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CHILDREN at Casa de Restauracion join hands and form a human chain moving up and down the aisles and around the room.
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At Casa de Restauracion,
church grows with world population
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___STAFFORD--They started with 35 people. Twenty months later, Casa de Restauracion has 480 members, and worship attendance is pushing 300.
___Possibly even more unusual is the mix of national backgrounds among members. They come from 20 Central and South American countries.
___"It's just been supernatural," Pastor Eric DiCesare said of the growth at House of Restoration church. "The Lord just started adding people. ... We didn't expect God would
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ELMER CASTELLANO (with microphone) prays for Honduras during a recent worship service at Casa de Restauracion. The church prays for one nation each week. Pastor Eric DiCesare is at left.
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do everything he's doing. It's been so fast."
___As for the ethnic diversity, Abe Zabaneh said he knows of no other congregation in Texas where people from so many countries have "gelled" together as they have at Casa. Zabaneh is the Baptist General Convention of Texas church starting consultant for the Gulf Coast region.
___Sugar Creek Baptist Church in Sugar Land sponsored Casa de Restauracion. Zabaneh called the Sugar Land church "one of the most prolific new-church sponsors in Texas." Union Baptist Association and the BGCT also have provided support, with Texas Baptists putting $35,000 into the effort through the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions.
___The Baptist partnership also provided an "assessment school" at Sugar Creek that helped prepare DiCesare to start Casa. "It was very helpful," the pastor said. "It gave me a lot of good tools to implement for church planting."
___Sunday morning worship at Casa, conducted entirely in Spanish, is an energized spiritual experience, but it begins rather quietly. On one recent weekend, before the service started, two women prayed together amid the many empty chairs of the worship center.
___There is an hour of prayer before church starts, explained Pastor DiCesare. "I think that's what makes it work. We're asking him to be Lord over this church."
___As Sunday School dismisses and more people arrive, they take the front seats first, an oddity in most churches. The chairs will gradually fill for the next hour as Alejandro
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THE PEOPLE of Casa de Restauracion like to hug. They take time during a worship service to greet one another.
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Carrizo and a seven-member praise team lead the music.
___The quiet of prayer gives way to the noise of celebration.
___People clap their hands, jump to the beat and sing with enthusiasm to the up-tempo songs. Children join hands and form a human chain moving up and down the aisles and around the room. One woman blows a whistle periodically. Another lies prostrate on the floor near the platform. Yet another kneels on both knees while everyone else stands.
___Children, teenagers and adults of all ages participate. "That's just God," DiCesare said later of the wide age span of church members. "That's just a special move of the Lord."
___After the music, a gentleman carrying the flag of Honduras joins DiCesare at the front. It is one of 19 flags that hang along the back wall, one for each of the countries represented by members (a flag for Cuba, the 20th, is being sought). Each week, the congregation prays for one of the nations.
___As the sermon ends, more than two hours after the service began, five people walk to the front, stand facing the pastor and pray to accept Christ as Savior. Another larger group comes forward to recommit their lives to Christ.
___Worship at Casa de Restauracion is a vivid experience, but DiCesare attributes the church's growth to less visible efforts--prayer, discipleship and meeting needs.
___"We have a lot of prayer," the pastor said. Each Friday at 5:30 a.m., about 20 people meet with DiCesare. "I teach them for 15 minutes about prayer, then we pray."
___On the first Saturday of each month, there is fasting and prayer in the church from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., he said. People bring their prayer petitions, and they also lift up the
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CASA'S membership is drawn from more than 20 nationalities in Central and South America.
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objectives of the church and "ask God to use us."
___"We believe in a good prayer time at the altar," the pastor said. The people "know they're not going to be judged, talked about." Rather, they know "this is the way the church works," and they trust one another.
___While stressing prayer, Casa de Restauracion is also doing practical ministry. "Our main emphasis is to see homes restored," DiCesare said. No less than 15 to 20 couples on the verge of divorce are now "faithful, healed up, helping other couples," he added.
___The church also has launched an academy, providing schooling for children in pre-kindergarten through the fourth grade.
___But the reach of the church's efforts has extended far beyond its place in the suburbs. It will open Casa de Mesericordia (House of Mercy) in inner city Houston Sept. 15. This will be a rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol addicts, as well as a home for AIDS patients.
___The ministry will use a remodeled 11,000-square-foot building donated to the church. Three people will staff the center full time in order to help clients "get their families restored and get them into church," DiCesare said.
___Still further from home, Casa de Restauracion already has started a church in Buenes Aires, Argentina. A couple from Argentina in the Stafford church went through the same assessment process that had prepared DiCesare and returned home to start a church five months ago. The new congregation is now touching more than 100 people, DiCesare said.
___The vision DiCesare had for Casa de Restauracion is quickly coming to reality, and the pastor expressed appreciation for Zabaneh and Roy Cotton, the BGCT consultant with whom he initially worked.
___"We couldn't have started without them," the pastor said. "They just poured their life into us."
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