Church-hopping in Mexico

Continued from "The Tale of Two Churches and a feeding station" (see April 4th post).

Easter Sunday, March 23 found us in Church #4 where our lifelong friends Reg (standing in the doorway) and Tish Loeppky attend whenever they are away from their temporary home in Peach Land, B.C. I found Iglesia Cristiana Congregational to be a good example of "ancient-future" worship. The service reminded me of the church I attended as a child as we were singing "Christ Arose," "Christ the Lord, Is Risen Today," and "Victory in Jesus" . . . all a bit slow for my taste, but so nostalgic it didn't matter. Then they added a favourite contemporary Easter song of mine: "You Are My King." The pastor had an excellent message and the traditional liturgy was almost identical to what we're used to at Trinity Church where the creeds have been resurrected and where the prayers and expressions of worship seem to be more consistent with the rest of Christendom. But, the big plus was their youth group.

The Spanish congregation gathers at 10:30 a.m. As well, these young people joined us for the English service at 8:30 a.m. They performed every Friday night in March (except Good Friday) to raise funds for their youth group. We went to hear them twice. The two guys in the front row are the sons of the music director.

This is Church #2 mentioned in the April 4th post. They were a friendly people and we went there a lot since they offered tourists free internet access . . . plus you didn't even need to darken the door in order to check the temperature! They also gave visiting pastors a copy of The Dumb Gringo, a book written by their pastor, Fred C. Collom, in which he tells how not to do missions. While serving the Mexican people for almost 30 years, he has helped to plant 18 churches.