wanted to come and join us.

One highlight of the Conference was the release of the new Sovereign Grace Music Spanish album “En Tí Esperamos (We Wait on You)”, a copy of which was given to all attendees and filled our worship times with long awaited powerful new songs. From the first song we sang at the beginning of worship time, and throughout the rest of our time together, the presence of the Holy Spirit was evident. Our Lord was gracious to answer our prayers for a time of refreshment for all and so there was as much joy as there were tears and encouragement during all our times of ministry. I can safely say that we experienced a true visitation that many testified as they left to return to their homes. One pastor from Oaxaca who came for the first time wrote saying:

“Thank you for serving us who are looking for encouragement to keep ahead serving God. It was a great blessing to me and my wife to be able to spend these days learning from the Word of God and enjoying His grace… We will be the first ones to register for next year… We are now seeking God to make decisions for our ministry.”

Another highlight this year was that we were looking for ways to stimulate times of fellowship among the participants, so we hosted a brunch with all pastors from the region and their wives. It was a wonderful time to just be together and share testimonies of what God has been doing among us and some plans for the future. We also set up an outside food court with tables where food was available for purchase in the evenings. This place was full every night until late at night and many mentioned this venue being a big plus in regard to making new friends in true fellowship.

In addition, a very interesting and now memorable event happened on Thursday night. There was a violent spree in our city as well as in other cities in Mexico orchestrated by organized crime groups as a means of pressuring the government. As a result of this, our whole city went into lockdown for two consecutive nights. We saw this as God sovereignly testing us in our faith and trust that He would care for us during this scary event. The result was amazing. We decided to continue with the conference as planned and we extended the hours of our food court since all restaurants closed on both nights. Not only was our faith strengthened, but there was more joy in our fellowship, our singing was louder and more heart felt, and we all returned home having had a real experience of His sustaining grace.

In all, I can safely say, our gracious God took over our Conference and made sure we all received a full measure of His amazing grace. We can’t wait to see what He will do next year!