March 23, 2025
WOODSTOCK, Ga. — Some 375 Hispanic believers gathered Saturday, March 1, to be encouraged in their call to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ at three evangelism conferences organized by the Hispanic ministry of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board in various parts of the state.
Iglesia Nuevo Horizonte (New Horizon Church) hosted the north region event, and GBMB consultant Daniel Santander said 10 pastors brought 115 ministry leaders and church members to the conference. In the central region, 129 people attended the event at Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida en Cristo in Conyers. In the south, another 130 believers representing 15 churches met at Templo Bautista Hispano in Warner Robins.
Rafael Canadá, director of EnfoqueGlobal, told listeners that the Great Commission is great because it represents God’s great desire. Jesus Himself is the source of the mandate, Canadá said, and that is why the Great Commission is the central mission of the church of Christ.
“God’s divine plan is ‘to go,’” Canadá said, “and that plan still works.” Christ, he explained, spent His ministry going to where the people were. “Christ’s ministry is characterized by going.” The disciples understood that, and they went. “Our problem,” Canadá emphasized, “is not the understanding, it’s the doing.”
Canadá said it is the Holy Spirit that is the transforming power behind the gospel, and that power is still available to believers according to Romans 8:11. In terms of where to go, Canadá said believers are to be guided by the Holy Spirit. “It is the Holy Spirit that opens doors and gives opportunities.”
When he is asked if it might be dangerous to go to places where the gospel needs to be preached, Canadá said his response is “Yes, but we have Christ’s promise that He will be with us always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)”
In his message, Alex Cosio, pastor of Iglesia Nuevo Horizonte, shared that the Great Commission consists of five parts: go, make disciples, baptize, teach, because Jesus is with us.
How the church has historically carried out the mission over time has changed, but the fundamentals remain the same. Cosio explained that the early church understood the Great Commission to be an immediate mandate for the entire Christian community. They preached the gospel boldly, despite persecution.
The church of the Middle Ages focused more on institutional expansion and saw the growth of Christianity through political and church power. The Reformation brought a renewed emphasis on preaching and studying the Word of God, making it available to all people.
This was followed by the Missionary Movement of the 18th and 19th centuries. “God used men and women, such as Hudson Taylor, William Carey, Annie Armstrong, and others, to take the gospel to different parts of the world,” Cosio said. It was a return to the understanding of the early church to go, and those missionaries felt burdened to reach lost souls.
Cosio said the modern church sees the Great Commission as a task that includes evangelism, discipleship, social justice, and cultural transformation. It continues to send missionaries to the unreached peoples of the world.
Cosio contended that one trap some modern churches fall into is having a “missions ministry.” That reduces the call to only missionaries or a small group within the church. “The Great Commission is a task shared by the whole church,” he said. “Every member of the body of Christ should be actively involved in sharing the gospel, discipling others, and teaching the truth of the Word.”
Some churches are more focused inwardly, on growing the church rather than growing the body of Christ around the world. Cosio said that a “healthy church will grow naturally when its members carry out the mission of evangelizing and discipling.”
Other churches, he said, focus more on baptism rather than discipleship. “Baptism should be just the start,” Cosio said. Still others are more concerned with behavior rather than true transformation. “Genuine faith,” he explained, “is not a series of ‘good works.”
Lastly, some see the Great Commission as an obligation, a chore demanded of us by God, rather than an invitation from Jesus to participate in what He is already doing. “God will fulfill His purpose,” Cosio declared, “and He invites us to invest in His mission. He doesn’t need us, but He invites us to know Him and worship Him. What a privilege that is!”
Participants were given the option of attending one of four breakouts at the conference.
Canadá then spoke again, this time on “What is a missional church?” He said that to define a missional church, it is first necessary to define the mission. God’s very nature is integral to His mission, “He is a God who sends,” Canadá said.
From Genesis to Revelation, he said, the common thread that runs throughout the Bible is God’s mission to build His kingdom, which is made of people of all nations, tribes, and ethnicities throughout the Earth.
Churches exist, Canadá insisted, to carry out the mission of God. “The church is God’s instrument to communicate the message of Jesus Christ to all the peoples of the world.” In a missional church, everything revolves around that mission. “The missions ministry of a missional church is the congregation,” he declared.
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This article is also available in Spanish.
