By Hugo Torres

Pastor Hugo has served part-time as our Spanish-speaking pastor but recently came on full-time as our Local Outreach Spanish-Speaking Pastor. Hear more from him as he enters this new full-time position.

How do you feel coming on full-time at Evergreen?

First, I want to say thank you to our church family for having received me and my family with arms wide open. After seventeen years of being a tent maker (bi-vocational pastor), the Lord in his grace has opened a great and effective door for full time ministry here at Evergreen. This opportunity fills my heart fully with praises and thanksgiving to God.

Also, being always a solo pastor and now joining a great team of pastors and staff it gives me a sense and a place of belonging where everyone shares responsibilities for one common goal: Discipleship.  

Please share your responsibilities now being full-time at Evergreen

My main responsibility as pastor of local outreach is to lead in the execution of the vision of our church, with a special attention on evangelizing and edifying (making disciples) our local community of Avocado Heights. This means that I am responsible for developing and implementing strategies for the church’s local community’s discipleship, building up leaders for local outreach ministries, develop a Spanish speaking ministry as part of Evergreen Baptist Church, and help to incorporate the Spanish speaking group into the larger communal life of the congregation.

Besides the local outreach ministry, I am also responsible for overseeing and supervising our church’s facilities care under the oversight of the pastor of administration.

Please share how that has impacted your responsibilities at your previous church in La Habra

I think the greatest impact this has had is not being able to be there every Lord’s Day service to preach, since Sundays are generally a mandatory office day for our church staff and be available to meet upon request. Along with this, the other impact this has had is that I need to schedule guest speakers for every Sunday of the month to preach in La Habra congregation except the last Sunday when I am there to preach. Also, because I am not there every Sunday, there is the need to be one day a week in La Habra to attend whatever needs there are and be available to the members to meet upon request. Thanks to the flexibility on my schedule, I can do this by working remotely from La Habra office on Thursdays.  

What are you most excited about now being the full-time Local Outreach pastor at Evergreen?

I must be honest about it, there is so much work to do ahead of us. For instance, developing a Spanish speaking ministry at Evergreen and integrating the Spanish speaking body into the larger community life of the church is a big task that will demand hard work and bring its own challenges. However because I know that this is God’s work and not mine, I am excited to see how the Lord will use Evergreen church to make it happen.

How can we be praying for you and your family?

Coming to Evergreen church is a new chapter in my life and the life of my family, please pray for this transition process from La Habra congregation to Evergreen congregation to provide for the right man to take over at La Habra church and that the Lord use this transition to disciple every member of my family including myself. You can also pray for Jackie’s health that the Lord provides a good treatment for her stomach issues.

by Kenny Wada

Though all of our Congregational Life ministries have either stopped or become virtual gatherings, we continue to ask the Lord to leverage the advantages of online interactions and fill in its inherent deficiencies.  Some of the pluses of online communities are:

1. Easily accessible, so it makes it simple for newcomers to "drop-in" and check out small groups or fellowships

2. More consistent attendance since busy schedules, freeway traffic and unplanned interruptions are less of an issue when attending a meeting is only a click away

3. Less work involved in preparing the meeting space (you don't have to get snacks together or clean up your home!)

4. Easier to meet new people online, stay connected to them through social media and in some ways get to know them quicker because of the ease of communicating online

However, the ease of connecting to an online community is also an inherent weakness.  Online communities require less effort and are therefore less costly than in-person relationships: 

1. You don't have to deal with unpleasant smells like bad breath (your own or someone else’s)

2. You don't have to fear standing alone by yourself because everyone is equally spaced apart in nicely framed rectangles (you can even hide yourself and still listen in on what everyone is saying!)

3. You also don't need or deal with all the awkward tensions and conflicts of in-person interactions

But all these extra efforts, awkward tensions and anxious relational issues are all a part of real, face-to-face relationships that challenge and shape our character and cause us to turn to the Lord for the strength, forgiveness, courage and ability to love like Jesus.  

It is the deep and painful costs of loving real, broken and sinful people that God uses to bring us to the end ourselves and to the beginning of our total trust and dependance upon him.  Nothing brings us quicker to the foot of the cross and the mercy of Jesus than the hardships of in-person relationships.  

I would imagine that your in-person relationships at home have either driven you nuts or have driven you to the foot of the cross.  If that's true for you, that’s because in-person relationships are costly.

May we continue to take advantage of the benefits of virtual communities while remaining aware of their built-in limitations.