Mexico — A Mexico City church that focuses on the middle class is seeing exponential growth after using materials from Purpose Driven Ministries.
Mount Hermon Baptist pastor Rafael Pola shared the success of his church at a weekly pastor's breakfast. After hearing about Mount Hermon's success, other pastors are getting their churches involved, too.
"The church was started in 1993 and grew to about 150 through 2002." Pola said. "But the church has doubled in the past two years to 300 since we have completed 40 Days of Purpose, 50 Days of Faith, and 50 Days of Love. We also implemented a focus on the 101-104 classes, which we've actually changed to A,B,C, and D classes."
Often American-made resources have failed in churches located outside of the U.S., so changes like this are necessary to make the materials culturally relevant. Another small change they made was to adapt it from a five-purpose to a three-purpose series. This helps the church avoid what is seen as "copying" American churches. The three areas are now worship and spiritual growth, ministry, and missions/evangelism.
Pola credits church growth to its members having a better understanding of God's will for the church. Seventy-five percent of members have been through all four classes which has motivated 40-percent to get involved in a church ministry.
As the church increases in members, the number of visitors increase, as well. The church now has a system to get visitors enrolled in the first class of the series, too.
Though Mount Hermon's leadership had doubts at first, they are now excited about the changes they are seeing. "We are grateful to God for what the Purpose Driven resources have done in our church," Pola said. "It has been a major blessing for us."
The church now has a growing small group called "Celebrate Recovery." It uses several Purpose Driven resources and other Bible study materials.
