The work that God is doing in Latin America is so big and there are so many needs, but we have been given the privilege of serving in what we have seen as one of the most consistent and crucial needs—the training of faithful men for service in the local church. There has been an incredible revival in Latin America over the past decade in which many have come to a more biblical understanding of the gospel and the church. Latin America has a great need for sound-theological, biblically-balanced, Christ-like men who will serve in the pastoral ministry or in church planting. As was the case in our Lord’s day, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.
To meet this need, our local church, Iglesia Bautista Reformada Gracia Soberana, has been involved in the ministry of the Pastor School since its foundation in 2014. It has had various forms over the years as we have sought to meet the needs that God has presented to us. However, in 2020 we started a more mature and we believe more effective form that seeks to invest in faithful men who have a heart for Christ’s glory and His people.
One of the foundational texts of this ministry is 2 Timothy 2:2—
“What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
2 Timothy 2:2
In this passage, we see Paul handing on the truth that is to be believed and to be lived to Timothy, and then he calls him to take up the baton and pass it on to the next generation. Paul sought to invest in faithful men and he always had a heart that hoped to see the fruit of others built up and firmly established—both in our generation and the next.
Iglesia Bautista Reformada Gracia Soberana
In accordance with our philosophy of the centrality of the local church, we want the entirety of our program to be under the guidance and authority of the local church, and we want our students to be active in serving in the local church, and their gifts to be examined by the church. It is crucial that the local church be the one who is evaluating the gifts and calling of students because Christ has given the authority to appoint elders to the church—not to a training program. For this reason, this program is a ministry of Iglesia Bautista Gracia Soberana in Santo Domingo, Ecuador.
Local Church Foundation
This ministry is overseen and supported by the local church and has been a part of its heart since the beginning. Those involved in the program are pastors of local churches, and the ministry is overseen as an official ministry of the local church.
Local Church Function
Likewise, it functions in the context of the local church because the students we invited come from various parts to Santo Domingo where they can be a part of our church as well as be trained by our church’s pastors. Moreover, our program focuses both on sound biblical instruction as well as practical piety and service, both of which are developed and put into practice in the local church. Throughout their time in the program, the students have opportunities to accompany the pastors in serving in the church and also for teaching, preaching, and discipleship.
Local Church Focus
Finally, we invite men to join this program who already have a heart for the local church and have some evidence of gifting for pastoral ministry. This ministry is designed to accompany the local church as it seeks to meet the needs for new church plants or pastors in other cities across Ecuador. For this reason, we seek to involve students in church planting opportunities or other missionary work as soon as possible and as the Lord providentially opens the door.
The Program
The program is designed to be a two-and-a-half-year full-time study curriculum. We have designed our program to help our students grow both in their understanding of Scripture as well as the way the Scriptures is reflected in their lives. To accomplish this, there are two main parts to our program.
First, our program seeks to present a rigorous program of theological, exegetical, historical, and practical study that will push students to think biblically and in a balanced way about the full-range of theological topics and will train them how to faithfully exposit God’s Word and then preach the truth to God’s people.
Second, the program provides the opportunity for the students to live life together in the body of Christ and under the discipleship of the pastors of the church. We have the opportunity to fellowship together, for our families to have regular communion, to serve together in the local church and in the other opportunities that the pastors receive to serve abroad, to go through difficult situations together, and to use the diversity of life as a teaching tool to prepare men who are both sound in their theology but also humble and godly in their character.
Listen to what previous students have said about the program:
Throughout the program, students will receive 21 credit hours in the biblical languages; 27 in exegetical theology, including two exegetical courses on the pastoral epistles; 35 in systematic theology, 16 in Church history, and 18 credit hours in pastoral theology.
The program is designed to cover all the essential things pastors should know, and we have sought to organize them in a logical way where the classes lead cohesively into one another. However, we want there to be four common themes that run throughout the whole program.
First, we want there to be a thoroughly pastoral focus from beginning to the end. For this reason, each class is taught from a pastoral perspective and there are classes dedicated to pastoral ministry that extend the whole length of the program.
Second, we want there to be a commitment to the centrality of Scripture and the need for pastors to know the Bible and be able to interpret it correctly. For this reason, we begin with a strong core of exegetical theology, but then have regular preaching/teaching practice and exegetical classes that extend the length of the whole program.
Third, we want students to have a clear understanding of the various topics of theology in their biblical and historical context. For this reason, we seek to coordinate our historical classes with our systematic classes and to base each doctrine on its confessional summary and its biblical foundation.
Fourth, we want students to cultivate their heart and lives as much as their minds. We are convinced that it is a very dangerous thing to have a mind full of knowledge without a life that has been transformed by the truth believed. For this reason, we seek to give course a practical and devotional focus, as well as daily times of devotion and prayer. Also, at various times throughout the program we take a week off of the normal schedule of classes to dedicate the whole week to the study of a practical topic. We are conscious that we are not only training pastors, but men who are first of all Christians, husbands, and fathers. So, we want students to leave our program understanding theology better, but even more so we want each student to leave loving Christ, his wife, his children, and his local church more.
The Schedule
The program lasts two and a half years. Due to the nature of the program as a life lived together in the body of Christ, the program does not follow a traditional semester format, but rather runs throughout the entire year, taking a few weeks off at the end and in the middle of the year.
The program is organized around 16 cycles of classes that are made up of 6 weeks of study. The first five weeks of the cycle will have classes four days out of the week. On these days, we will begin with a time of devotional and prayer, and then have classes from 8:00am – 1:00pm. There will be a variety of exegetical, systematic and historical theology classes each day, but every week the students will receive classes on the biblical languages and exegesis as well as pastoral theology. The afternoons are available to the students for study, spending time with their family, serving in the church, or taking part in ministry opportunities in the local church or in one of the church’s missions. The sixth week of each cycle will be a week without classes so that the students can finish the reading and writing assignments of each course.
The program is about both education and communion. There are lots of great resources online—books, recorded sermons and lectures, etc.—however, simply watching things online does not always prepare men in the practical aspects that are so important for their family and ministry. For this reason, our goal moving forward is to construct housing for up to eight students so that the teachers and students can be together in order to optimize the efficiency of the program. In this way, we not only can reduce costs for the ministry longterm, but we can also maximize the amount of time the students can spend in fellowship and training, with their families, and in service opportunities in the local church. To know more about this project and how you can help see this post.
The Students
The first generation of the Pastor School received three students. All of these students are married and have children. They moved to Santo Domingo in the early part of 2020 from both the South and North of Ecuador. Support from churches and individuals helped to provide a monthly offering to each student so that he could dedicate as much of his time as possible to study, his family, and ministry in the church.
These students have been such a huge blessing to our church and to my life. I would love for you to meet them. If you can’t make a trip to come meet them in person (which you are more than welcome to do!), you can read this series of posts to get to know a little more about them.
This group of students graduated in July of 2023. Oscar is now serving as the pastor of his home church in Tulcán, Ecuador. You can check out this post to learn more about how God is using him after finishing the program. José and Dennis are currently active in our local church in Santo Domingo and are leading our church’s efforts to plant churches in other cities. Lord willing, they will be serving full-time in church planting in two different cities in 2023. You can check out this post to learn more about how God is using them and more specific ways to pray.
Please Pray for Us!
Please pray for Jorge and me and our students as we seek to serve the Lord and be faithful to His Word, to reflect His character, and to love His people. Please commit to regularly pray for us personally and in your church, family, or small group.
You can be a part of this ministry as well! We need more churches or individuals to partner with us at to be able to help these students with their living expenses during their time of study, as well as during their transition to pastoral ministry, to provide resources for them, as well as to facilitate other opportunities for the kingdom of God to advance in Latin America. We would love for your church to partner with us and to sponsor one of our students. We would also love to send you the information (Testimony, plans, names, birthdays, contact info, and a photo) of the student you are sponsoring. For more information, please contact us or go to this link to see how you can support.
Walls' Latin-American Mission 