God's design for His Church

I often reflect on the perfection and precision of God's design; on how the leaves and the animals change their colors with the seasons. This past week, however, as my wife and I vacationed in Mexico, I found those reflections focused on God's design for his church, as outlined in Acts chapter 2. 

My wife and I have been vacationing in Mexico for over 35 years now. In many ways it has become a second home to us. Some 25 plus years ago we discovered a church down there and have attended every visit since.

The senior pastor at the church started his Mazatlan ministry in 1995. He began his ministry in one of the colonials (what we would call a suburb) outside of Mazatlan. These colonials, however, are little more than an accumulation of shacks made of cardboard, tin or whatever materials come to hand. When Fred first began, he built a small Church in the community and invited people to attend. After some weeks, with a mostly empty church, Fred decided to try a different approach. He began handing out sandwiches in the church throughout the week to the children and families of the community. Soon the church began to fill.

But Fred's church did not stop there. They built a school and then a medical clinic. Next they rented a property in Mazatlan's prime tourist area, where they began having Sunday services, one in English for the many tourists and one in Spanish, for the locals. In the years since they have added many more colonial churches in the Mazatlan area, both training and supplying pastors. True to God's vision, they have built many more schools and medical clinics and continue to serve the people of Mazatlan.

Over the years we have brought most of our children and grandchildren down to Mazatlan. They have all gone on the church's "Dump tour," an outing designed to bring food and clean water to the residents who both live and earn their living working in the filth of the city garbage dump.

I never return from Mazatlan without a deep impression of God's design for his church... People caring for and loving others as Christ first loved us and gave his life for us. Or as 2 Corinthians 13 reminds us: "and now these three remain: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love."