The church at a critical threshold

This church is at a critical threshold these days. It is experiencing significant growth. However, it doesn’t have enough room for the new members that are added every week. It is quite remarkable what’s going on. This is what has happened in the last thirty days.

A young man from Heredia, who was baptized by Church of Christ missionaries in Switzerland, while visiting there last year for three months, showed up last Sunday morning and wanted to place membership. Last week, two families from a nearby neighborhood who used to attend a church in another town, decided to place membership with us (these two families make up a total of four adults and three children).  A family of four who used to be members of the Costa Rican congregation of the International Church of Christ, tired of authoritative leadership there, decided to become members in Heredia last Sunday morning. Just three weeks before, three adults (Victor, Aura, and Mauricio) from that same fellowship had become members too.

The church met at a rented facility North of Heredia on January 10, 2016

Most of the members we already had, and the new additions reported below are highly active in inviting others. Victor and Aura invited a Russian lady who is a Costa Rican resident and she came with her child to the worship service yesterday morning. A family of four who had to seek refuge in Costa Rica because of gang violence in El Salvador, decided that they will be members of the newly started congregation in San Rafael de Heredia, which meets every Sunday evening at my home. They met with us last night at the San Rafael church. So, the church is growing rapidly and there is potential for further growth in the near future, for both, the church in downtown Heredia, and the church in San Rafael of Heredia. By the way, the church in San Rafael of Heredia is an outgrowth of the church in Heredia.

The church in San Rafael de Heredia, January 17th, 2016

The midweek service in Heredia is devoted to those members who live nearby or have their own transportation to make it to church at night. There are other activities during the rest of the week. There is a prayer service on Fridays from 7 to 8:30 pm. The ladies meet on Thursday in the morning. The Youth Group is led by Kenneth and Darling who are very mature in Christ and are self-supported.

Growth is phenomenal, but we have not been able to retain many of the new arrivals because the facilities are not comfortable, and there is no room for the whole church to meet at once and develop deeper bonds of fellowship. This is why we are hesitant about the idea of splitting the crowd into two services on Sunday morning.

The present meeting place is located a block away from the city hospital named San Vicente de Paul, at the corner of Calle 16 and Avenida 16. The facility is a one story building of 1,900 square feet, of which the auditorium takes 1,300 square feet and the classroom area takes 600 square feet. The present sitting area for the worship service has capacity for 110 people in uncomfortable conditions (too hot and crowded).

Sunday School for adults, January 10, 2016 at the present location

Our facilities committee has been working hard on finding solutions and they came up with a project of a two story building. According to this project, the first floor will be enlarged to have a sitting capacity for 160 people in improved conditions. This will give us room for 50 extra people. The second floor will be devoted to classrooms and will have an area of 2,000 square feet. The estimated cost of this project is 100,000 dollars.

Project proposed by the facilities committee

The facilities committee not only produced the project, they also devised and started the execution of a plan to raise the funds among the local members. They asked that each member or family decide on a specific amount to give each month. In a matter of 22 months the amount raised is 14,000 dollars. Thankfully the weekly contribution has continued to be enough to meet the regular budget (about 500 dollars a week). However, in almost two years we have been able to raise only about 14 percent of what is needed for the remodeling project.

To sum it up, the church is at a critical threshold because a lot of people are arriving to place membership and many others come as visitors and need to be evangelized but we don’t have the conditions to make it attractive for them to want to stay. Please pray for us so that we will be able to meet the conditions for more people to be reached out in a meaningful way.