River Ministry shifts focus to urban centers in Mexican interior

After more than four decades of missions work in rural villages along the Rio Grande, Texas Baptists’ River Ministry is expanding deeper into Mexico’s interior, focusing on rapidly growing cities where half the nation’s population lives.

The National Baptist Convention of Mexico has launched—with involvement of River Ministry and Mexican Baptists’ regional conventions—the Decapolis Project, a church-starting, evangelism and congregational leadership training initiative in Mexico’s 10 largest urban centers.

“We’re trying to get people to the larger cities,” said Daniel Rangel, director of River Ministry for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Although River Ministry will continue its longstanding ministries along the border—medical and dental clinics, agricultural missions, church starting and training pastors—Texas Baptists will support Mexico Baptists’ strategic urban missions emphasis, he noted.

Mexico City and Guadalajara are the two largest cities in Mexico, and around 60 million people live in the nation’s 10 largest cities.

Six of the cities—Guadalajara, Leon, Santiago de Queretaro, Zacatecas, Aquascalientes and San Juan Potosi—are in a region where evangelical Christians comprise 2 percent or less of the total population.

River Ministry—which receives 90 percent of its funding from the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions—wants to help Mexican Baptists by sending mission groups to help start churches in these large cities, Rangel explained.

Although River Ministry will redirect its focus to major urban areas in Mexico, ministries like this medical/dental clinic in Piedras Negras will continue.Although Texas Baptist churches historically have sent mission teams to serve in Mexico, the number of groups decreased significantly in recent years due to concern about violence along the border.

Rangel sees fear as the No. 1 factor that prevents people from hearing the gospel.

“We allow fear to make our decisions instead of looking at what is happening to the people,” he said.

Leaders of River Ministry and the National Baptist Convention of Mexico see plenty of areas in Mexico’s interior—and even along the border—where church groups can work safely.

On the Texas side of the Rio Grande, Rangel pointed to Laredo, Brownsville and El Paso as safe areas that need groups to serve.

Rangel assures churches he never would recommend an unsafe place to a group wanting to go help plant churches. But he also notes churches that choose not to send a group to Mexico can send VBS materials or support a house church financially. And he has high hopes for Latin America.

“I believe that one of the areas that the next biggest group of missionaries is going to come from is Latin America,” said Rangel. “God is preparing Latin Americans to send missionaries.”