César Noé Montelongo: From a childhood Bible club to the pastorate

César Noé Montelongo Arredondo’s connection with Monte Hebrón began in childhood and developed into a continuing association in preaching, personal evangelism, and missions. Saved at nine years old through a Bible club held by the church, he later became pastor of Iglesia Bautista Las Torres in General Escobedo, Nuevo León—a congregation that Gerald Branch had begun as a mission out of Monte Hebrón.[3]

His story connects several parts of the ministry’s history: outreach to children, work on a bus route, preparation for the pastorate, and the growth of a Mexican congregation supporting missionaries of its own.[2][3][6]

A childhood beginning

Noé was nine when he received Christ through a Bible club conducted by Monte Hebrón. As a preteen, he also attended the church’s pastors’ and workers’ conferences. Those gatherings became part of his early exposure to the preaching and ministry of the men associated with the church.[2][3]

He later answered a call to preach and graduated from the Bible institute directed by Luis Ramos. His preparation thus brought together the influence of Monte Hebrón’s childhood outreach and conferences with formal training under another ministry.[2][3]

Las Torres and the bus-route connection

Iglesia Bautista Las Torres began through Gerald Branch’s work on one of Monte Hebrón’s bus routes. The congregation developed as a mission out of the church and became the setting for Noé’s pastoral ministry in Escobedo, north of Monterrey.[3][6]

By February 2014, Noé was pastoring the congregation associated with his own childhood conversion. In this way, his work returned him to the community of ministry through which he had first heard and responded to the gospel.[2]

The connection with Monte Hebrón continued after he became pastor. Tommy Ashcraft preached at Las Torres, and Noé participated in the conferences and evangelistic work that had influenced him as a boy.[2][3]

Witnessing alongside Tommy Ashcraft

During Monte Hebrón’s annual conference in February 2014, Noé joined Tommy in the Wednesday morning evangelistic outreach. More than 500 people went out witnessing as part of the conference’s activities.[2]

Tommy led a 77-year-old woman to Christ, while Noé led an 80-year-old woman to Christ. The account places the two men together in personal evangelism, alongside the preaching and teaching taking place in the conference services.[2]

For Noé, the relationship had come full circle: the boy who had attended the conferences was now a pastor taking part in their work and witnessing alongside the preacher whose church had helped reach him.[2][3]

La Hora del Evangelio

Noé also carried his preaching onto the radio through a program called “La Hora del Evangelio,” sponsored by Iglesia Bautista Las Torres. Its listed broadcast time was Friday from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. on 1140 AM.[1]

He invited Monte Hebrón to rent its own hour on the station. Monte Hebrón’s program aired immediately before his, from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. The invitation opened the way for a broadcast ministry that continued for several years and involved different men from Monte Hebrón in preaching on the air.[6]

This shared schedule gave the two congregations adjoining opportunities to present the gospel to radio listeners. Noé’s role in arranging the opportunity forms an important connection between his own work at Las Torres and Monte Hebrón’s radio ministry.[1][6]

A congregation supporting world missions

In October 2017, Tommy preached the missions conference at Las Torres. The congregation’s faith-promise commitments exceeded expectations, and by November it was supporting more than 50 missionaries.[3]

That figure belongs to the church’s ministry in 2017. It marks a further stage in the story of a congregation begun as an outreach of another church: Las Torres was now helping sustain missionaries beyond its own community.[3]

Noé’s own preaching also took him beyond Mexico. Gerald and Mary Branch’s July–October 2021 newsletter records that he attended a conference in Peru and preached for Brother Anaya at Jesus the Way Baptist Church in Chiclayo.[4]

On June 18, 2022, he preached “La mies es mucha” at a missions conference at Primera Iglesia Bautista de Habla Española in Brooklyn, New York. The church preserved a recording of the message, providing another dated example of his participation in missions preaching outside Mexico.[5]

A continuing connection

Noé’s ministry links the work of several people and congregations: Monte Hebrón’s Bible-club workers, Gerald Branch’s church planting, Luis Ramos’s Bible training, Tommy Ashcraft’s preaching and personal evangelism, and the congregation at Las Torres.[2][3][6]

From his childhood conversion to his pastoral responsibilities, radio preaching, and participation in missions conferences, these connections show how an early outreach could develop into continuing service. The child reached through a Bible club became a pastor whose congregation supported missionaries and whose invitation helped another church take its preaching onto the radio.[1][3][6]