(The ministry of David and Tule Cox, missionaries in Mexico City, Mexico)
Contents
An overview and Description of Ministry
Our plan
Our main work is our local church. According to my convictions, we labor as I feel God has laid out the masterplan in the New Testament. Basically the plan of God for missions is that a minister in a local church receives the call from the Holy Spirit to take the Gospel to some area where there is a great need, and few or no workers. God has called Tule and me into Mexico City to work.
Many modern missionaries think the plan of God is for camps, Bible institutes and universities, Christian radio stations, etc. I firmly believe the only valid work of missions is evangelism and church planting. You have to do that, and you have to do both of those. Everybody else out there depends on local churches to exist, and suck dry the missions funds doing good things that won’t make the return on the money. Only a local church planted on the foreign mission field will eventually be self supporting, self propagating, and self governing, (an indigenous local church) which should be our primary goal.
Our Goal
When we speak of a “goal”, our goal is to accomplish what God wants of us. We only know that generally, that is, God wants us here working the plan of God, an indigenous local church. Sometimes we have to mop the floor, take out the trash, take care of the babies, and do just about anything to make the church work. We as leaders of this church will do all that gladly. None of it is outside of our “normal duties”, but we don’t stop the rest to just have a Christian daycare or something.
Our “Main” Ministry
Central in all of this is my preaching, teaching, and evangelism. As pastor of our church, I personally set the example of going out every Saturday morning for 3-4 hours in door to door evangelism. I cannot preach for others to do this if I myself am not doing it. It is not without its costs. We live in a tropical climate, and the sun is brutal on fairskinned Americans. I use sun blocker, but frankly, every Saturday afternoon I come back with a headache and feeling bad until Saturday night sometime. I also have diabetes and high blood pressure, and there is nothing like arguing a half hour or so in the street with a Jehovah’s Witness.
On the good side, our tract ministry has been a result of these weekly activities. Because I have to argue with people on the same issues time and time again, I have summarized and polished the biblical argument in a lot of these cases, and made it into a tract.
On our preaching and teaching, I continue to preach most of the services in our church. Sometimes I let one of the men teach the adult Sunday School class for 2-3 months, but finding good literature is difficult, and basically if I have to write it, I may as well teach it. Recently (March 2010) we started two Sunday School classes, the Youth, and the Intermediates. Likewise I could not find acceptable literature for these, so I am writing it every week for both classes.
In a typical week, I preach through a book of the Bible on Wednesday nights. Half hour teaching, half hour praying. We have preached through 1John, Hebrew, Colossians, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, etc. so far. I also preach Sunday School (adults), the morning worship service, and the evening worship service. When I preach through series or deal with difficult to understand issues, I have found it very helpful for my people to make the sermon(s) into a book format and give it to them at the end of the series or sermon. Sometimes I just make the sermon into a tract format (1 page front and back). At times I also have a discipleship class either Saturday or Wednesdays. I also have men’s prayer breakfast once a month, and sometimes preach in the women’s prayer breakfast. We have started a 1-2 times a month teachers class before the Sunday evening service. So our literature ministry has blossomed and bloomed from the needs and dynamics within our ministry here in Mexico City.
Additionally I counsel our people. Many times people in our fellowship bring me personal problems that they want help with from the Bible. As such I tell them what I see from the Scriptures. Likewise with time this kind of repeats itself, so I have put a great amount of this basic counseling into the form of tracts and books.
So as you can see, I am busy preaching and teaching.
Extensions to our Ministry
We have been able to bless the people of God away from our own local church ministry. Some of our people moved away from Mexico City, and asked for me to my sermons on the Internet. In dealing with issues, and the needs of people away from our local church sometimes, I have found it very beneficial to make websites on the Internet so that people can download my material from places outside of Mexico City. This is helpful when our members live in other cities and ask me for help on a topic. I tell them where to go, they download it, and I don’t have to write long involved help/counseling letters. In time many of our people have just gone to these Internet sites first, downloaded what they needed and not even contacted me. Also other people unconnected with me, our church, or our ministry stumble across these pages and likewise get benefit from them. We have downloads from all over the world now, and I regularly get emails thanking me for my material from English, Spanish, and even other language groups.
I recommend that you view our ministry in the following order.
Overview
Our Personal Information
Our Ministry over the Years
Our Present Work
Free Bible Resource Library
Our Spanish Sermon Website
Our Classic Hymnal Website
Tracts by David Cox
Sunday School Material