Nothing motivates people like seeing success in others similar to themselves.

That’s what happened when Mount Hermon Baptist Church located in the federal district of Mexico City began growing exponentially. Pastor Rafael Pola began to share the experience Mount Hermon was having while working through 40 Days of Purpose at a weekly pastors’ breakfast.

“Our church is focused on reaching the middle class of Mexico City,” Pola said. “We saw a 30 percent increase in membership during the 40 Days of Purpose campaign.”

That wasn’t the only increase the church experienced. Visitors began coming in greater numbers throughout the year and the church developed a strategy to register and get them involved in Purpose Driven 101 classes. More than 75 percent of the members have taken the courses through 104, leading to approximately 40 percent of the church members being involved in some type of ministry.

“The church was started in 1993 and grew to about 150 through 2002,” Pola said, “but the church has doubled in the past two years to 300 since we have completed 40 Days of Purpose, 50 Days of Faith, 50 Days of Love, and implemented a focus on the 101-104 classes, which we’ve actually changed to A, B, C, and D classes.”

Mount Hermon balances the discipleship and teaching of Purpose Driven resources with contemporary music and multimedia, life-application messages. But many times local churches geographically situated outside the United States will balk at or reject resources designed for American churches. Pola did not what that to be a stumbling block for the members of his church or for the visitors coming, so they made some minor changes to adapt the Purpose Driven resources to be more culturally appropriate. Using letters for the stages instead of numbers was one of those small but important changes. They also reduced the five purposes to three to avoid the obstacle of cultural prejudice associated with “copying” American churches. Previously, the church had not been able to successfully use other American resources.

The three areas of major emphasis were worship and spiritual growth – an intentional effort to focus on God; ministry – looking for ways to meet the needs of the church’s members; and missions/evangelism – focusing on moving church members beyond the walls and into the surrounding community.

Pola believes the church’s growth is evidence of the church understanding its purpose better than ever because members better understand what it is that God intends the church to be. However, it wasn’t an easy sell. Mount Hermon’s leadership initially had its doubts about the Purpose Driven materials and the methodology even to the point that there was quite a bit of resistance from some. “Little by little,” Pola said, “we were able to understand more and more and people became receptive.”

The church now includes Celebrate Recovery as part of its ministry. This enhances a growing small group ministry that incorporates a variety of Purpose Driven resources and other Bible studies. Reports of God’s activity delivered by Pola at the pastors’ breakfasts have motivated other pastors and churches in the area to study 40 Days of Purpose.

“We are grateful to God for what the Purpose Driven resources have done in our church,” Pola said. “It has been a major blessing for us.”

All 2006 Church Health Award winner information is correct as of Jan. 1, 2006.