Seminar (Part 1) : Reflection on Pastoral Excellence

TRANSCIPTION - PART 1 (read PART 2)

First I want to thank everyone for having come to this event in which we intend to reflect a little on a topic on which we work every day. Each of us in our ministries are constantly trying to do our best for..... and we are constantly working on what we call the pursuit of excellence.

This search is always tempted by all the things we see around. We see some great ministries that have beautiful orchestras in their praise and we say: wow, that's excellence! Other times we see ministries that transform lives day after day without necessarily being large ministries, even without even becoming congregations, ministries. There God humbly works in each one of them.

In other cases we see ministries that found ministries and although they never shine in the sense that others do, they become ministries that bless other ministries that do arrive to propagate the word and work of God widely.

At the Institute for Pastoral Excellence, an institution dedicated to finding and training pastors and ministers for excellence, we asked ourselves that question. We have been working in this direction for 5 years and each of our courses, of our programs ends with an evaluation, ends with the constant search for what excellence is.

For this opportunity we decided that gathering the people of God to reflect on this was a guide, it was an opportunity for collective learning and it was an essential foundation for the work that we are doing. And in his name we decided to organize this day.

On this occasion we have a group of panelists who have had a very productive ministerial trajectory in different ways and we want to hear their opinions, which, enriched with yours, will turn into a collective thought of what here in New England we want to make into the Kingdom of God.

The mechanics that we are going to follow is, Dr. Elwin Villafañe is going to be the moderator of this panel where each one of them is going to ask them questions as simple as what is an excellent minister, what is a excellent ministry, what are those characteristics that define a ministry; because that is going to be the platform on which we could work in the coming years.

We clarify, it is no longer a showy, big ministry that does this, which really blesses the kingdom. A theological reflection, a reflection on the practice of people who have extensively studied the subject, who have poured their lives into the service of the ministry, and with your experience we can draw a set of ideas on where to move to better serve the Lord. .

On this occasion I am going to give the floor to Dr Elwin Villafañe. Dr Elwin Villafañe is currently a professor at Cume, which is, let's say, the urban arm of the Gordon Conwell seminary. He is Puerto Rican raised in New York, has served in ministries in New York. He has his Ph.D. in Social Ethics from Boston University and is currently a professor at Cume and a participant in AET, which is the Texas-based Association for Hispanic Theological Studies. Welcome teacher.

Welcome. Thank you. God bless you. God keep them. No, no, very lazy. God bless you and God keep you. Do not think that some here are not Pentecostals in name, we are all in experience or something. Very good. Thank you brother Rodriguez.

This morning we have the beautiful opportunity to dialogue with leading ministers, people that God has endowed very particularly and has given them knowledge, vast experience and as Rodríguez mentioned the process and procedure will be simple .

First I am going to ask the panelists to take their seats in this order, Dr Pablo Polichuk, then Reverend Nelson Gonzáles, Dr Alvin Padilla, Reverend Sergio Pérez, Dr Roberto Miranda. That is the order we have of presentation.

We are going to follow the following agenda: we are going to ask the panelists to introduce themselves in a certain order and certain questions that I have here. Then we'll present them with the three questions or so that they're going to discuss, and once they take their 10 minutes, we don't have a clock around, do we? No this. Who is going to be time keeper? Because you already know when you see me doing like this, like this and like that... you already know the time.

After they make their presentation, we are going to open up to you so that we can enter into a dialogue, a participation and as time allows us, I think it will be very fruitful and can be a great blessing for our life and I think this is a start.

We do not pretend that on this day in less than an hour or whatever or more, we are going to cover everything that means excellence. Something that I must say first of all, I don't know if anyone is going to say that, but while we were singing and adoring the Lord, what impressed my heart a lot is the reality and the truth that we serve a God of excellence, a Almighty God and it begins with God and with the person of Jesus Christ who in his ministry demonstrated all those qualities of excellence and who else to follow that model. But we are going to see through our panelists in detail, how this ministry becomes concrete in our life and in our ministry.

I'm going to present by name, but then I'm going to ask them to take this note because I want them to tell us their name, then their place of birth, then where they did their academic or ministerial studies, their denomination , something about his family briefly, and his current ministry. That's going to take almost 10 minutes, no, no, no. We want them to be brief, precise in any case. But we would like to meet you.

In the classes that I teach, we have about 15, 20 students here, usually, I don't know if we did it in this one, we ask similar questions, but sometimes we ask you to name an animal that reflects your personality, but we're not going to do that today. This is a very dignified table. Look how Pablo looks, he's going to analyze me psychologically.

We start with Dr. Pablo Polichuk.

My name is Pablo and I was born in Argentina, my parents were Ukrainian from Eastern Europe and I grew up and studied in Argentina. I met my wife, we met at Luis Palao's house where we were stopping to do a crusade with Juan Carlos Ortiz and I worked a lot in evangelism and while I was anchored for a month, I met Frances and I proposed to her in a month.

We have been married for over 40 years and we are still together thank the Lord. The point is that when you were young and aggressive in evangelism, you did the will of God as seemed right to you and as God imposed it on your heart, and I remember these 30 days because we preached every day, every night, we collected names And at the end of the month-long crusade, we baptized 120 people, called a pastor, rented a space, and kept walking. And the foundation of a church in a month was what I remember when I met Frances and that's where that always stayed in our minds.

I studied engineering at the University of Buenos Aires, but the Lord called me more directly to put down the books at that moment and to preach and after several years of evangelism and travel, I decided to continue my studies at the University from California, at Berkley with a BA in Psychology. Then at San Francisco State with a Master's in Research Psychology and then at Fuller Seminary with a Master's in Theology and then at the Fuller Writer School of Psychology a PhD in Clinical Psychology. And then as a post doctoral student at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as a Lead Intern and Fellow and then as a Chief Psychologist for the City of Chelsea for 10 years.

I worked with Massachusetts General Hospital for 17 years supervising interns and training psychologists to that doctoral level. But, let's say, the family was always an important thing in our lives. We have 3 children. Frances is also Argentine but of British and Scottish parents. In Argentina everyone comes from Europe from somewhere and so we get together there and we are Argentines.

My children were born in California: Karen, Kenneth and Keith. Karen is married and is now having a baby in February in Mill Valley, California. Kenneth is married too, has two children with one more on the way. He lives here in Bayfield, Massachusetts. And Keith is single. Keith had a catastrophic accident where in a plunge into the ocean a year and a half ago he fractured vertebra number 5 and became a quadriplegic and is struggling, and I just came late because I am his nurse morning and night, so I I attend from 6 in the morning in all the chores that you have to do until you get up.

He works, he studies and he exercises a lot. He is one of the first 5 who are doing research to see how long he can resume retraining the neurons below the spinal lesion. So we're praying and trusting the Lord that he's going to stand up one day and that he's going to walk in the name of the Lord. But he has been struggling a lot and we were by his side, we were near here for a month in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel. Well, it's a very long story, but the Lord has helped us and we are there fighting.

The family has always been close and that has kept me in faith and joy. Frances is at a shower for Karen, baby shower, today in California, so I'm juggling a lot of stuff on my own.

As for my current ministry, I am teaching full time, full time at Gordon Conwell Seminary. I am one of the co-founders of the program that we have in counseling or in a master's degree in counseling, or for mental health and also for marriage and family. We have been there for many years and working full time.

I also do psychotherapy in private practice, I do it in South Hampton in a place called Willowdale. I have another office here in Cambridge, where I have worked for over 20 years in Harvard Square seeing patients privately.

Besides, I am always preaching and many times as interim pastor. We have been interim pastors in Cambridge, in the American Assemblies of God church, where Elwin has also been preaching for years. After that we were preaching in Baptist churches, even before my brother Roberto took the pastorate, I was an interim pastor preaching every Sunday in Central Square, Central Baptist Church in Cambridge. After that, we went to other churches, including helping in the daughter of the church, in Everet where Pablo Giovanini is now pastor, for a couple of years I was preaching there.

Not long ago, no, not long ago.

We were also pastors at Park Street Church, in a church, for a year from 96 to 97 and at Wayland Congregation Church in Wayland, Massachusetts and also in Peterborough, New Hampshire and Trinity. So I had like 6, 7 interim pastorates, one year long or two year long.

And as an itinerant pastor who tries to heal the wounds caused by the body of Christ to himself, when the pastors leave and leave behind disasters, or when the pastors die, because the pastors also die, because the Lord tells them, enough is enough, and they leave. So I've been preaching.

My current ministry is also to assist in the formation of two counseling centers in Israel; one in Jerusalem among converted Jews, Christians, the majority come from Russia, from the Ukraine and are full-blooded Jews but converted to Christ and are now doing the work in Israel.

They also work among the Arabs in Haifa where we have been founding a counseling center with 8 social service providers and also Christian counselling.

We have been giving workshops. I teach at the Israel School of the Bible. We're going to have the first batch of Christian counselors graduate from a Christian university in Jerusalem and in Ethanya, so we've been founding, it's currently the first counseling center in the nation of Israel, recognized by the state of Israel. So we are in all the places that we can be doing the will of God, always trying to behave well.

Amen. And Assembly of God, credentials.

Minister of the Assembly of God. I came to preach in New York City and I preached 623 times in two years, in the year 1965, 1966, so 41 years ago I was preaching among the Puerto Ricans in New York, and we met with Elwin and with Sun Sullivan and with all the cream of Puerto Rican cream.

Very good, thank you Pablo.

My name is Nelson González, I was born in Puerto Rico and at an early age I was transferred to the city of Chicago where I met the Lord at the early age of 15 years. I felt the call of the Lord when I was 16 years old and at that time the usual thing was to enter a biblical circle where I started, that was my first experience of education in the Bible. And at the age of 17 I started studying and graduated when I was 20.

I immediately started in the ministry and served as associate pastor in 3 different churches in different cities. The ministry took me to the Midwest, Topeka, Kansas.

There began a Pentecost.

And it was a beautiful experience. I found out that this is where Pentecost started later, but there were no Hispanic churches there when I was there. For about three years I was ministering there, it was where at the same time at the beginning I married my wife, Nidia, who I knew there for about 4 years from Chicago.

It turns out that when I start there a lot of potential and many challenges, a young man with very little experience in the ministry and I thought that the first thing I had to do was get married. And I ran to Chicago, and we got married and we came back and our honeymoon was in the city of Topeka, Kansas. I don't advise that to anyone.

Looking back on what many see as a heroic step, it all depends on perspective. We look at that as, yes, a leading from the Lord and God blessed in spite of it, but it was also crazy on our part. We had to get out of there to see if we could save our marriage three years later, to see if our marriage could be salvaged from the chants of the ministry.

And for that reason we moved to this area and we were serving the Lord in the Defensores de la Fe church here. By the way, it was at that council that I met the Lord.

We are currently in the city of Lawrence, since 1990 pastoring the Hispanic Evangelical Church. It has been the longest time of my ministry and very blessed. We have 3 children: Gabriel, Joel and Sheila. Oldest 19, youngest 13.

My formal education was at Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire and I've done some college at Cume, but haven't finished it yet. God bless you.

Let me mention something, it is important for us to hear the testimony well in a sense and the pilgrimage of each one because as I often teach the students I remember them. For one to read and understand the biblical or theological expositions of a great theologian, for example, it is good to know his biography, his background. It gives a certain understanding to one that usually one can achieve. I believe that when they start to talk about excellence they will have a background from which to make the reference. We continue with Dr Alvin Padilla.

My name is Alvin Padilla. I am from Ponce, from Puerto Rico. My family immigrated to Massachusetts .................. when I was 12 years old...............after the economy crashed..... ....... I converted to the Lord after college. I ......... from high school, then went to college in Pennsylvania. I always felt the call of the Lord but I always resisted for stubborn reasons............ but several months after finishing university, well, I surrendered my heart to the Lord and immediately felt the call to the ministry and I thought to go to a seminary, since I was raised Catholic, I thought that the seminary was only for Catholic people and I didn't know where to study. I studied for a year in a Bible institute and it was there that I perhaps learned more about what a seminar was and after a conference.......... to go to .......... ...... to study and start my formal studies there.

There I met my wife, Catherine, who was also a student. We got married in my senior year. She finished a year before me and when we finished our studies we left for New York............ to start a Bible school for the Assemblies of God........... ...I converted and already had an operation at that time..................... we started a school called ........School of Theology which is still ............ and my wife and I started it. And we spent 8 years there beginning this work............ God ......... also when I was a teacher, dean and president, all those things at the same time. I was studying full time because ................

After ........... with the Assembly of God, I decided to transfer my credentials and be a pastor in New York, and I did this for 8 years in a Presbyterian church in Washington, on the island from Manhattan. From there the Lord called me to be academic dean here in ...........Boston with Cume and .........I am now celebrating ten years starting, eleven years as academic dean and I have the privilege of being the boss of Alvin Villafañe's mentor. ........................

.......... I have 4 children and ....................... College, now finishing her senior year, she is a social worker, Benjamin is a freshman of ....... .and two children, Lucas, 15 years old and he says he is 21, ............. The family ............... is very important.

As a pastor I always............................ spend a lot of time being with them, being the leader of the community, boy scout leader, baseball coach, ................a time in the life of my children, apart from being their pastor......... ... Currently I continue with .....................

My name is Sergio Pérez, senior pastor ......... .. ministry .........and in the midst of these doctors that I am, I am being like a nurse, more or less. And with all that brother Polichuk, anyone would think he had about 200 years to live........... Congratulations, brother.

I am originally from Guatemala City and graduated from a school that would be practically vocational or the equivalent of vocational with the title of Expert in Marketing and Advertising. When I was studying at the Landivar University in Guatemala continuing my degree in advertising, my father was so scared by my attitude at that time that he considered that I was in danger in Guatemala and said, I'd rather you be alive far away than one day they tell me the bad news that's coming to you. they have killed or something. And that was the urgency of leaving Guatemala to come to Boston, believing that then I would have greater freedom to continue with my malevolent plans, I began to listen to the voice of God and here I gave my life to the Lord, already totally 21 years ago. years ago.

Later, I continued the pilgrimage of discipleship in which I was being nurtured ministerially speaking in an Elim evangelical mission. Then I was ordained there in the year 89 and in the same year 89 I returned to Boston again. That same year I took charge of the church, a small group that existed at that time. That same year I married Johanna. Today we have been married for 17 years, that is, we have been ministering in the congregation for almost 18 years. We have two beautiful sons, Ariel, 15 years old, and Joshabe, 13 years old.

Currently our focus, our energies are channeled into a vision that God gave me, which I have led together with the ministry believing in God's instructions and believing in a revival that will result in an abundant harvest of souls. We have believed God and we have embarked on a project to build a temple for 1,500 people, of which, well, the construction is still in progress. This is for the purpose of preparing us, as I was saying, for the revival, for the harvest of souls. We believe that revival has to see conversions of souls as a result of that revival. And that has been our pilgrimage so far.

Roberto Miranda, pastor of the León de Judá congregation, I think we know a lot here. I am of Dominican origin. I came here to the US at the age of ten, in the year 65, so do the math there. I've been here in the US for 41 years, first we came to Brooklyn.

The history of my family responds to that immigration pattern. My father first came here from the Dominican Republic in '62, then eventually he sent for us and we settled in Brooklyn, New York. Well, that's where I grew up, most of my life was spent in New York.

In terms of studies, I did my undergraduate degree at Princeton University in the area of International Relations, with a view to entering the area of diplomacy. And then the Lord changed my turn a bit and I entered Harvard University to do my doctorate in Literature and Romance languages, with a specialty in the area of modern Spanish-American literature.

In the course of my doctoral studies the Lord directed me to a church that was just opening a couple of weeks ago in the area here of the South End at the Emanuel Gospel Center. Pastor Juan Vergara put a small ad in El Mundo inviting the community to attend that church that was opening and I, in a time of spiritual renewal in my life, had asked the Lord while I was doing my doctoral studies to guide me towards a Hispanic church where I could reconcile with his calling on my life and serve Hispanics specifically. And for long reasons to explain, the Lord directed me to that announcement, I attended the second, third meeting of that church and it is the church that I pastor today, which changed its name and is called the León de Judá congregation. That was in the year 82.

The Lord changed the course of my life and directed me towards the ministry, for which I will be eternally grateful. It has been a great privilege to serve the Lord through all these years.

I am married to Meche, many of you know her. We have two daughters, Sonia, who right now as I speak is coming from Brazil to Boston and will arrive just, God willing, in about 10 minutes at Logan Airport. She has been involved in a trip of two and a half months in different countries of Latin America. He graduated from Harvard a few months ago and is still celebrating his graduation. Now, shortly he will join the job right here in León de Judá, in fact in the ministry of the Center for Academic Resources, in the area of mentoring directing a group of young people, in the area of academic mentoring.

And Abigail who is 17 years old and who is a senior in high school here at Boston Trinity Academy, an excellent Christian school that was just recently founded through the ministry of Park Street Church, very good school I recommend it by the way. If you ever hear about it and get a chance to explore more about that ministry, very nice academic ministry here in Boston.

And let's see what else, I think that's the gist in terms of details and I think we'll have a chance to continue later.

Thank you. Before continuing, they inform me that there is a problem with a car. Do you want to identify it? There is. Very good. Okay.

You see that we have very, very diversified panelists, different nationalities, denominations, wealth of study, preparation, ministry. With this background, we begin the following process: each one will have 10 minutes to answer these 3 questions, which in a sense can emphasize one aspect or another, but if they can address all 3, it would be very helpful. There are three questions that we can put like this:

1. What is an excellent minister?
2. What is excellent ministry?
3. What are the criteria or characteristics that define excellence in ministry?

In summary, what is a minister and a ministry of excellence and what are its characteristics.

We'd like you to touch on each of those, but if you want to emphasize one or the other aspect of the question that would be very helpful. I would ask the audience to take their notes, their questions, their comments so that when they finish, we can have a good, profitable dialogue. We also start with Dr. Pablo Polichuk.

I think the three questions are interrelated, one deals with the person, the second with their work and the third again the combination of person and work, characteristics of excellence.

Do you notice that the word excellence is like it appears in various words like ecclesiastical or eclectic and how many other things is it like getting out of the ordinary, leaving somewhere or exceeding a limit, or being beyond the norm, that is to say that one always aims to be more than what he is, because God calls him from above so to speak, so that he fulfills a superior function. That is to say that he is outstanding, not only that he works and that he is an ordinary person who lives and grows and dies, but that he has a certain specific and special function. When saying that he is a minister, he is a servant, he is a person called to be a steward of the things of God, an administrator of the things that God assigned him in terms of tasks, in terms of functions, in terms of people.

And what is an excellent person. How to measure excellence because everyone has their ways or their variables to compare in what sense we can say they are an excellent person.

I believe the Sermon on the Mount focuses on 3 broad features or capsules. The first is character, who we are in terms of the beatitudes; humble of heart, meek, thirsty for justice, etc. so character.

The second behavior: how one behaves excellently. And the third is the infusion of radiation or what one emanates in terms of interpersonal influence, social influence but more spiritual influence. So, character, conduct and influence are what characterize the minister who is excellent.

I also think that it is one thing to serve people and another thing to serve the Lord who called him. There is a text in Ezekiel 44 that is very interesting where it says that God is going to restore the excellent ministry in Israel. But there are two kinds of ministers, those who were not so faithful and those who are faithful. And he calls them of the order of Zadoc, like those who were faithful to David.

So in the restoration he says, those who were not so faithful, I still love them, I will still restore them because I called them to serve and they are Levites, they are ministers, but they are going to serve outside in the tabernacle, where offerings must be burned. There are various kinds of offerings where the heat of the day, the sweat, and they are going to sweat because of the people, they are going to work for the people to be in tune with what they have to do for the people.

But those who were faithful to me, I am going to restore them and they are going to serve me, not the people, me, in my sanctuary, in the holy place, in the tabernacle and they will dress of linen because I do not want his sweat to come into my presence.

A new commandment I give to ministers: you shall not sweat in the presence of God. No, because working with people sweats, yes. People are what ruin one's ministry, just as one ruins people. But when one serves God it is fresh, it is praise, adoration, gratitude, thanksgiving, sacrifice of lips that confess his name, fine linen, justified by faith, nothing to do, nothing to work, Cain and Abel, right? ? of the offerings of sweat or of the offering of faith, in the blood a lamb that paid for its life. Totally different approach to God.

So I consider that the excellent minister knows the difference between serving the God of the house and the house of God, the Lord of the harvest and the Lord's harvest. So they are two branches of excellent ministry. Sometimes we worry so much about being loved by people and we forget that our first mandate is to please the Lord who called us. So serve God.

For me excellence lies in recognizing those two things. So, character, conduct, influence, and maybe I want to allude to the dots and i's that I wrote years ago regarding group and church leadership. That God gives us life as a gift but we have to develop life in the sense that our identity, our character has to be similar to Christ. Be imitators of God as beloved children. So the prototype of our ministry is Jesus, how he did it, how he worked, how he spoke, how he treated women, children, people, marriages, how he did it. This is how we have to be, identity in Christ.

Second, integrity of being who we are when no one is looking at us, when God looks down on us to function as he has called us with integrity: honest and with many characteristics of transparency and fidelity and all that.

The third, our intimacy with God as well as radiating intimacy with our spouse and other people, as we share ourselves. Even as Paul tells the Thessalonians in his ministry to them he says, we not only gave you the Gospel but we gave ourselves by God's will to you. One thing is to preach, another is to give oneself so that the church can be blessed. So, identity, integrity, results in intimacy with the body of Christ, also with the Lord, with his family.

The third is the way to be industrious, work, work, even though we work so much in the fields and return to the house of the Lord, we have to serve him, despite having worked all day because he has primacy. Work for the Lord and for the Lord and have that interpersonal influence that I said, that when one is blessed by God radiates. My blessing is that I want the Lord to fill me with his spirit so that anyone who comes into my presence can be blessed in some way. For me the model of Jesus who has the hem of his garments floating around, and anyone who touched the hem of his garments was healed.

Hopefully each minister can be a blessing so that those who approach can receive the emanation of the spirit, the virtue of the spirit, the co-participation, the impartation of the spirit. As Pedro said, I don't have silver or gold, he seemed Hispanic, right? neither silver nor gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus, get up and walk. And he was alive, full of strength. Sometimes the Americans who are more traditional, I tell them, when the Lord comes you go first, and you say why, the dead in Christ will rise... and then we Pentecostals who live... will be taken towards above.

Thank you, Paul. Very well said.

Well, although I had pondered the term excellence before, it was really now, as I was looking at these three questions, that I considered excellence in relation to the minister. And adding to the words that define excellence, which our brother Polichuk spoke, some of the words I found were superior quality, some of the synonyms were: perfection, quality, and first class. First class, then, I got even more confused, I got even more confused because it's hard for me to understand, let alone explain this question in light of passages like Luke 17:10.

You may remember that Jesus used an illustration of the servant who goes to the field and returns and then the master tells him, get ready, you serve me and after you finish serving me, you will serve yourself. And Jesus said, so you also when you have done everything that has been commanded, you must say we are useless servants, we have only done our duty. We have only done what we were supposed to do.

And let me explain with a personal experience, when I was in the city of Topeka, Kansas, barely 23 years old, pastoring a church that my wife and I were starting. I come from a Pentecostal background where the emphasis is very much on fasting, prayer, Bible reflection, etc.

And very early in my ministry I found out that I didn't have enough to feed this flock and that my church, the one I was pastoring, was nothing like the New Testament church and I got frustrated and I got to seek the Lord. And a book written by ...... fell into my hands, the normal Christian life, perhaps some of you have read it, and each page that I read answered many questions that I had, and it ministered to me a lot but what was left to me more shocking was that what Wash....... called normal, we called super spiritual, out of the ordinary.

So, I think that sometimes we measure ourselves against each other and for me an excellent minister is perhaps what the Bible calls normal, what Jesus expects of us as his servants, someone who resists the mediocrity, by virtue of his self-sacrifice and his commitment to please the Lord who called him and live honestly or serve honestly the people that God placed in his responsibility.

I think some of us are going to use the Apostle Paul as an example and one of the passages I want to add to the others that this panel will be presenting is Second Corinthians Chapter 4, where the Apostle Paul says , “for this reason, since by the mercy of God we have this ministry we do not get discouraged, rather we have renounced everything shameful, we have renounced everything shameful that is done in secret. We do not act deceitfully or twist the word of God, on the contrary through the clear exposition of the truth..." This is a ministry of excellence. ".... the clear exposition of the truth we recommend to every human conscience in the presence of God." Then, also add the vulnerability of the minister so that we scrutinize ourselves or the English word that comes to mind accountability, so that we render ourselves accountable, we stay in line with each other.

Verse 5 of the same Chapter says "we do not preach ourselves - a ministry of excellence - but Jesus Christ as Lord". That should be the focus "... we are only your servants because of Jesus because God, who commanded the light to shine in the darkness, made his light shine in our hearts so that we might know the glory of God that shines in the face of Christ."

And verse 7 says “... but we have this treasure, this treasure in clay vessels so that it can be seen how sublime power comes from God and not from us – and that is the New International version , the version of 60 says: "... so that the excellence of the power is of God and not of us."

And for us... clay pots today that's considered a relic, right? It's a nice thing, to be able to have clay pots, but back then they were as run-of-the-mill as paper cups. It says, we have this treasure, this ministry excellence, this calling in paper cups and what do you do when you use the cup? He already used it, and it's over.

So that excellence, again the excellence of God stands out and not us, we do not recommend ourselves but the one who called us. A ministry of excellence then fulfills that call from God. For me this call has its obligation with the present generation and with the one to come.

I wrote some criteria that are important to me with the first letters of the alphabet: personal dedication to being a server, a server as Brother Polichuk emphasized. We have to maintain our vertical relationship first and I fear that sometimes, due to the hard work, the hard work, we forget that we are worshipers, that our relationship with God is vital first. And you know, those of you in the ministry, right, that we can be so distracted in the ministry that we forget about it? We forgot about that.

The second, with the letter b is “the minister of excellence seeks connections with other ministers to keep him accountable. What I did not say before is that I pastor an independent church and I have been pastoring this church for 16 years, so my challenge is how do I stay connected with the rest of the body and connected with other ministers with whom I can be transparent and they can make the hard questions.

The third little letter is commitment, commitment to family health. Something that all those who are here in front have emphasized. How many have heard from the mechanic that his car is always the damaged one, right? His car is always the one that is wrong. Well, in the ministry that can't happen. The minister's family cannot be abandoned and I understand that there are decisions for our children, etc. that they have their consequences and that in many of these the pastor, the leadership is not to blame for that. I understand that. I understand that, but again I stress the need to commit to family health.

The letter d is diligence in the preparation of the word and this for me is an incredible challenge because I discover that I have to study twice, and sometimes triple that of my colleagues to be able to nurture my congregation in a balanced way.

And finally the letter e, focus and singularity in purpose. Hey, how easy we can get distracted with a hundred things to do. When the Lord called us to make one and to do it with excellence to make it effective.

Again reading what the Apostle Paul says, they do not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one gets the prize. He says, so run in such a way that you obtain it. Run like you want excellence. All athletes train with a lot of discipline. Discipline. They do it to obtain a prize that is spoiled. We instead, for one that lasts forever. So I don't run, says the Apostle Paul, like someone who has no goal, I don't fight like someone who punches the air, I have a purpose, do you understand me? ... rather I beat my body and control it, lest after having preached to others I myself be disqualified”- and that should be a red flag for all of us. That after we have served so faithfully, that we make a mistake, right? Someone wrote a book called "Take me home before dark" "Take me Lord before it gets dark", before I enter a darkness in which I do not see the light.

I have been in the last two or three years ....... a statement on purpose for my life, and I want to share it is still a draft, I have not said yet ... but it is a draft and it is already in the third revision, and my mission statement, my mission statement is to fulfill my call as a pastor with success, listening, faithfully following and imitating the prince of shepherds and feeding the flock of God through teaching , or teaching them through words and example and discipling others for the next generation.

Amen. Very pretty. Amen. Thank you.

When I ........ because of the subject I remembered my.....actually that we prepare men and women for the ministry ......... reality .. ........ a lot of thought........., a lot of time in the last 15 years, about what makes a great ministry, what makes a great minister because that's what we do in seminaries, prepare men and women who have excellence.

The teachers....... well, ............ the teachings of the Apostle Paul to a........beginning in a ministry. .....in Chapter 4 and we go to the phrase there, "... if you do these things you will be a good minister of the Lord", and there from 6 to 16 of that Chapter the Apostle points out a series of qualities that a good or excellent minister must have in order for him or her to be able to... fulfill his or her calling. And some things that come to mind here firstly ....... also divided as my colleagues have done here in two steps: personal life,.......... and professional life , which is an excellent ministry, and then the characteristics that make it excellent, which is a synthesis of the two things, as Paul already mentioned.

Firstly, ............. Paul teaches his disciple that he must be a student of the Scriptures. Repeatedly he tells him, if you are nourished by the words of faith and good doctrine. The idea is to be a student, dedicate time to study, it doesn't have to be...... perhaps we will emphasize, although you are going to be a student for life. I graduated......last twelve years ago and I am still the same eagerness to be a student. My children complain about having an exam and ...... he tells me that he doesn't ..... study because I am no longer a teacher and I tell him, for me tomorrow is the final exam every day, every day . Being a student of good doctrine, there are many things there that are very bad, of good doctrine, in Timothy he is talking about..........

Also that the good minister avoids the influence of the false doctrine..... influences that are almost ......... to the faith ......... if we do not study and ............ fellowship, people that we can have a relationship that they can have......... let's say, ......... what we are teaching, doing, talking about...... a man or a woman heading into a ministry that is faithful.....

Third, an excellent minister in Timothy, is a person who is, Paul says, exercised in personal godliness. Several times he will tell Timothy that he must exercise in godliness. And the word godliness means to be like God............ right? that you want to be like God.

When I was in college I was on a very excellent .......... team. We were national champions in the division......... but we worked, as my dad said, like dogs. Because to be number one I had to run 15 miles a day, in the morning and then run again in the afternoon.

My body wore itself out a bit, you can see. But it was because one exercises, that is the word that the Apostle Paul uses, the word of doing bodily exercise, but in piety. So much emphasis there now, right? for nutrition and exercise, that you have a gym in your own home, to keep fit, right? But, in piety, and this has to do with being a disciple, above all the pastor is a disciple of Christ.

It always catches my attention that Jesus gives him....... Scriptures that I cannot take to the people that I am going to lead as a pastor where I have not been. And if I'm not a disciple putting Christ first, and all those qualities of what a disciple is, I'm going to get into it, I can't lead the people I'm leading. I know that he exercises in mercy.

Related to that, the Apostle tells Timothy in other places to the Corinthians and others, be an example of spiritual virtue. You who have taken class with me know that I tell my students a lot that one of the things that I already hate to a certain extent, and says that there is a reality, pastors who tell them, don't look at me, look at Jesus.

It is true, but in reality Paul tells him, be imitators of me. People aren't going to see Jesus, they're going to see you and don't use that as an escape so people don't look at your children, your family, your relationship with your wife, right? The financial waste that you make, the bad decisions that you make, which is not there, right? Tell the truth, it's an escape because I had a pattern that would say that and get angry. Be imitators of me, says the Apostle and you must say the same.

Now I'm still with qualifications, I'm a weak man, I'm fine struggling with sin in my life, and I struggle daily but also with the same grace that I'm saved I keep going, right? I get up and keep going in the Lord. Thus a person who makes an example of virtue; a person who is, again, in the............ I paraphrased soaked in the Scriptures. He tells him twice, get busy with this, the reading of the Scriptures, the exhortation and the study. It says so three times there in that passage. ..... that everything you are going to do is going to be based on the Scriptures, studying and teaching others. And it is one, as has already been said on several occasions, and it will be said again, the excellent servant is a person who is hardworking.

There again in the same passage, the Apostle uses three different words to say what it is to work hard. And the word is that one works until one is completely tired, right? that one has given all the best that he knows that when it ends, you did all the best you could do, to get there..... from running the most that made our coach angry there when he was in........ It was that one finished a race and said if you can run two more doors, then you haven't run fast enough. They have to run until you couldn't give anymore at the end. And so it is, right?

And the word also means that one likes the job. Do you know what it is? One can work hard, it's something that one doesn't like. They do it quickly, very hard, because they want to finish, not because they like it. But here it is because it is something that you love. I love studying the Scriptures and I love it and I worked hard to preach because I rejoiced when I saw when people finally understood something and their lives were transformed and that is why I dedicated myself to praying and working for them and ministering to them in their lives. The servant is a person who works.

Now, about what is an excellent ministry, or the professional various things again. Being an expert in the Scriptures has to do with teaching. An excellent ministry is a ministry that teaches, sometimes we do not take into account that in Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul tells the church that within the ministry of the church, one says, pastor and teacher and the two things are one thing, TRUE? The pastor must be a good teacher, who can communicate the truths, who can teach so that lives are transformed, who can, as Timothy says again, know how to keep in mind the context in which he is.

In Timothy the teaching warns the people of the danger of false doctrines. And how many of us take the time to study what's going on in our community, our society, in our nation in order to educate people about what's going on, whether it's homosexuality, postmodernism, the truth, all those things, the things that Our children, when they go to university, are going to confront them. So... a teaching ministry.

Second, that he has to... a person who exhorts powerfully, who preaches. And Paul, again, twice in the passage tells Timothy, this commands and teaches. You know what command is, right? When I was a child my dad told me one thing, I had to do it, right? because he was the father, and I was the son and he had no choice. That's the word he uses here Paul, isn't it? This commands, with authority, right? You have to powerfully preach that this is God's truth to the people and tell them that you are convinced of this truth. And use different models of… be creative, right? with freshness to bring the word of God, that the people, the people can see the relevance of the ancient and eternal word to the lives that they are living today.

And I'll get this over with right now. Also, the administration. A minister is an excellent person who pays attention to administration. One of the most difficult things for us pastors is administration. It is the cross that we carry we say, right? I am one of them, but one simply has to pay attention, it does not mean that you are going to do everything, but rather that you are going to realize that perhaps you need another person to take care of the details, but that you are the responsible person, that the details are carried out and be responsible. A good steward especially since he's managing the resources that God's people are bringing in, right? they are sacrifice to serve the Lord.

And what does all this have to do with it, right? to wrap it up actually something short here that i wrote. About what is the characteristic, and I am going to say one sentence and it is only that, God calls you to be faithful, to the ministry that he called us, because excellence here is not going to be determined because if I reach 600 members of the church, or built a new building, those are things that happen and should happen, but it is not being faithful to the call. And faithful in what? Especially to the eternal word of God. That here we have, God has revealed himself in the Scriptures, the eternal word and he wants us to proclaim this word to this world, but at the same time, preach this word in the idiosyncrasies of personal life in the 21st century. So it has to be relevant to where we are today, right? Yes, the word is eternal, but it comes from an ancient culture and we now have to apply it so that the people who are here today, and for us a bilingual people, for the most part, right? how, what does this mean for my life and that it results in transformed lives that impact the society in which we are.

Very good. Thank you.

I would like to focus on the verse from Paul to Thessalonians 5:23, it says that God Himself, the God of peace, sanctifies you completely and preserves your whole being, spirit, soul and body.

I would like to touch on this introduction and I think it covers all three aspects, and at the same time, well, it has been my area of work. I think it is a strong area, I believe that excellence has to do with the restoration of a Gospel that comes to affect our being as God created us: spirit, soul and body.

I'm afraid that for many years the church, especially Latin, has focused very, passionately on the aspect of the spirit; a vertical relationship only to teach us to pray, if we do it well; to worship, to serve God. I think that the aspect of the soul has been neglected so much and in a great way, let alone the aspect of the body. Somehow we have elevated the spirit through the soul and the body, I am aware that we are spiritual beings in physical bodies, and we have explained this quite a bit when we talk about the composition of the human being: spirit, soul and body.

It strikes me that throughout the Scriptures, from Genesis to the end, I see God's emphasis in these three areas. So much so that the seal of God was in his creation, not only creating but supervising every aspect of God's creation, a material creation, of trees, animals, stars and moons and that is, tangible things. And the Lord put his seal and the Scripture says and God saw that it was good in a great way. And after creating another aspect, God saw that it was good in a great way and it was good in a way, and it was good in a way.

I don't know to what extent the cradle in which he was born, the cultural cradle in which the very Gospel of Jesus Christ was born has really affected us Christians today. And I mean that curiously one interprets the Scriptures according to one's idiosyncrasies.

An example, the ideal help, the wife, the ideal help. Culturally, I am honest with you, I read the ideal help and I said, if I need someone to iron me, wash my clothes, cook... in my idiosyncrasy, that was what I understood. Later as my mind and soul prospered, wow, I was going to understand that the best help was not a maid, a servant in my house. That is another responsibility. My wife is my ideal help, because she really thinks as differently as I do about other angles of life that I don't see, both church and home. In other words, now I understand that the ideal help was more than what I understood in my idiosyncrasy, in my training.

In the same way, when the Gospel reaches our time, you will remember that the Greek culture was already rampant, as the culture that predominated and even Rome was totally invaded with the art and the way of thinking of the Greeks and their great thinkers, philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, their origins.

Remember that these men came to understand life in their soul practically, in their fallen nature, and they did agree on two spheres of creation, an aspect of forms, we could call spiritual, invisible , where love, kindness, beauty and other physical, material aspects are. They explained, like Plato for example, that the two dimensions of life existed simultaneously. But they did not understand the concept of God's creation, they understood the concept that the material was a world of chaos, it was a world without form until negative, while the aspect of spiritual values was a positive aspect.

That is why a lot of art and thoughts were born from there because the explanation they gave was: you see, for example, a piece of wood or any other material, it is through the thought of man that gives it form and come out a beautiful image, be it sculpture or painting or any other piece of art.

Because they understood it that way, they elevated the spiritual aspect above the material, natural aspect. The result of this was to withdraw, to abstain from material things, to isolate themselves totally, to dedicate themselves only to cultivating their minds, to art, to music, to writing, to learning. While the other was, it was in a much lower sphere, which was not worth paying attention to. It was a positive current with... the material was only a negative aspect. That's where the sacrifice came from, the abstinence to pleasure, the abstinence to enjoy life in the natural aspect.

You will say, what does that have to do with it. Well, that was what was common at that time, that's what was in the air. The Gospel teaches us another aspect, it teaches us that God has certainly given us a spiritual life, but he also made a creation that was very good.

When we think of these thinkers, of these philosophers, who raised the spiritual aspect above all things, that was even adopted by the Catholic Church, which was...it was not known as the Catholic Church, it was the Christian church of that time, only, the Christian church, period, where what was worth was only the spiritual. Hence monasticism, hence withdrawing, hence asceticism, hence only the spiritual, withdrawing to caves, in convents, to only nurture the spiritual part because the other is not something worth attending to or investing time in. nor effort. Hence, the greatest sacrifice that a man can make, with pardon for singles, is delight, sexual pleasure. They said the greatest sacrifice is celibacy. The greatest sacrifice is to take vows of poverty.

In Scripture I don't read that. In Scripture I read, what's more, when one reads the Old Testament, "these blessings will come upon you, they will reach you." Not that you are going to pray more, not that you are going to fast more, not that you are going to have more communion with God, although it is due because it is the basis, if you attend to the word of God these blessings will come.

When you read Deuteronomy, for example, not only 28 but many Chapters, what blessings will go well for you, at home, at work, in the country, in the city, in your family trough, in the young of your cattle, in the fruit of your womb, that is, it was a God who was speaking to his people elevating what I consider, elevating the aspect that for many centuries was submerging as something worthless. I see that God throughout Scripture, that's why I read that verse, of the interest of God, spirit, yes, soul, but also body, speaks to us of the physical.

For me, excellence, whether at the level of a minister or at the ministry level, is one that maintains a focused balance between the spiritual, if it is true for that we are tremendous, but also restores the part of the soul, relationships with others, emotional life, learning as has already been said, the ability to constantly nourish our mind, our intellect, always being a disciple who is learning to... but also in the relationship in the emotional part, but also the body.

I believe, brothers, in the importance of restoring that aspect, sooner or later life collects its receipts, its invoices and we have seen ministers who for years gave in to a life of sacrifice even making vows of poverty for love of the Gospel, but life takes them very hard in the end, they die poor, without any plan, sick, because they never thought that material things would be something so significant and relevant in life. It is my passion and my studies that I carry out on this topic, which is one of the topics that fascinates me, the integral growth of a ministry.

If I believe in growth, I believe in crowds, but I also believe that those crowds have to be taught to develop healthy relationships, a healthy emotional life and also that I have to instruct them, even if it sounds like a good joke, what Dr. Polichuk was saying about Hispanics, right? no silver and no gold, but I think it doesn't have to be a sentence. I believe that God still wants to restore that aspect that has been so forgotten and that the world has taken advantage of it to finance all its garbage projects that are so harmful to society while the church is doing well for the time being, don't touch the material aspect. Let them continue to enjoy themselves in the four walls, rejoicing, jumping, praying for as long as they want, but don't make an impact. Because to cause an impact in society you need resources.

I think that excellence has to do with it, I just want to focus on those two, perhaps not touching the third, on the criteria, characteristics of a ministry of excellence, more than anything, focus on those two, I think that it is our responsibility to restore those three areas that God considers of utmost importance, as is the treatment in these three levels of the spirit, soul and body.

Thank you.

Well, the problem with being the last one is that they've sort of taken away everything that one can absolutely say, ..... simply what is said, rain pours as we say.

I was here scratching my head. Well what can I add. Actually a lot has been said and if I were a truly humble man I would say, no, there's nothing more to say, I'll shut up here and let the four of you do the talking, but I'm not, so I'm going to try to add my own aspect to it. all this and rather adding nuances to what my brothers have said here.

One thing I think is important for you who are listening to all this and who has talked about ministerial or pastoral excellence. Sometimes the tendency can be to say, well, that's for pastors. But in reality I believe that what we are talking about has applications to any type of leadership and I believe that most of you are here because you exercise some type of leadership and ministerial influence and ministries because we could have a whole debate about what it is ministry, right? It is service and each one of you is serving in different capacities and I believe that what we are discussing, I beg you just in case that idea has not dawned on you yet, that you see it in the light of your own ministry, your own life of service. and how can you apply these qualities and these reflections to your own ministerial, spiritual journey, ok. So it's very important that we remember that so we don't make the mistake of mentally detaching ourselves from what we're hearing.

Well, another thing is that as Dr Polichuk was saying, actually these three questions: what is an excellent minister? What is an excellent ministry and what are the criteria or characteristics of an excellent ministry? They are interrelated and it is difficult to separate one thing from the other too rigorously.