Pastor in Training?

Two weeks ago, Toño (worship leader at church) and his wife Elsa left Horizonte church on a Sunday afternoon after the soccer tournament and lunch, to spend the evening with their boys, helping them with their school work. Around 6pm, about the time they were setting down into the homework routine, there was a knock at the door. It was a young couple who had just begun attending Horizonte. They were having some pretty bad problems with their marriage and thankfully, rather than just give up and separate, they decided to first go talk with Toño and Elsa about their problems. The two couples talked for a couple hours, then went to the store to buy supplies for the boys' school projects (together, so they could continue talking!). The young couple stayed with Toño and Elsa until about 2am! It didn't turn out to be the relaxing evening that Toño and family had imagined, but it ended with the young couple willing to start working out their differences and begin meeting regularly with Toño and Elsa.

This past weekend, Martin (the pastor at Horizonte) and his family were in Mexico City visiting relatives. They were going to come back to Querétaro on saturday afternoon, but that night Toño received a frantic call from Martin saying that his father in law was in the hospital and that they wouldn't be able to come back for the Sunday service! He asked Toño to preach. This normally wouldn't have been such a big deal, but we are in the middle of a 4 week sermon series that Martin is preaching, using sermons from Andy Stanley (in English!) as his outline. Martin had his sermon all planned out, and basically preached it to Toño over the phone!
On Sunday morning, Toño clamly preached the message, and it came out just how Martin would have done it - same basic principles and ideas of the Andy Stanley sermons (I translated those for Matin, so I know what the originals were!). They day went really well despite several set-backs: Those of us who arrived at 8am found the church courtyard flooded, water entering the auditorium, and more water coming through the back wall onto the stage. Juan, who usually helps with maintenance and cleaning on Sunday mornings awoke to find his car filled with flood water and wasn't able to come early to help clean up the waters at church. Sara and Fer, two others who usually come early to help set up were respectively sick and in Mexico City. Martin and Mayte were in Mexico City. The rain had flooded the soccer field and we have a soccer tournament going on for 6 weeks.
Things were really looking bad for the day, but all turned out really well! Toño's impromtu sermon, new volunteers who arrived early to help clean up all the flood water, Mauricio who stepped in to organize the communion service, and good attitudes from those who had come to play soccer and didn't get to this week...

Anyhow, I think the point of this was orriginally about Toño... It's been really amazing to see how God has used him as an extension of pastoral ministry in the church, and opened up Elsa's heart to be willing to serve and support Toño in what sometimes seems pretty crazy.

Another example of how God is working in the lives of His people through Horizonte!