Fieles Conference 2023
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Ben Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our executive director. Mark, you've been updating us about your travels around the world over the last few weeks throughout August, but while you were traveling, there was another event happening in Juarez, a wonderful conference that you wanted to talk to us about. The Fieles conference. What is Fieles?
Mark Prater:
I want to talk about Fieles, and this was at least the 10th year of the conference, because it is one of our most important strategic conferences in our family of churches. It is held at Iglesia Gracia Soberana. That church is led by Carlos Contreras. It's hosted by that church and that church really does make this conference happen. And Carlos, for well over a decade now, maybe longer, has been leading this conference with just great effectiveness and excellence. So it's an important conference because it has grown not only in a number of people attending, but its reputation for the way that it equips pastors and cares for pastors and wives. And they draw from around Mexico primarily, but also they draw from other Latin American countries.
And what Carlos does is, he not only chooses good themes, he gets the right speakers that are preaching at main events. He chooses the right breakout session topics and then he leads through it very pastorally and very effectively. And essentially what's happened is the word has spread throughout Mexico and Latin America saying, this is one of the conferences that you must attend. So it's a reflection of really Carlos Contreras' labors in Mexico for well over 30 years now. He is a gift to our family of churches and he doesn't do all that alone. He's got men by his side, Helman Avila and Abelardo Muñoz and Jaime Chow. And most recently, Manolo Quintal. All those men form a leadership group that are really helping him and they're aided by the work that Rich Richardson does as a leadership team member in serving Mexico and Latin America. And of course our friend Joselo Mercado has spoken there the last several years as he did again this year. So that's a wonderful team of guys who are representing Sovereign Grace and serving pastors and wives throughout Mexico and throughout Latin America. So it's just a very important strategic conference for our family of churches.
Ben Kreps:
I had the opportunity a way back to visit Carlos at his church and he described the story of the church and the conference as well. And to know that that church began early on meeting in an abandoned train car that had been two cars that were spliced together. And to see what God has done over the past 30 years in that church. And in fact, the whole church is involved in the conference. It is a beautiful story of hundreds of people at that church serving, showing hospitality, housing pastors, feeding the attendees and so forth. So it really is a wonderful thing that we get to be partnered with in Sovereign Grace. So tell us a little bit about what happened at the conference. What was it about?
Mark Prater:
Yeah, obviously I was in West Africa at the time, so I wasn't there. So most of what I've heard is either from Carlos or from Abelardo Munoz, who I saw last week at the executive committee retreat. The conference was attended by 600 pastors and wives. They actually had to cap registration because they just ran out of room and there were pastors and wives attending from 28 different states in Mexico. To put that in reference, there are a total of 32 states in Mexico. So you had most of Mexico represented at this pastors and wives conference. And then there were also pastors and wives from Costa Rica, Columbia, Bolivia, and I believe, one other nation.
And Carlos thinks that the reason there was such interest in this particular conference, although it's steadily grown over the years, is because the theme of the conference was the pastor's family where they focused on the pastor's marriage and the pastor's parenting the pastor's home, and all of the main speakers hit those topics. And then they did Q & A panels that included their wives. So Carlos Contreras spoke twice, Joselo Mercado spoke, Bob Kauflin spoke, and our good friend Miguel Nunez also spoke from the Dominican Republic. He's been attending for years and just remains a very good friend of Sovereign Grace. They all spoke and then there were panels with Miguel and Kathy. Miguel brought his wife along and Carlos and Kena and Joselo and Kathy and also Bob and Julie and Rich and Tiffany. And those are just really helpful contexts; not only that you hear the preaching, but you can hear how the preaching, the teaching of God's word gets worked out in the pastor's home. So that was the theme of the conference and those were the main speakers and their wives that participated and it was just a wonderful event. I think Carlos's hope is that pastors and wives homes were strengthened as a result of this conference.
And some of those will be Sovereign Grace churches. We have eight or nine partner churches in Mexico presently with at least 12 more from what Abelardo told me that are pursuing adoption into Sovereign Grace. So in the next few years, Mexico could have 15 to 20 partner churches, Sovereign Grace churches. Carlos's heart is to use Fieles to reach beyond just Sovereign Grace and to serve anyone who comes. But it certainly serves the pastors and wives of churches that are either in or pursuing adoption in Sovereign Grace. So props to Carlos. Thank you my friend, for your leadership and for pulling off another excellent conference yet again.
Ben Kreps:
Excellent. It is remarkable to observe how God is giving Carlos and his church the amount of influence throughout Mexico that they are having. So grateful for that. When I was down visiting with them and some other pastors down there, I came home from Mexico provoked and inspired. Their example is compelling and so we thank God for our brothers serving in Mexico. And thank you, Mark, for the update. And thank you all for watching our reading. We'll see you here next week. Lord willing. Bye for now.