“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up in honor.” – James 4:10

The old saying says “it takes a village to raise a child.” In the same way, God uses individuals, a humble leadership group and deep ties of fellowship to develop a mature church.

The Mexico City Church was planted 31 years ago from the Boston Church of Christ. Mexico City is one of the largest metropolises that mankind has ever seen (over 21 million). God planted a church there with the vision of developing a pillar church for the nation and the hemisphere. Today this group of with almost 4,000 disciples is the second largest congregation of the International Churches of Christ and is blessed with a united leadership, two recently appointing elders, new teachers and a school of ministry. We celebrate what God has done in this generation!

The church has experienced many tests and trials, but God is prevailing in a powerful way. The Mexico City Church’s leadership team demonstrated great humility 18 months ago when they sought help from the Mexico and Central America Mission Society, who in turn sought help from a consulting group formed with leaders from Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, Saint Louis and overseen by a group of leaders from the Boston Church. For many years the leadership of the Mexico City Church had been struggling to regain unity, trust and credibility. In spite of the many challenges in the leadership, the congregation itself had remained relatively stable maintaining a membership of over 3,600.

With the direction of the consulting group, five areas of vision were defined for the church: leadership,women’s ministry, finances, next generation and development of an eldership. A task force was assigned to each of these areas of vision and they worked arduously to develop a strategy and plan. The vision and plans for each of these five areas were presented to the church in an all Mexico City congregational service in March of 2017 (the first in 10years).

As God’s Spirit obviously brought great progress in the five areas of vision, the church leadership chose the theme for 2017 to be “The Power of Becoming One” and for 2018 “Building the Power of One.”

The women’s ministry took significant steps towards unity hosting women’s conferences with a united theme throughout the congregation, resulting in women’s retreats and training programs and even reading the same spiritual books to unite in vision and practice.

The board of directors expanded to represent each area of the church and is now developing finance, human resources and communications committees. Financial stewardship training has been implemented throughout each region of the church. As a result, the contribution has increased to the point that the church is self-supporting, and trust in the financial management of the congregation has increased. Thanks to this growth a congregational service could be funded.

Regarding the next generation, the Latin American School of Missions was initiated in February of 2018 with 10 young interns being paid and trained full-time.

And to top it all off, on April 29, 2018 a historical congregational event was held. Over 7, 500 were in attendance to witness the appointment of the first elders ever in the Mexico City Church! Three new teachers for the congregation were recognized and the first 10 students in the recently inaugurated school of missions were introduced. What a glorious day of celebration of the power of God and the power of becoming one!

Many leaders and members from the congregations in the provinces of Mexico were present. They were inspired and it is our vision for the health and growth of the Mexico City Church to impact these churches over time.

Thanks be to God for his vision and the patience he shows to all of us. Also, a huge thank you to all who, over the years, helped to establish the foundation of the Mexico City Church. To the many who over the years have given to mission contributions, it is all worthwhile. We are very grateful to the servant leaders and the churches that have permitted them to give of their time from San Diego, Los Angeles, Saint Louis, Dallas and Boston to help this victory come about. If it takes 31 years to develop a child to the point that she is mature enough to support herself, have a broad base of leadership that includes evangelists, women’s ministry leaders, elders and teachers it is worthwhile! If now that child is raising up a new generation of leaders then the investment of time, resources and money is very worthwhile.

As we look to other cities and nations let us be united as a brotherhood to help develop the mature leadership and churches to give hope to the millions of souls yet to be reached with the message of Christ!