Bienvenidos a Amigo Day
Welcome to our worship service today. We have called today Amigo Day in honor of our Latin brothers and sisters in the church as well as the huge Latin population in the Phoenix valley! Our church is striving to follow the plans and direction of Jesus as he commands us to “go and make disciples of all nations” Matthew 28:19. In view of this charge, we have initiated the Phoenix International Christian Church- Latin Ministry. This ministry is focused on those in the community and the church whose primary language is Spanish rather than English. About a year ago I attended a worship service spoken in Spanish. Although someone was translating, I was very distracted, disoriented and felt out of place and could not get a lot out of the message. My desire to be there was not matched by my understanding and limited by the language barrier, and it was frustrating. Understanding this dilemma, we have started this Spanish speaking ministry to meet the needs of the church and of our great city. If we are to make disciples of all nations, we must have the conviction to reach all nations. As in the 1st Century, language cannot be an issue that will stop us from reaching our world with the message of the gospel.
Currently in our congregation we have members from Mexico, the Navajo Nation, South Africa, Guam & Micronesia, Argentina, Cuba and of course the United States. We are blessed by God to have an incredibly diverse membership in such a small congregation. As we grow, we plan to take part in sending disciples back to their home countries and other cities in the U.S., with the conviction that we will truly be making disciples of all nations. Several members have already voiced a desire to go on mission teams or to go back to their country and help their nation and families know Christ. Amazingly, one of our newest members has a dream to plant a church in the islands of Micronesia! We are excited about God’s “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11 and we desperately want the same for the nations and cities of the world around us.
In view of these convictions, we ask each of you to join us in prayer and willingness to “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” Mark 16:15. As we celebrate in worship today, in both Spanish and English, let us give our hearts fully to God and humbly follow where He leads us. Today let us enjoy the singing, fellowship, the preaching of the Word and awesome food as we worship together.
Let us also introduce to you our church leadership:
Serving in Scottsdale are Chris and Sonja Chloupek, who initiated the starting of the church here. The Chloupek’s have over eight years of ministry experience from when they served in the Los Angeles area and have brought incredible hospitality as well as deep convictions to the congregation here. Chris serves as our Associate Evangelist and Sonja as the Associate Women’s Ministry Leader and they also oversee the married ministry in the congregation.
Luke Speckman serves as our Youth Minister, working with the ASU campus as well as the teens and pre-teens in the church. He has a dream to one day serve full-time in the ministry and eventually lead a church planting. His personal example and sacrifice have been an inspiration to us all!
Luis Garcia and Maricella Torres serve as our Latin Ministry leaders and have worked very hard to build this ministry to serve the needs of the Latin community, which numbers over 1 million in the Valley of the Sun. Just a few months ago, they literally gave up everything and moved to Phoenix to build this vital ministry. We are very grateful for the Portland Church and their example and sacrifice in sending them here.
Robb and Teresa Hamblin serve as the Financial Administrators as well as House Church Leaders for the Western Phoenix area. Their hard work, tireless efforts, humility and prayers have served to see this small ministry more than double in just 6 months. They are on the verge of explosive growth which will match the explosive growth of this part of the city.
Recently, we asked the Hamblin’s to also serve as leaders of the Singles in the church with the assistance of Brandyn Revis and Scotty Kendrick.
Brad and Laurie DeBusk have boldly taken over leadership of the Kingdom Kids and have done a tremendous job serving, training and organizing for our children. We are proud to have these “veteran” disciples step up to serve this often “thankless” ministry with great joy! The DeBusk’s have also taken over leadership of the Tempe Bible Talk and this week had their first meeting as the new leaders.
Helen and I lead the work on the ASU Campus as we strive to build a ministry that will be able to reach the 63,000 students attending there. We currently have 2 students attending ASU:
Kelsey Campbell and Anthony Patterson have a dream to see the ministry grow to dozens of campus students in the next few semesters!
Jenny Hansberry has also been a great example as she single handedly took on the pre-teen ministry a few months ago. She will be helping in the new Campus and Teen ministry as we build this group to serve the youth in the Valley.
Please be praying for each of these ministries as we lay down our lives to bring the hope of the gospel to the Valley of the Sun! Have a great Amigo Day!
He stoops down to make us great!
Matt Sullivan
