 April 7, 1999
Soccer ministry reaching
Tegucigalpa's youth gangs
___By Wally Poor & Rebecca Johnson
___International Mission Board
___TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras --Five years ago, Armando Meza became pastor of Cerro Grande Baptist Church in Tegucigalpa.
___The Honduran pastor, a former alcoholic, had a burden for the youth of the Cerro Grande neighborhood of Tegucigalpa.
___Even before he was pastor, he had tried to
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TIM PATTERSON (right) talks with members of the Maranantha Football Club before they leave for a game. With the team members are their coach, Arnaldo Prieto, holding his daughter, Daniela, who is the team's mascot, and Rene Figueroa, the team's director. (IMB Photo by Betty Poor)
| evangelize the youth of the area who had formed into gangs. Nothing was very successful.
___In 1997 Meza felt called to another area of Honduras to start churches. But two months later, he suffered a heart attack and returned to Tegucigalpa.
___As he recuperated, he continued to pray about how to reach the youth. After much prayer, he felt led to approach the coach of a soccer team in the area. The coach told the pastor he needed help getting uniforms for the team. Meza promised to help.
___The next Saturday, Meza went with the team to their game. He developed the method of taking the player who did best out for a meal.
___The boys, many of whom were involved in crime, were leery of the pastor at first. But gradually, they began to warm up to him.
___"At the beginning, it wasn't the proper time to talk to them about Christ But I was praying that God would be preparing their hearts," Meza says. Finally, he was able to get the boys to
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ARMANDO MEZA
| come to the church once a week for Bible study.
___As time went by, the boys began to accept Christ. But they didn't integrate well into the church.
___Tim Patterson, an International Mission Board missionary in Honduras, started the Cerro Grande church years before and had been observing what was going on.
___"I shared with him some things that I had learned about church planting movements, " Patterson said.
___ "I introduced the concept of autonomous, reproducing house churches with home-grown leadership. We discussed the idea of evangelizing a natural grouping of people and to allow that to become their church. We discussed the possibilities of raising leaders from the new converts and allowing each natural social grouping (gang) to become a church in itself."
___"Now armed with this new concept, Meza had no barriers to deal with, such as buildings, established church programs and protocol. This would be a missionary movement independent of the local church, which would help wherever it could," Patterson said.
___Patterson and his wife, Dorcas, committed to help Meza and a group from the Cerro Grande church.
___A local TV station heard about the work with the youth and the change it was making in the Cerro Grande neighborhood.
___The station aired a program on it. This generated invitations to start groups in other parts of the capital city.
___Now there are 30 groups with 1,100 youth in 15 neighborhoods of the city. Meza also works with 800 other young people in city schools with a "True Love Waits" program.
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