Greetings from Mexico,
In January of this year I had a once in a lifetime experience, and in this update I wanted to tell you all about it. I had the great honor and blessing of teaching from the pulpit of my hero in the ministry, Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa! (The founder of the Calvary Chapel movement of churches)
For many years, our family attended the yearly Calvary Chapel Missions Conference hosted at the bible college in Murrieta. It was at those conferences that I got to meet Pastor Chuck a couple times. A few years ago, the conference was moved to the church campus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, and this year, they invited me to teach on my favorite topic, Church planting!
The focus of this year’s conference was “An Open Door”. Each speaker was asked to share about open doors that God has opened up in their local missions area. I based my talk on the church planting sending hub found in Acts 13 where Paul and Barnabas were sent out from the church in Antioch to travel on their first church planting journey!
I began my talk by reminding the listeners of the great Church Planting Heritage that Pastor Chuck left us. There were probably close to 100 church plants that came out of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, especially in those early days. And although Pastor Chuck sent his planters out in a much different way than our ministry does today, those early church plants were wildly successful. I consider it a great honor and privilege to follow in his footsteps as we continue this great work of church planting.
During my teaching I shared the testimony of what God has been doing in our church planting movement over the past 15 years. I was also blessed to introduce Brian De La Cruz who came up to the conference with me and is our newest church planter being sent out the week before to Mexico City.
When I get the privilege to share at other churches or conferences, my goal is not to get them to support what we are doing, but to encourage them to do the work of church planting themselves. The church planting class that I developed and have used for the past 15 years at our church is designed to be easily replicated in any local church. Presently we have 13 different churches that are using our church planting curriculum in their own local church setting.
After the conference teaching, Pastor Brian Broderson (Senior Pastor of CCCosta Mesa) came up and we had a round table question and answer time focused on church planting throughout the world! It was great to hear how God is moving through church planting not only in Mexico, but all over the globe.
Not only did they allow me to talk about church planting, but they allowed our team to host a church planting table. I traveled to the conference with my church planting assistant (and new Calvary Rosarito Assistant Pastor) Dan Valdez, along with two of our new church planters. (Brian De La Cruz and Pete Sanchez ) At that table, we were able to encourage the attenders of the conference to develop their own church planting school in their local churches.
To help churches do that, we offer them all of our church planting materials free of charge. We also invite those that want to learn more, to attend our annual church planting conference which will be held this summer in Rosarito on August 4th and 5th.
Finally, there is a little administrative change I want to let you know about. After over 20 years here in Mexico, we have a new US address! We will be saying goodbye to the old PMB W-304 address, and our new address is below! (So if you ever send us notes or letters through good old fashion snail mail, please update your records.)
Mike Vincent
4630 Border Village Rd. N #283
San Ysidro, Ca. 92173
Finally, I want to thank you for choosing to partner with us and support our family as your missionaries. We love sharing about the great things that God is doing here, because this is your spiritual fruit.
Con mucho amor de Mexico, (with much love from Mexico)
Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel
Prayer Requests!
#1- That God would bless the Israel tour I am leading at the start of February!
#2- That God would bless our new church planting class, starting in February!
Praise Reports!
#1- Praise God that our church planting team headed to Mexico City has arrived safely!
#2- Praise God for the opportunity to share at the Calvary Chapel Missions Conference!
For our personal support, checks should be made out to Saving Grace World Missions with “Vincent support” in the memo section. For special projects, checks should also be made out to Saving Grace World Missions or SGWM, with the project name in the comments section. Use the enclosed envelope or mail directly to Saving Grace World Missions, 17451 Bastanchury Rd., Suite 203, Yorba Linda, CA 92886-1873
For your convenience, you may consider giving through electronic funds transfer or direct deposit. Simply click on this link to directly support our family as your missionaries.
Or, you can go to our mission’s website, click on the “become a financial partner” button and fill out the information. Please remember to type in “Vincent” in the “purpose of gift” section.
