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The History of New Life Baptist Church
The first meeting of Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva (New Life Baptist Church) was held January 20, 1991 in the house of Julio Contreras, the senior pastor. After 5 months of meeting in his home, a house with a capacity of 60 people was rented to accommodate the growing congregation. The church was officially organized June 9, 1991 with a pastoral team of 3: Julio Contreras, Steven Kern (a missionary evangelist with Good News In Action and currently the director), and Enrique Martínez (currently working with Samaritan's Purse and pastoring a church in Apopa). Additionally, there were 33 founding members. The first deacons were Nelson Rivas, who later became one of the pastors of the church and is currently pastoring a new work in Guatemala City, and Mauricio Lagos, the current President of the Deacons and director of the Leadership Training Institute.
From the beginning, the desire of the church was to maintain a balance between winning people to Christ and growing them in the Lord. The pastors lamented the fact that almost all churches were either very strong in evangelism, at the expense of discipleship, or very strong in discipleship, at the expense of evangelism. Their dream was to have a church body as committed to winning people to Christ as they were to discipling and seeing those new believers grow in the Lord. They noted that the Bible did not emphasize one over the other but emphasized both. From the beginning, the church was very aggressive in evangelism (mass and personal) and one-on-one discipleship.
New Life Baptist Church has also always placed a strong emphasis on Bible teaching. From the moment the church began, the Bible was taught expositorily from the pulpit. In addition to emphasizing Bible teaching in the services, a Bible Institute was started from the church's inception. The belief of the leadership was that every member should know the Bible. After members finished Discipleship I, they were encouraged to receive Discipleship II (How to disciple another person), and then move on to the Bible Institute where they would take basic courses on the Bible such as How to Study the Bible, Leadership Principles, Basic Biblical Doctrine, and different books of the Bible.
Another characteristic of the church has been teamwork. Although the pastors believed that Acts 15 taught that there should be a senior pastor with the ultimate authority (James was the final authority in the church in Jerusalem,), the church has also been led by a pastoral team since its inception. The pastoral team not only believed in governing the church together but also sharing the pulpit. From the beginning, Julio preached on Sunday mornings while the other pastors were responsible for Sunday nights. The pastors wanted to have a church that modeled the teamwork seen in the book of Acts and in the early church. Julio continually points out that God Himself works as a team of three (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The philosophy of teamwork starts at the top and permeates the whole church. Vida Nueva also has a teamwork attitude helping other churches throughout Latin America and El Salvador and partnering with churches in the United States.
Good News In Action has always played a big role in New Life's growth, but played an especially large role during its first years. From the beginning, Leo brought groups down from the states to help with the evangelistic outreaches in the Greater San Salvador area and Manolo Camino, an evangelist with Good News, worked side by side with Steve and the pastoral team to help evangelize. In the first years of Vida Nueva, most of the growth came from proclamation evangelism activities such as showing Christian movies, preaching outdoors and evangelizing door-to-door. Every evangelistic activity took place outside the church building as the members used birthday parties, baby showers, women's banquets, and social gatherings as other opportunities to present the Gospel.
By 1994, the church had grown to over 80 people and had outgrown the house it was renting. The church began to look for property and in November of 1994 bought a restaurant and tavern that sat on a 1/3 acre piece of land. In 1996, New Life moved from the house with 110 members to the new piece of land. During the first year, the church met in the dilapidated structure that the tavern had used and the children met in the restaurant structure. Although the conditions were rustic, the church continued to grow. In 1998, the church began to meet in an auditorium with a capacity of 400 people and continued to hold Sunday school classes in the restaurant. In 1999, the Sunday school and administration building was completed and Vida Nueva has met in both buildings to the present date. God used Eddie Martin, a well-known Southern Baptist Evangelist, to raise half of the money for the land and most of the money for the two buildings.
Vida Nueva has averaged 20% growth each year since its beginning. In 2001, the church had 215 members. Currently (2007), there are 550 members with over 700 different adults attending and 200 children attending. In 2007, it started a bilingual Christian school with classes for children between the ages of 3 and 5. Because of space problems, in 2006, the church purchased a 6.5 acre piece of land, one mile from the current location. It currently has plans to build a worship center for 2,500 people, a building for New Life Christian School and start an orphanage and an accredited seminary.
