As part of our Christmas Offering, we will be supporting Redeemer City to City in Monterrey, Mexico.  Redeemer CTC is a ministry of Redeemer New York.  It is a global church planting movement focusing on global cities throughout the world.  We were approached last fall about partnering with Redeemer CTC, and our church was the recipient of a grant to make this possibility happen.  The grant provides our partner in Monterrey $38,000 and then our church joins in for an additional $13,000 over the course of a couple of years.  Normally, it would be difficult for a church our size to come up with the $51,000 for such partnership, but because of the grant it is much more accessible. This partnership will involve the possibility of ministry trips for City Pres and for the churches and pastors in Monterrey. It also will provide us with training in New York at Redeemer for members of our team. It also fits very nicely with our vision and mission to be a church planting church both regionally and internationally.  We believe church planting is one way God intends to evangelize and change our world.  This year a portion of the Christmas offering will be dedicated to this work with Redeemer CTC, and we hope you will join in and be a part of it.  

We are working with Andres Garza and Ecosistema Monterrey.  Andres is an ordained pastor in the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.  Andres has served through MTW for more than 15 years, and in 2014 he became the Director for City to City Latin America.  He started a plant in Monterrey 5 years ago.  The name of the church is San Pedro Church.  It is a bilingual church reaching the upper-middle class and business community in Monterrey.  San Pedro is a refuge for expats and international college students from some of the most prestigious Universities in Latin America. They are a community of young couples, with little children and young adults.  Ecosistema Monterrey is a network of churches connected around a vision of planting churches in the city.  There are 7 other churches a part of this network.  Right now the network is developing a university campus ministry, faith and work ministries and some mercy opportunities. 

One church and pastor in the network was featured as a part of Redeemer CTC’s #GivingTuesday promotion. This pastor is a part of the Ecosistema Monterrey and his name is Pablo.  Here is a little of his story from the #GivingTuesday feature article:  

Our first CITY STORY comes from Pablo and Velia Chavarría. They started Cumbres del Rey in 2008. In addition to pastoring this church, Pablo works for City to City Latin America, where he trains church planters and leaders. He and Velia live in Monterrey with their seven- year-old daughter, Grace. 

We are amazed by all that God has done in Latin America in the last two years with the church- planting networks that are being raised and strengthened in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. For the first time, we held Gospel in the City events in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Medellín and Guatemala City, and we offered Incubator (City to City’s key two-year training to serve, train, and develop church planters) in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Lima, Medellín and Monterrey.

In September, CTC LATAM had the opportunity to gather in Monterrey with 15 other church- planting organizations and city ministries, such as Acts 29, South American Mission and Mission to the Word, to begin to work together toward gospel renewal in our cities. 

Recently the network leaders of Latin America gathered for our first CTC LATAM retreat. We were refreshed and inspired as we experienced deep community with each other and fresh vision to follow God’s call for the development of our networks in the cities of Latin America. 

Looking ahead, Tim Keller will travel to Brazil for two conferences in São Paolo and in Rio de Janeiro. We are expecting 3,000 leaders to attend. After our first conference in Mexico City last year, we received much interest and experienced many relational open doors, so we are anticipating good things.

We are deeply grateful for the opportunities God has given us, but we feel a great responsibility as we view the tasks before us. Please pray that these training events will impact the life and ministry of each participating church planter so they will continue to be used powerfully by the Lord in the great call they have in these cities of Latin America.

Additionally Andres has asked for City Pres to pray for the following: