God is at work in the hearts of people at City Church in Pueblo, Colorado. We love how Jesus meets us where we’re at but doesn’t leave us where we’re at. Instead, he makes us his workmanship to show others what it looks like to be saved by grace through faith.
Brenda, a single mother of two, has been through a lot. Life has not been easy for her. She has struggled with hate and anger toward men and has found it very difficult to trust people. But she started to become curious about Jesus at work when she noticed the difference in the lives of people who loved him. She opened her heart to them, to learn from them and experience community with them. Eventually, they invited her to attend a Sunday morning gathering where she started to experience the grace and love of Christ and to understand how much he loved her.
“In those moments,” Brenda says, “God’s love broke through the hate and anger in my heart, and Jesus met me where I was at.”
She starts to tear up whenever she shares her story, because she has never felt so loved, so forgiven and so thankful for God’s grace in her life. Brenda gave her heart to Jesus and was baptized seven months ago at City Church. Today, she is being discipled weekly and is serving faithfully through helping out with food, events and worship.
Paul is a native to Pueblo. He didn’t grow up hearing much about God, although his mother and friends said that they believed. When Paul first heard the gospel through a family member, he was skeptical. At the time, he was recently divorced and was struggling with depression. To deal with the hurt in his life, he had turned to drinking and partying. He knew that he was self-medicating, but he didn’t know where else to turn.
Paul struggled to believe in the grace of God because he felt his life was useless. He couldn’t believe that Christ would forgive him for everything he had done. Still, he was drawn to the family member who had shared the gospel with him, and he began to attend services at City Church. It was there that the grace of God started to change his heart and he began to believe that Jesus really would meet him where he was at. He started to meet daily with his family member, asking questions about Jesus and then going to City Church together every Sunday.
Eight months ago, Paul came to faith in Jesus. Three months ago, he was baptized at City Church. He is now being discipled every week and is serving faithfully with security and cleaning and wherever else he can be of use.
We are so thankful for what God has been doing in our city through the local church and for the stories of redemption that God is writing. We are all learning and growing in our faith as a family of missionary servants for the glory of God. We ask for continued prayer, that these new disciples will multiply and make new disciples in the kingdom of God.
Harvest Time essays share stories from USMB church plants that are being nurtured by Multiply and district conferences. Multiply works collaboratively and jointly with USMB and the five district conferences to birth new Mennonite Brethren churches in the United States and provides training, coaching, assessing and project management for church planters.
Mario Trujilo and his wife, Stephanie, are USMB church planters in Pueblo, Colorado, with City Church.
