Successful Gospel Meeting

March 24, 1999

Dear Beloved Family of God:

It is an honor and a pleasure to write to you about the success of our first Gospel Meeting held in Crystal City, Texas last February 21-24, 1999. The theme for this meeting was "Victory in Jesus". Weeks before this event took place we invited a good number of denominational preachers and their members to attend. In all there were a total of 12 denominational preachers and deacons attending the meeting and our nightly attendance was between thirty-five and seventy people. The one night we had 70 in attendance I invited seven of the denominational preachers to come forward and sit at the front row pews. As I spoke about the life of Christ and the early church I encouraged these good men to call all believers to return to the Pattern of New Testament Christianity. In the end I ask each of these denominational preachers individually before the public if they would take this challenge and return to their churches with the task of restoring the church, and every one of them said YES.

Those among us for the meeting were members of the Assemblies of God church, Apostolic church, Baptist church, Catholic church, Methodist church, and Penticostal churches as well as members of the churches of Christ in the area. Everyone of the denominational preachers said that this was the first time that they had ever experienced such a meeting as this one. They said that they have tried to get the churches together in the past to talk, but never have they been able to do this in a forum in which all were challenged to begin preaching and teaching the same thing in all of the churches. One Baptist deacon said, "We need to leave our doctrines, commentaries, riturals, and opinions behind and allow the believers to have one church, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father as mentioned in Ephesians 4:4-6." A Penticostal preacher said that he would return to his church and do his best to restore his congregation to the pattern of New Testament Christianity. Every one at the meeting agreed that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and that it must be taught as mentioned in Acts 2:38. The idea of baptising people when they accept Christ was accepted by every person attending the meeting.

A preacher from the church of Christ in Eagle Pass, Texas commented that he had never seen more denominational people at a "church of Christ" Gospel meeting than actual members of the church of Christ. He said that this was different, and that the churches of Christ need to cut me some slack in their criticism if any regarding this event.

Before and after the meeting I was invited to preach and continue to preach to this day at several of the local denominational churches. I am able to preach for them at times when we are not meeting for worship or bible study in our local congregation. Our small but growing congregation is very supportive of our evangelistic efforts in Crystal City, Texas. We have begun a path toward restoring the church in the City of Crystal City without any opposition thus far and we thank Almighty God for this. It is God who is in control of this effort and not any man or woman. We did not have any baptisms for this first meeting, but many hearts were touched with the Word of God. The dream of having only one church in Crystal City just took its first steps at becoming a reality through Jesus Christ. For it is in Christ Jesus that we will all become one as God and the Son are one.

BTW, I was struck with laryngitis just one day before the Gospel Meeting, but the Lord allowed me to speak each night in a poor and humbling voice that everyone could understand. After the Gospel Meeting was over I became ill with the flu for another two weeks. I was bedridden for several days with fever. Thanks to the Lord I am healthy again. The other big problem facing me was having to rebuild our entire computer network to the Internet that was also attack by people who hacked into our systems and infected us with a number of computer viruses. Thank God that everything is almost back to normal. It seems that the Enemy was working overtime on keeping me down, but God helped me through the storm. Please ask your congregation and your Elders to pray for me.

If your congregation is looking to support a missionary that can produce the type of fruits in the Lord's Kingdom that you have always dreamed of seeing and being a part of please consider me. I am urgently looking for the financial support needed to continue for the next two years in Crystal City, Texas. If you would like to know more about our evangelistic efforts in Crystal City, Texas and me you may visit our web sites at http://church-of-christ.org/CrystalCity/newsletter and http://church-of-christ.org/garcia.html. It's good to be alive and well during these last days before the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

May the grace of God, the love of Jesus, and the peace of the Holy Spirit be with you and your family forever.

Your brother in Christ Jesus,

E-mail questions or comments to: garcia@church-of-christ.org

The church of Christ at Crystal City

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Last updated on 3/24/1999