New Church

This past Sunday, March 3, 2013, we stepped out in faith and began a new journey in our ministry here in Paraguay. For some time now, God has been directing our steps and speaking to our hearts about doing something more for Him here. As things fell into place, we could see God's hand of guidance leading us to a place we have never been before. Doors opened up wide before us, things fell into place, and we stepped through the doors and began walking with Christ through this journey of faith.

As a result, we are now pastors of a brand-new church that we have called, Iglesia Cristiana Hacedores, "Doers of the Word Church". We are using James 1:22 as our theme verse: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." I like how the Message Bible translates this verse: "Don't fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear!"

This was the theme of the first message. James goes on to say the to basically pretend to listen and not do what the Word says is like a person who looks in the mirror, walks away, and two minutes later forgets what they look like. When we look into a mirror, we can see the wrinkles, scars, marks, signs of problems, etc. that are on our face. We walk away and, more often than not, forget what we saw until we look into the mirror again. We do the same thing when we look into the mirror of our soul, the Word of God. We listen, we read, we peruse through, pass over, and take a few minutes to read a passage or two. We see, in this Mirror, our defects, our scars, our sins, and signs of problems in our life, but when we set It aside and walk way, we forget about them. We forget what we read, what we listened to, and we don't do anything to change it. Some of the problems we see in the mirror, we can correct. All of the problems we see in the Mirror of our soul, Jesus can correct. He can and will forgive. He can and will help us to grow. We just need to become doers of the Word and not just hearers. 

In the church today, we have so many hearers and hardly any doers. Lord, please help me to be a doer and not just a hearer thus deceiving myself into believing that I am your disciple.
 

Charley preaching in the first service at Iglesia Cristiana Hacedores

The first service was held at 7 p.m. on Sunday evening, March 3. We had 39 in attendance (including our family) and 15 raised their hands to either give their lives in service to Christ or to completely give their lives to him for the first time, trusting Him to save them from their sins. It was so impressive to see God working on their hearts and lives.


As we begin this new church, we look forward to what God is going to do. We know the challenges are ahead, and they are sometimes very difficult to overcome. We also know that God is with us. He will lead and guide our every step along the way.

Blessings to all,
Charley