Saturday Weekly Church Gathering

Each Saturday afternoon, the people of Greater Grace Medellin gather to celebrate our new life in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).   We started these weekly meetings in January, a few days after Pastor Brent and his wife Lucy arrived in Medellin. In our church gatherings, Pastor Brent always brings a message from God’s Word, The Bible.  We also sing, pray and fellowship with one another in English. By the way, we call them gatherings because in the Bible, “church” is the people (body of Christ), not buildings or places.

Laureles-Estadio is just one of nearly 250 barrios in Medellin. (Barrio means neighborhood in Spanish). We have lived here since December 2019, and are hoping to establish our new church here. Why Laureles? First, it has the 2nd largest population of English-speaking ex-pats in Medellin. An ex-pat is someone who is a citizen of one country but who chooses to reside in a different country. We and many of our friends are citizens of the USA or Canada, but love living in Medellin.

Second, Laureles is almost perfectly flat. That flatness makes it very easy for us to walk. We walk to grocery stores, pharmacies, all sorts of shops, and at least 100 restaurants. We don’t need a car, and we don’t want a car. Consequently, we save a lot of money on transportation. This is part of the reason we can live so well on our Social Security alone.

So when it was time to find a place for the church to meet, I walked 7 blocks to a local hotel, and toured Hotel Casa Laureles. The conference room looked perfect, and they gave us a very good price. In fact, we had used them for several meetings in the past. But it turned out they had already reserved the room for 3 Saturdays per month, so we only got to have one meeting there. But they suggested another place that was only 3 blocks further.

That place was the Golden Palermo Hotel. At first, they said we could only have 30 people present due to local Covid rules. But after a couple of weeks, that rule was relaxed and the limit increased to 40 people. So that is where we have been meeting since January 8, 2022. And the hotel treats us very well, and they are generous with us regarding the price.

Why Do We Meet On Saturdays?

At first, our reason for meeting on Saturdays was simple. We had three missionary families that are part of our group and they had duties with their groups on Sundays. So we meet on Saturdays so they can join us. Another reason is that we are trying to talk with other churches about sharing their facility on Saturday. This is similar to many English-speaking churches in the US that rent out their facilities to other groups for times other than Sunday mornings. The problem is that we are the first English-speaking church here. So there is no history of them doing this.

But we are still praying for a more permanent location. And for the time being, we have everything we need – until we grow larger than 40 people. Stay tuned for an update and I’ll keep you posted about changes.

English and Spanish Speakers

Although we use American English in our meetings, we do not exclude anyone who wants to join us.  Most of our meetings offer translation for Spanish speakers through their cell phone headsets.  So please bring your phone and headset if you need a translation. ***

***Sin embargo, no excluimos a nadie que quiera unirse a nosotros. La mayoría de nuestras reuniones ofrecen traducción para hispanohablantes a través de los auriculares de sus teléfonos celulares conectados a una llamada de conferencia Zoom. Así que traiga su teléfono y auriculares si necesita traducción.

Come join us, meet new friends, and experience a blessing from God.  It could change your life and eternal destination.

Steve Tuggle

Greater Grace Medellin is a Christian Evangelical Church. For more information about us and what we believe, please refer to our page “What We Believe“.