September 11, 2000

Hispanic pastors hear inspiration
from pastor developing cell groups
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications?
___SAN ANTONIO--Churches today can grow like the church grew in the second chapter of Acts, Israel Rodriguez told a group of Hispanic Baptist pastors.
___"Be encouraged," he said. "It can be done. There is hope."
___Rodriguez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Piedras Negras, Mexico, spoke during

EDDIE SALINAS, Fernando Gonzalez and Javier Rosales look up Scripture verses as part of a seminar titled "Church Health for Youth Leaders" during the Hispanic Church Health Conference in San Antonio.

a Hispanic Church Health Conference in San Antonio sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Primera has grown to 900 people without adding to its 200-seat worship center. It now has 94 groups meeting in homes each week, rather than in the "temple," Rodriguez explained.
___"Brother Rodriguez is teaching us how to reach the multitudes," said Dexton Shores, director of BGCT's Rio Grande River Ministry.
___Five years ago, attendance at Primera hovered around 100, Rodriguez reported. The pastor worked 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day; but after 10 years at the church, he felt like nothing had happened. Rodriguez said God showed him that growing a church is "not something that can be done by a church or its pastor by their own power."
___Churches want to grow, he said, but they're actually only "adding more and more work." The key is to let God work to create a healthy church.
___The pastor identified six characteristics of a healthy church:
___ A membership that is committed. People should not simply be added to a list of members, Rodriguez said. "Tell people the Lord saved you to serve. ... Every believer is a servant."
___ A leadership with a capacity to teach. "It is important that the leadership be teaching other people, ... training other people so that they may serve," he said. Rodriguez used to try to visit everyone who was sick, but now he is training other people to visit the sick as well. "You have to teach someone else what you're doing," he insisted.
___ A spirituality that is contagious. People in church should live their faith with enthusiasm and love, he said. "Faith is a real, personal experience with Jesus Christ that cannot be substituted with anything else."
___ A functional structure. Primera had to modify its structure, "kill the sacred cows," in order to grow, Rodriguez said. There now are 94 "family groups" meeting in homes, with 94 leaders and 94 apprentices. The church also has 16 "areas," with 16 pastors serving 50 groups, as well as three "sections" of more than 250 people each. The family groups "don't have temples, but they don't need them," he said, referring to traditional church buildings. Churches need structures that will "motivate and stimulate growth."
___ A worship that inspires. Worship must express joy, Rodriguez said. "It's not the form of worship" that matters; rather, it is the effect it causes in people that matters.
___ A balanced work in the temple and in the houses. Churches lost their way in the fourth century when they "moved into temples" and effectively eliminated the Great Commission, the pastor said. The church began to say "come and hear," not "go and bring."
___"Our emphasis is not that they come to the temple but that they come to Jesus Christ," he explained. "We come to the temple to worship God, but during the week we come face to face with the people who need Christ."
___He cited the importance of reaching the lost. "The best evangelism is a church that loves one another. Evangelism in a healthy church is an evangelism that comes out naturally.
___"You don't have to teach people to testify," Rodriguez said. "It will come out naturally"
___Lay people in the church may be hearing the voice of God more clearly than some pastors, he added.
___"Maybe the deaf ones are the pastors. The people are hearing the voice of God. ... Listen to the voice of God. Listen to the voice of the people who say it can be done."
___

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