A Growing Spanish-Speaking Ministry at Redeemer

The last two years of ministry have been unusual for all churches, and Redeemer was no exception. But against the backdrop of the many challenges posed by a worldwide pandemic, God brought RPC Latin American Pastor Fellow Pablo Chavarria and his wife, Velia, to Redeemer and through their leadership has grown a long-awaited Spanish-speaking ministry at Redeemer. 

The Chavarrias’ path into vocational ministry was an unexpected one. Pablo and Velia are both natives of Monterrey, Mexico, and met while working for Deloitte Financial Services. Pablo was raised in the Presbyterian church; Velia was raised Roman Catholic. When they became friends, Pablo invited Velia to attend church with him. Through the teaching she heard there, she began to wrestle with her understanding of God.

“I went to church every Sunday growing up, but I never read the Bible, and I didn’t understand the doctrine,” she says. “When I met Jesus Christ, my heart became about non-believing people and my heart had a zeal to share who Jesus Christ is, and what the Gospel is. My life changed a lot, and my vision of my life was very different.”

Velia’s conversion served as a catalyst for a deep change in Pablo as well, who says he was a lifelong church attender but not very involved in leadership at his church. When Velia wanted to attend a membership class at church, she asked him to join her. When opportunities to serve arose, she encouraged him to participate.

“When they were taking names for deacons, she said ‘You should do that,’” Pablo says. “A few years later I was an elder.”

The Chavarrias married in 2000, and as they participated more in leadership at their church, they began to feel a call to full time ministry. Within a few years they were beginning to explore the idea of planting a church in Monterrey with a group of friends and neighbors. What started as a small group meeting in their home became Cumbres Del Rey Church. At first, Pablo pastored part time while continuing his work as an accountant, but eventually he was able to move into full time ministry. The Chavarrias led Cumbres del Rey for 13 years, and during that time they welcomed their daughter, Grace.

Pablo and Velia’s first contact with Redeemer San Antonio happened when RPC Associate Pastor Victor Martinez led a training for church planters with the Centro para le Plantacion de Iglesias (CPI) church planting network in Northern Mexico.

CPI is associated with City to City Latin America, an arm of the global church planting movement City to City. Pastor Martinez first met the Chavarrias through these trainings. Through ongoing conversations between Redeemer and City to City Latin America, the idea of a Latin American Pastoral Fellowship to equip pastors on both sides of the border for cross-cultural ministry emerged. In 2020, the Chavarrias arrived in San Antonio after multiple pandemic-related delays.

In spite of the obstacles posed by the pandemic, Pablo says he and Velia were immediately able to build on the longstanding ministry of Victor and Jeannie Martinez, as well as Vicente and Gloria Jaime to form relationships with Spanish-speaking families already at Redeemer and begin networking to invite more individuals and families.

Through the Chavarrias’ leadership a growing number of Spanish-speaking individuals and families have begun to call Redeemer home. That has translated into new offerings at Redeemer — a Spanish-speaking Community Group and Christian Education class have flourished, and Velia Chavarria and Jeannie Martinez have led a Spanish-speaking women’s Bible study small group. In the next year, the ministry hopes to focus on leadership training to equip more Spanish-speaking community group and Bible study leaders. 

Pablo says that there are many cultural and faith backgrounds represented in the Spanish-speaking ministry, but the message of who Christ is and the life-changing freedom offered in the Gospel is relevant, unifying and transformative in spite of those differences.

“We are seeing people discover the centrality of the Gospel for the first time, some from a very traditional church background, and some from a non-Christian background,” he says.

Pastor Martinez says this ministry is a gift to the entire congregation at Redeemer because of the opportunity to cultivate cross cultural relationships with other Christians.

“I think this will change us, and make us more aware of the richness of the Gospel,” he says. “When you add people from other cultures and their experiences and how they express the Gospel and how they have seen that grace and that Gospel freedom in their lives, that is going to help us learn the depth of the Kingdom and the Gospel in a different way.”

Join us in praising God for the ways he is blessing this ministry and for the gift of worshipping with these brothers and sisters in Christ!

Click here to read a related testimony from longtime RPC members Vicente and Gloria Jaime.