Fieles Pastors & Leaders Conference 2024
An update from Carlos Contreras, Lead Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church, Ciudad Juárez, Mexico and National Leader for SGC Mexico...
God’s grace was again manifest in our recent Fieles Pastors and Leaders Conference in Juárez, Mexico. As in past years, our goal of serving Latin American leaders by preaching on biblical themes relevant to helping us serve our Lord faithfully in ministry was wonderfully accomplished. Our theme this year was “The Pastor’s Call to a Godly Life” with the participation of our guest speakers that included Dr. Mike Bullmore from Kenosha, WI and Pastor Juan Sanchez from Austin, TX who served us well by preaching and teaching a workshop each. We also had our own Executive Director, Mark Prater who preached a very encouraging message on "The Praying Pastor" and Jeff Purswell who opened and closed our conference with two excellent and challenging messages.
I am amazed by the number of our attendees who have made coming to our Fieles Conference a yearly occurrence, but whom are not pastors of a Sovereign Grace church. Some have mentioned to me that they consider their time here as a yearly retreat, returning home refreshed and encouraged. This is one reason why this conference exists, not just to equip national pastors from our own family of churches, but also to give by grace to others, what we have received by grace so richly over the years. So many leaders throughout the world have never experienced the grace, encouragement and teaching that we have been so graciously gifted by Christ for decades! Fieles is a means for Sovereign Grace to give to others from the abundance of our legacy.
One highlight of our time was the launching of the newest Spanish Sovereign Grace Music worship album, Conocer a Dios, which is the Spanish version of the recent Knowing God album in English. Fabrizio Rodulfo who serves alongside Bob Kauflin in Sovereign Grace Music, gave a wonderful introduction to the album and we were able to teach and sing several songs from the new album during our worship sessions. SG Music in Spanish is one of the most powerful means that God is using to allow Sovereign Grace to bless and serve the Spanish speaking world with the gifts with which he has blessed us for so many years. It is having a very broad and amazing impact throughout Latin America.
We also took the opportunity on Saturday to ordain two new pastors from Gracia Soberana Ciudad Juarez. Edgar Flores, a recent graduate of the SG Pastors College and Cuauhtemoc Campos who has served now for several years as our executive pastor, were ordained the day after the conference with the participation of local pastors as well as Mike Bullmore and Mark Prater. This was a wonderful local celebration with many guests that stayed over from the conference.
We have made the decision to not host a Fieles Conference in 2025. This will allow us to take a whole year to pray, evaluate and plan for the future as we also try other events and venues to serve the many churches spread out in Sovereign Grace Mexico. We ask that you pray for direction and wisdom for our National Leadership team as we consider these plans. We hope that by doing this, we will be more effective in serving present and future leaders in our country as well as in others.
Soli Deo Gloria!
