Do You Believe This Message?
We in Verbo Ministries represent a family of churches that believes in worldwide
evangelism, the spiritual and functional unity of the Body of Christ, and
the personal holiness of its members. We have established churches in 12
nations and are dedicated to preaching the Gospel and training men and women
in Christian discipleship. We take to heart the statement in the Epistle of
James 2:17, “Faith that doesn’t lead us to do good deeds is all alone and
dead!” For this reason we have established schools, health clinics, and food
distribution, vocational training, and other programs for the poor. We undertake
emergency relief work whenever possible. We welcome partnerships with churches
that want to promote the Kingdom of God in all its aspects. Tax deductible
receipts are issued for all contributions .
For more information, call or write:
Verbo Ministries
P.O. Box 190, Kenner,
LA 70063-0190
Tel. (504) 443-6610
Fax (504) 466-0144
E-mail:
missions@verbo.org
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Verbo Quito Draws Visitors into the Christian Lifestyle
Someone
Really Does Care!
by Jim DeGolyer
A group of about 15 people shyly
approached the table where there was a sign that read, "Mesa
de Honor" (Table of Honor) where they had been cordially invited
to share a snack and a time of sharing.
These were people who had come for the first time to a Sunday meeting
in one of the four Verbo churches in the Greater Quito, Ecuador, area.
They had been asked to stand up after the worship so that people from
the home group in charge of hospitality could give them a small gift,
usually a long stemmed rose.
Expect
a Call
The warm smiles of Ri-cardo Acosta and
his team soon put them at ease. Ricardo
gave a short speech in which he thanked them for attending the meeting
and explained our desire to serve in Jesus' name. While waiting for
re-freshments, we gave them forms to write down their names and addresses.
Ricardo explained that they should expect a friendship call or visit
during that week because they were very important to us and to God,
and we wanted to extend the love of God to them.
These times of sharing after meetings
is very important for those who have never experienced a church like
ours where the upbeat, non-traditional worship and expressiveness
towards God is completely different from the traditional Ecuadorian
religiosity.
Relationship
Is Essential
Our follow up (or "consolidation")
teams take the filled out cards and af-ter cataloguing the data, pass
out the information to the home groups m charge of telephone calls
and visita-tion for that week.
The church members who do this follow
up try to develop a relationship with each new person. We have found
that this personal touch often deter-mines whether or not the person
will become a faithful member of the church over time.
Welcome
to Verbo
The consolidation person helps the new
ones to find a home group close to where they live so they can begin
to develop caring friendships and sup-port. We encourage each new
person to attend a weekend encounter retreat and to get involved in
the "Welcome to Verbo Class."
In the class, new or prospective members
learn about our overall vi-sion and how they can get involved. Special
personal care makes the differ-ence that helps people make a decision
to be part of the church.
Visits
Deeply Touch Hearts
Ricardo, who coordinates the consolidation
effort, says that many people have enthusiastically told him how special
and important these personal visits and telephone calls have been.
One illustration is a woman who had
recently accepted the Lord asked her husband to come to pick her up
after the first Sunday meeting. This man had a serious problem with
anger and drinking. When he arrived Ricardo
happened to be there. He reached out to him by sharing the dangers
of how the man's lifestyle could affect his children. In a short time
this man re-ceived the Lord and now he and his wife are attending
meetings faithfully.
Sometimes the zeal of the consoli-dation
teams is amazing. Edita visited a lady to take her to a home group.
As they waited for her husband to come home, the lady became more
and more angry. Finally she and Edita left with-out him.
Woman
Experiences Joy
When they returned he still wasn't home.
The woman thought he might be out drinking. Later Edita received a
call from the woman telling her that another Verbo member had invited
her husband to different home group. The woman was overjoyed as now
both of them are being drawn into a life changing experience.
We take all these extra measures to
draw people into God's Kingdom be-cause they are so precious to God
and to us. It is a wonderful privilege to work with God as he draws
these he loves so much to himself.
Mission Begins
in Puerto Barrios
The Caribbean coastal town of Puerto
Barrios, Guatemala, is the lat-est mission in Verbo's expansive vi-sion
to place congregations-and then schools and social services-in all
the major towns of this Central American nation.
Johnny and Victoria Paredes, who had
been working in another Verbo congregation, volunteered to start the
new work with a unique strategy: They opened a women's gym and fitness
center in October of last year.
In a short time they had almost enough
clients to support themselves and, more importantly, had managed to
evangelize several clients and their family members. Next, they opened
a church in their living room and continued to preach door-to-door
and in the streets with the assistance of volunteer teams from other
Verbo congregations.
Vicky
Runs Gym
Seven people were baptized in March,
and in April the mission moved into a rented building. Johnny does
most of the pastoral work while Vicky runs the gym and evangelizes
her customers.
The couple believes that be-cause of
Puerto Barrios' stra-tegic location as one of Guatemala's major ports,
they will be able to reach many truckers longshoremen, businessmen
and sailors for Christ. Eventually, they hope to be able to train
and send Gospel workers all around the country and to neighboring
Belize and Honduras.
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