Monterrey, Mexico Update

Back in February while attending the Twin Oaks Mission Conference I met Andres Garza.  Andres is the head of City to City for all of Latin America.  City to City is a missions organization which focuses on church planting in major cities.  Andres is also the pastor of San Pedro Iglesia in Monterrey, Mexico.  As we talked and shared about the ministries we’re involved with he came up with the idea to have me come and help lead a seminar for church musicians to explore the ideas of Gospel Identity, Excellence, and Networking for musicians both inside and outside of the church.

While the seminars came together very quickly, I can trace the roots of these topics back for the last 10 years or so.  As I progressed in both church music and music outside of the church I found myself fumbling for words and ways to describe what it is I do and how to articulate my feelings and thoughts about how I wanted to approach to these two very different worlds.   

The seminar had four sessions and took place on Friday and Saturday, May 13th-14th.  Friday was an introductory session and I shared about my background as a musician and the ministry work I’ve done in St. Louis, the work Missy and I will be joining in Perth, Australia, and I outlined my three topics for Saturday. 

Saturday saw us explore gospel identity during the first session. We discussed questions such as, "As a musician how does the gospel impact our approach to music inside and outside of the church?" 

Session two explored excellence and how that must be pursued with the understanding that our identity is rooted in the gospel of Jesus.  We also discussed how the standards and expectations of excellence vary when we’re playing music outside of our church community. 

In the final session we looked at the networking and what it means to connect and cultivate as musicians.  

The response to the seminars was overwhelmingly positive and I’m thankful for that because I was extremely nervous beforehand. I’m quite comfortable being on stage singing and performing but speaking and sharing ideas like this was was a completely new experience for me.  The other night as I was sharing with some musician friends about the sessions and trying to explain the experience I told them it was similar to debuting a bunch of new songs.  When we play new songs we usually say maybe next time we’ll try this song here and this song as an opener.  Maybe we change this lyric up and focus on bringing the dynamic down.  And the same can be said about these seminars.  The material played well but there are certainly things I’ll rearrange and state differently should I have the opportunity to do a seminar like this again.

Below I’ve included some photos to show the timeline of my adventure.  

  

My first evening in Monterrey , pastor Garza had a big meal and we all watched "El Classico" soccer match.

On my second day in Monterrey I was able to take part in a bible study at nearby drug-rehab clinic and then I spent the afternoon helping the church planting team move offices.  Andres and I took a moment to ham it up for the camera as we loaded up the truck.

This is the view of from their new offices in San Pedro!

Thursday evening, Andres took me to a small old town outside of Monterrey called Santiago.  He and his friends had me pose for a photo.  I obliged.

We had a much larger turn out for the Friday session than originally anticipated!

Saturday's sessions also had a great turn out!

During one portion of the seminar, the other presenter, Saul brought his band in to play and share about what it's like to play music outside of the church.  Their bass player wasn't able to attend and he asked me to sit in.  What an honor!

At the end of each session we did Q & A and I loved the ideas that we exchanged and discussed.

On Sunday I was asked to help with music at two different services.  The first was the normal Sunday morning worship for Iglesia San Pedro and the second was for the launch of a church plant in a town called Linares two hours outside of Monterrey.  

There was a lot of participation from the many musicians.

It was exciting to be a part of this special church plant launch.  I was able to share one of my favorite songs with them, Take To the World.

After the service there was a big celebration with lots of delicious food.

Speaking of delicious food.  Here's a collage of some of the meals I was treated to during my travels.  I have to say, Mexico definitely wins "best food I've ever had on a trip" hands down!

I want to say a special thanks to these brothers in Christ who went out of their way to help me feel welcome during my stay in Monterrey.  We share a lot of laughs, music and conversation and I'm thankful for the connection we made.  I look forward to the next time we all get to hang!  L-R Fernando, Sergio, Saul, Luis, me, and Wily.