Mexican Cartel Violence Disrupts Sunday Worship in Guadalajara After El Mencho's Killing
Cartel violence erupted across Guadalajara, Mexico, disrupting Sunday worship services as narcobloqueos — cartel blockades — prevented congregants from reaching their churches in the aftermath of the military's killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio 'El Mencho' Oseguera Cervantes. Christianity Today reports that pastor Constantino Varas of Iglesia Bautista Gracia & Amor received frantic text messages from church members who couldn't get through the blockades, which shut down roads across Mexico's second-largest city. The killing of El Mencho, once the most wanted drug lord in the Americas, has triggered a power vacuum and a wave of retaliatory violence that is falling hardest on the very communities — churches, schools, and small businesses — that the cartels claim to protect. The report highlights how millions of Mexican Christians worship each week under the shadow of narco-violence, a reality largely invisible to the global church.
Read Full Story at Christianity TodayNot giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
— Hebrews 10:25
When cartel blockades make the simple act of gathering for worship physically dangerous, the courage of Mexican believers who press through to meet together takes on a deeper resonance. The writer of Hebrews knew that gathering as the body of Christ would face opposition — and that the response of faith is not withdrawal but perseverance.