Update – March, 2023

Note: There is a PDF version of this update located here.

The Changing Seasons

Dear Friends, Family and Supporters,

Hello from warm and sunny Tulancingo. Just a month ago, it was close to freezing almost every night. Now, a few weeks later, we are coming up on the warmest season of the year for this region of Mexico, high in the mountains. We go from cold to hot, without much in between. April and May are normally the hottest months of the year, but by June, the temperature will drop again.

Another interesting thing about March here is that this is the month in which all the leaves fall off the oak trees. It’s warm, it’s almost spring, but the several dozen oaks we have on are property are shedding all their leaves. In April the oaks are bare, but by May all the leaves will have grown back.

Seasons mark the constant changes in nature each year, and every geographic location has it’s own seasons. In a similar way, God has ordained seasons and cycles for our lives, ministries, churches, and so many other things. As the Bible says, “He has made everything beautiful in his time…” (Ecc. 3:11).

We clearly see these seasons in our work and ministry. The year 2023 marks something new for our church family, and it is a bit different when we compare it to the last several years. I believe it is a new season of life and rebirth for our church family; its a time for renewal, a time for new vision, a time for new purposes.

Simple Church

As I shared in our last newsletter, in December we moved to our new location, which is across town from where we previously were located. We have now been doing our Sunday meetings there for just over three months. It has been a new adventure, and many in our congregation love our new location and atmosphere.

We have gone back to our roots – simple church and simple worship. One of the things that I believe the Lord put on our hearts as we made the move was to go back to simplicity in our church life. It is so easy to become entangled in church programs, schedules, a multitude of ministries, meetings, etc. All of these things may be good and produce great fruit. However, we feel that in this season of our church life, we need to focus on the basics and the simplicity of our relationship to the Lord Jesus. We are focusing on simple but deep worship using a small worship team, teaching, preaching and practicing the Word of God, and living lives that usher His presence into our daily interactions.

At the Advanced School of Ministry conference in Cuernavaca

The Advanced School of Ministry

In January, we celebrated our first in-person Advanced School of Ministry seminar in Cuernavaca since the pandemic. On this occasion, we had about 600 people attend in-person, plus another 200 online. Over 80% of those attending were pastors and leaders of certain departments in their churches.

We had great teaching, with two different guest speakers, each of which focused on different aspects of ministry. Mel Mullen, from Canada, focused on ministry within the local church, while Ian Green, from England, focused on transformation of society by bringing the Kingdom of Heaven out of the local church context and into the market place.

It was a great joy for me to work alongside of Ian Green, since I was his translator. He shared some very powerful yet challenging concepts with our group of pastors and leaders. So often we focus mainly on what goes on within church meetings. Ian challenged us to take a closer look at what the Kingdom of God is, and how we can partner with Him to bring heaven to earth. Part of that message includes how we see and practice evangelism and discipleship. Are we looking to bring people to church, or are we working to bring the church to where the people are at?

On the technical side, I was in charge of many aspects of the conference, such as registration, the editing and printing of the conference workbook, coordinating the live stream, setting up interviews with our guests, providing hosts for the online attendees, and coordinating times of personal ministry. Our daughter Anna did a great job training our online ministry team, and we received several reports of people who were really impacted by these additional sessions of personal online ministry.

Anna and Xenia, talking with our online audience.

It was a busy but really good conference. From the feedback we have received, we know that the 800+ pastors and leaders who attended received some really good teaching and ministry, and returned to their local churches refreshed and equipped with new tools to build their local churches.

Bible School

On February 15, we started the spring semester with our online Bible school with around 130 students. We have again added a couple of new courses – one on the book of Genesis, which we recorded in November, and another course based on the contents of the Advanced School of Ministry seminar. We continue to be blessed with a faithful team of course facilitators and content creators which help us make it all happen.

We also continue to press toward the goal of making this a full time online Bible School and the basis for a degree program. There are so many pastors, leaders and young people who are called to ministry, but can’t afford to move away from their towns, families and jobs to attend a Bible school. We are providing a way for many of them to further their education in a very practical way.

Interviewing Ian Green

Prayer Requests

Please continue to pray for us, especially in the following areas:

  • For both Sara and Anna, who will be going on mission trips in a couple of weeks. Anna will be going with a group from her school to minister in a small town in the U.S., and Sara will be going with a group of Mexicans to minister in a communist nation.
  • Please continue to pray for the leadership teams of the Advanced School of Ministry and the online Bible School, that we may be led by the Lord to make good decisions as to the future of these ministries and how to best build them.
  • Please continue to pray for our local church.

Thanks!

Once again we thank you for your love, notes of encouragement, Christmas cards, prayers and financial support. We couldn’t do it without you!

With love,

David and Sara Lont
with Anna

Update – January, 2023

Note: There is a PDF version of this update here.

Happy New Year!

It’s once again a new year, and, although many things are just a continuation of what was happening at the end of last year, this is the time in which many people make new purposes and begin new projects. Most of what we’re doing this January is part of the plan that we’ve been developing over years and decades, but there are a couple of things that are new, or at least different.

Podcast

As many of you know, during the pandemic we did many online services and other ministry. Now that most things are getting back to normal, we have decided to use what we’ve learned about video and audio recording to start a podcast. This podcast is being hosted by Anna, and I’ll also be involved regularly.

In many ways the podcast will fill in the gap for those who have been following us online over the last several years. Now that we’re back to weekly church meetings, we are no longer doing weekly video online services, but our podcast will continue to reach some of the same people with Bible teaching in more of a conversational-style format. We published our first episode on January 1 and plan to release a new episode weekly. Our intention is to reach people with the Gospel and Biblical principals by having conversations and hosting interviews.

Our Local Church Family

We shared in our last update that we were about ready to move to our church property to start meetings there. We are happy to inform you that the first Sunday of December we had our first meeting there and have been hosting our regular weekly church meetings at our own facilities since then.

Preaching at our opening service

God has blessed us with 1,600m2 of land for our church. About half of that has been developed into a walled garden. Over the last year and a half we were able to build the wall around the perimeter, bathrooms, a couple of office spaces and a storage room. We are currently meeting under temporary tents, but work is being done on a more permanent large tent structure which will become our meeting place. We are especially thankful for those who have given toward this project!

Eventually, we hope to build an auditorium on part of the property. Right now, that area is fenced off, as it has been set apart for a future building.

Our people were excited about our new church home! We had a great turnout for our opening service and many positive comments about how nice the property looked. It was really quite a change from how the property was just a few months before, when everything was just dirt and construction materials. God has been so good to us!

A Christmas gathering with a couple of our small groups

Advanced School of Ministry

Most of my time during the last couple of months has been dedicated to the Advanced School of Ministry. We are currently working on putting together all the details for the conference in Cuernavaca, which will be held at the end of this month (January 23-26, 2023). This year we will be doing the conference both in-person and online, so there are some new challenges and details to take care of. I’ve been in contact with our team, the guest speakers and many others who will be involved. We’re currently training a small team to do personal online ministry for those who will be attending remotely and also working to make sure the online audience will feel just as welcome and well cared for as those who attend in person.

Recording For the Online Bible School

In November, we were privileged to have Pastor Enrique Borja here to record a course consisting of 24 lessons on the book of Genesis. Pastor Enrique was extremely efficient recording, and we were able to go through all the lessons in three days. That was a new record! He did a wonderful job and I feel he connected very well with the students through the recordings. His teaching was deep yet very applicable and he spoke to the students on a level that they will easily identify with. This new course will be released in February, with part two of the course to be recorded soon.

Pastor Enrique, recording for the online Bible School

Thanks!

Sara and I are so thankful for each one of you. Thanks for praying for us and supporting us in all we’re doing. It is such a joy to be able to count on you.

With love,

David and Sara Lont
with Anna

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