Speaking engagement

Very cool -- yesterday I was asked to speak at the Lopez´church. They wanted me to give my ¨testimony,¨which to them meant how I was called to missions. This was an amazing opportunity -- this church, Iglesia Jesucristo Rey (http://www.jesucristorey.org/), is 25 years old and has not yet sent out a missionary (they have given some support to one missionary over the years).

Last year, something wonderful happened -- both pastors and the church itself awoke to the idea of missions and the needs around them. They met Gabriel, the pastor in Burela, and sought ways to support his work. Next weekend they have a missions conference with several speakers from LifeWind. Yesterday I was able to give a preview: I spoke at the morning service and the evening service and spoke about holistic ministry throughout, since that is really my call. With my varied background of medicine, youth ministry, volunteering in homeless shelters and healing prayer teams, I was instantly attracted to the way that LifeWind operates.

Iglesia Jesucristo Rey seems like a great church. Marcelo asked if I thought I would start going there, and I think I will -- I didn´t want to ¨church shop,¨ and what I was looking for was basically just a church with sound doctrine. I have now been there twice and have really enjoyed both the teaching and the fellowship.

Fun fact: Argentines, at least the evangelicals in Cordoba, go to church on Sunday night, not Sunday morning. Iglesia Jesucristo Rey´s service starts at 7:30 pm and ends around 9:30. I did also speak at the morning service (10:30), but there weren´t very many people there. This is good because at the morning service I had pictures and an outline to work with, and I discovered that I cannot speak extemporaneously in Spanish! When I get lost it takes me several sentences to recover. So, I wrote out the entire talk for the evening service.

Cultural fact: pastors are not paid by the congregation. They tend to have full-time jobs and are pastors on the side. Apparently there is some bad history in this country of pastors using the congregation´s donations to enrich themselves, so it seems they have seriously responded the other way. The two pastors of Iglesia Jesucristo Rey are both doctors! There are a lot of professionals in the church, and it is really exciting to see them being mobilized to help their community and those around them.