Church Planter Conversation: Mario Figueroa
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Benjamin Kreps:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace Churches with our Executive Director. Mark, we have a guest.
Mark Prater:
We do. Our first one in quite a while.
Benjamin Kreps:
It has been quite a while, and it is none other than Mario Figueroa who is in Tampa, Florida. Mario, just this month, launched a new church plant, Vine Church in Tampa. It is part of a collection of church plants that are currently in the works. We have 15 churches being planted, Lord willing, over the next year: nine outside the states, six inside the States. And one of those church plants is the Vine Church.
We talked about Mario back on a podcast a few weeks ago, and now you're here. You have joined us on the Mark Prater podcast. So glad to have you here, Mario. And so, we're going to ask you some questions so folks that check out the podcast can learn more about you and what God's doing in your life and in Vine Church.
So, Mario, how did you learn about Sovereign Grace in the first place and why did you want to plant a church with Sovereign Grace in Tampa, Florida?
Mario Figueroa:
Well, thank you Ben. Thank you, Mark. It is an honor to be here. So, yeah, learned about Sovereign Grace Churches about two and a half years ago. And before then, I was very familiar because we used to sing songs from Sovereign Grace Music in our Hispanic church. And basically, about five years ago, the Lord was steering my heart to do a church plant. I wanted it to be a church plant with reformed theology, but at the same time also with a continuation theology. In my search, it was very difficult to find for me the relationships that would hold those two truths together. And, at some point, I was thinking, “Is it John Piper and I that are the only reformed continuationist pastors?” But at that moment, the Lord brought to my mind Joselo Mercado. And then, no, it's not only two of us. Now there are three.
So, what I did is that at the beginning it was just a relationship. I just wanted to know another pastor that is like-minded. And my conversations with Joselo were so encouraging, so loving, so caring. That sparked a desire for me to know, “Wait, with whom is Joselo actually affiliated with?” And then I went to his website and I saw that it was with Sovereign Grace. So, the first thing that I went to was to Sovereign Grace Statement of Faith. I was just overwhelmed with joy. I thought “Oh yes! This is where I wanted to be.”
And then I read the Book of Church Order and I thought, “This is amazing how it is crafted in a practical way to care for the church and care for the pastors through the BCO.” So immediately I reached back to Joselo to try and establish a connection with Sovereign Grace because I wanted this to happen. I had multiple conversations with Joselo and he connected me with Mike Seaver and Josh Murphy. I went to visit one of the classes in the Pastors College, and it was there that they were doing both. One of the classes was actually the church planting class that Mike Seaver does, and the Antioch project was also meeting there. All the pastors from the Antioch project from different states, from different backgrounds and their love into their relationship as pastors within the Sovereign Grace was happening. That was something that sparked a desire that I really wanted to join in Sovereign and for us to be this church plan to be a Sovereign Grace Church.
Mark Prater:
That's wonderful, Mario. It's humbling to hear about your interest in Sovereign Grace and to not just to know, but to rejoice in our theological compatibility in our Statement of Faith because that's what we want to build churches on that sound doctrine. The next step for you in really stepping into Sovereign Grace was to go to the Pastors College, which you and your family moved to Louisville, well a couple of years ago I believe, and went through the PC. Tell us how the Pastors College helped equip you to plant a church.
Mario Figueroa:
Yeah, it was in so many ways. Personally, to see just the teachers and the pastors that they were teaching through the Pastors College. You have Jeff Purswell, C.J. Mahaney, Brian Chesemore, Steve Witacre, Bob Kauflin, Josh Blount, among many others that have such a wealth of wisdom and knowledge. They were not only brilliant minds, but they were also humble pastors, and they had a love for Christ that was their drive, a love for Christ and love for his church. And that was one of the main things that it was ingrained. It's not just acquiring knowledge; it was our love for Christ motivating me to look for knowledge so that can serve well and faithfully our churches.
It's just also a desire for me to deepen my personal devotion with Christ himself and his word. I think that was very important how the Pastors College is crafted. It's not in an academic environment only. It's also transformative experience because you are within the context of a local church. They're not just investing in my knowledge and my soul. They were invested in my whole family, my wife, my kids, all those things. They were creating a DNA that you want to have in a church. And not only the pastors who were involved, the church in Louisville, all its members, the love the care, the encouraging their prayers. It was constantly that you leave out with such a Christ-like aroma that you say, this is what I want to create in our church.
So, the academic, it would be like this is only the foundation part of it, the knowledge and the doctrine. But everything else is built in too: how to live it out, our core values, our shaping virtues. It builds all that into your experience.
I think that one unique part of it is that our PC class was composed of many Latin families. They spoke Spanish also. One of them spoke Portuguese and English-speaking families. They crafted everything to be a multicultural unity within and everything was crafted thinking about how to not leave anyone separated or behind. Everything was united and that sparked the desire and the ideas to how can we do this in a local church that we have multiple languages and be able to live it out together.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful, Mario. I met you at Pastors College. I think that's the first time that we met. I dropped in for a class. I try to do that about once a year. I think it was C.J.'s class. It was his excellent, excellent class on pastoral ministry. And getting to meet you and hearing a little bit about your ambition to plant a church and something a little unusual for us in the States, which would be a bilingual church. That was your ambition, and you have, by God's grace, planted that church. You're in the process of planting this month and launching the church.
Talk to us about what your hope is in planting a bilingual church in Tampa. You talked a little bit before as we were chatting before we started recording. Talk about how you have two different services. You have one in English, one in Spanish. Talk to us about your strategy, your approach, and your hope in planting a bilingual church.
Mario Figueroa:
Yes. Well, basically one of the things is that we want to maintain what is the main thing. The main thing is just preach the Word faithfully and live it out and just portray the image of Christ so we can share the gospel with those that are not believing and people can come and have a place to worship. One of the hopes for this bilingual church is to maintain a multicultural unity and multi-generational unity. What is unique for, and I'm assuming it would be for any other church with other languages within the United States, is that you have a first generation of families that they speak. Their main language in our case is Spanish, but as the second generation is growing up within the States, their main language becomes English. So English becomes their predominant language. Also mixed families where one spouse main language is English and the other one is Spanish.
And even though that they can communicate with each other; they're having the challenge of thinking theologically and processing God's truth in one specific language. And our hope is that this church will be able to serve both to maintain that multi-generational and multicultural unity within them. And we already, by the grace of God, are seeing those first fruits in our few services that we've had.
Yes, our first service is in English. What happens is that the Spanish speaking families, they come to the English service, and they are serving during the English service. Then the English-speaking families, they wait for the second service so they can serve the Spanish speaking families.
Benjamin Kreps:
Wonderful.
Mario Figueroa:
They remain one church together and they're serving one another in everything on the logistics. And for us to celebrate together, we hold one of the services a month. It's always the first Sunday of the month. We hold a joint by full bilingual service where we are singing both in English and in Spanish, reading Scripture in English and Spanish, praying with translation from English to Spanish. And then the sermon is preached in English. We have an app that we use as an AI translator that just communicates very naturally. So they're listening through their own phones, through their smartphone. So that's something that we are rejoicing in it.
Mark Prater:
That's a beautiful picture of how the gospel transcends language, cultural, ethnic barriers, which are all manmade of course. It just reaches every tribe and tongue and nation with the gospel. That's wonderful. So, Mario, you've started your services. How have the first services gone? Tell us about the first service.
Mario Figueroa:
Yes, it was a sweet time from the Lord, just how he graciously let us have our first service of celebrating it. And we had our first public one was this past Sunday just celebrating Easter together. We had our first English service and singing. The reading of Scripture was encouraging. The families were so encouraged, the visitors that came in, they were so encouraged by it. And, also, how they were able to be ministered through the preaching of the word.
What was unique is that families, both English and Spanish, they were sitting down, trying to see the resemblance of the sermon because it's the same sermon that it is preached on. And they were like, “Oh, now I'm learning the language and now I know how to say it.” So it was wonderful from beginning to end. All the families were involved in working, in serving, as we were setting up and just tearing down everything for that. So it was a huge celebration from the Lord and what better way to do it when Christ resurrected.
Mark Prater:
Quick follow up question, Mario. If someone listening to this podcast lives in the Tampa area or knows of someone that lives in the Tampa area and would like to come visit your church or pass along the information, tell us where you're meeting and mention your website.
Mario Figueroa:
Yes, thank you. So, our website is vctampa.org. They can visit the website. We're right now gathering at a Holiday Inn in the Tampa area and, of course, gathering at a hotel, the majority of the time we're in one place. But sometimes we're rotating into other hotels as we find a more permanent place. You immediately will have a prompt as you go to the website to see where we going to be celebrating together our Sunday service.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. Well, it's so encouraging to hear about your zeal to make Christ known in the Tampa area through the proclamation of the gospel and what a wonderful example you're setting when it comes to pursuing maybe uncommon ways of planting in this bilingual model. I think it’s something that can be emulated potentially in the future as we consider more church plants. Before we go, I am confident that there are several folks that have been praying for you in Sovereign Grace Churches as pastors and members, and we've been tracking your progress following updates over the last year or so. Tell us quickly, how can we pray for you? Especially for your family, how's your wife and kids doing with all this change that's been going on over the last couple of years and now launching a church? How can we pray for you, your family, and your church plant?
Mario Figueroa:
Oh, thank you. My wife’s name is Deanna and my daughters are Anna Sophia, an 11-year-old redhead, and 2-year-old Mila Valentina. And, by the grace of God, they are healthy. They are well, they are all encouraged and involved within the church plant and always with the anticipation of what we’ll be doing on our next service or any other time that we meet together as a church.
I would say that if you could pray that church planting it is a lot of work. And at the same time, we don't want to be over-focused on the work. We want to be treasure in Christ. So, pray that as we are all working together, we are working together because of our love for Christ. Pray that to be our focus and to love him more and be always in expectations of what he's going to be doing through each interaction that we're going to be having.
I would say that if you can pray that we can find a location and the means for it. Pray that we can not only gather on Sundays, but we can gather during the week as we're gathering in homes currently. It's a very great time that we're having, but I know that just jumping from one place to another, it will minimize that exhaustion for the family so we can gather in one place and for the means so we can actually sustain it.
Benjamin Kreps:
Excellent. Well, Mario, thank you for coming on the podcast. We just respect you so much and we admire and appreciate your compelling example in planting Vine Church in Tampa, in Sovereign Grace. We exist to plant churches and to strengthen churches, and you certainly are making a meaningful contribution in our shared mission together. And so, we thank God for you, Mario. And we thank God for everybody who has checked out the podcast and we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.