"We are in three cities. We speak two languages. And we try to be one church. It’s complex."

Church planter Walter Angelica discusses the journey that led him from Argentina to Jacksonville, Florida, and beyond.

0:18 Lee Stephenson introduces special guest Walter Angelica, pastor of Iglesia Ciudad, a church plant with three congregations in Florida.

0:50 Walter talks about moving to Jacksonville, Florida, from Argentina to do his seminary work and how he responded to God’s call to plant a church in Jacksonville.

1:55 Walter discusses planting a Latino church in a city that doesn’t have many Latino families.

2:32 Walter explains if there is a difference between the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino."

4:41 Walter talks about the challenges of growing from one to three congregations.

6:36 "We are in three cities. We speak two languages. And we try to be one church. It’s complex."

8:34 Walter says church planting is not a normal part of Latino church culture. He’s noticed in the Latino community that many church plants are created through splits.

9:18 "We planted the church within the same vision and value trying to embrace unity among diversity. It has been a challenge, but it has been a beautiful challenge."

10:48 Walter has realized that each congregation has its own culture. "The things that work in Jacksonville don’t work in Orange Park, and the thing that works in Orange Park is not necessarily working here in Orlando."

11:43 Walter believes in the traditional form of church — meeting in person. "When the people of God are in the presence of God, the power of God manifests. So we’re doing everything we possibly can to get back as a church."

Lee Stephenson: Welcome, everyone, to the Unfiltered podcast. Lee Stephenson here, executive director of church planting.

Danny Parmelee: I’m Danny Parmelee. And I oversee church planting for Converge MidAmerica.

Lee Stephenson: And we are recording live from Orlando today. And we got a special guest with us, Walter Angelica, the church planter right here in our presence, the pastor of Iglesia Ciudad. Started in Jacksonville, but has recently and continuously expanded. So you’re about 10 years old. And I’ll have you just take a moment, Walter, share a little bit of your story. And why did you pick Jacksonville, Florida, as your landing point to start your first church and talk to us a little bit about where you’re at now, when it comes to the church as a whole?

Walter Angelica: Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me. It’s an honor for me to be with you guys. And if you don’t understand my thick Southern accent, I’m sure you guys gonna print the transcript by the end of the program, so you can read everything that I’m trying to say. Well, my name is Walter. I’m originally from Argentina. I’ve been in the country for most of, for the last 20 years. I moved to Jacksonville because someone gave me an opportunity to do my seminary work. So the Logos University was located in Jacksonville and after I graduated, I decided to go back home and they asked me to work for the university. And after that I worked for an American church, and I was ready to go back, but that didn’t work out and I ended up responding to God’s call in Jacksonville, Florida. That’s where everything started.

Lee Stephenson: Now Jacksonville as a whole would not necessarily, like I’ve heard you say like it’s not a hub of Spanish speakers, right?

Walter Angelica: Definitely not. This is a, if you’re thinking about planting a Latino church, Jacksonville is not the more diverse and demographic city in the entire United States, we only have between 4 to 7% of Latinos. So as a very small community, although Jacksonville is a big city, we don’t have a great number of Latino families in Jacksonville.

Danny Parmelee: As long as this is unfiltered. Lee, you said Hispanic, you responded Latino, what’s the difference between Latino and Hispanic? Or is there not? Or is it a matter of preference? Or?

Walter Angelica: Well, actually, I’ve been fascinated lately, studying about different cultures and whether, where culturals come from. And the reason I use Latino because if we use it Latino, Hispanic, this is the reality, we are 21 different nations melting into one new name, so it doesn’t matter if you are Argentinian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, you end up with a new title called Latino. So it says it’s a last name that we inherited somehow, from somewhere so but Latino or Hispanic, for me in my context it’s not much of a difference.

Danny Parmelee: So why do you prefer Latino? Or is it, would someone be like offending someone if I said, Hey, are you Hispanic or Hispanic churches or Hispanic church planter in comparison to Latino?

Walter Angelica: Well, I like to use the word Latino because I come from Latin America, so it makes me feel more like, you know, I’m from South American and Central America. So that’s what is the first thing that comes to my mind. So, but it’s perfectly OK. You can call someone Latino or Hispanic. It’s perfectly fine. But please don’t call me Mexican assuming that every Latino is Mexican. I know Americans are geographically challenged. You know, for you guys, everything up north is Canada, everything that’s south is Mexico. There’s hundreds of countries up there.

Lee Stephenson: Thanks for reeducating us. Now, you’re not just one congregation at this point. So you’ve continued to expand and have a heart to reach more and more Spanish speakers, specifically in the state of Florida right now. But you have a heart even beyond that to see more people come to Jesus and hear the gospel in their language, which I think is, you know, part of all of our hearts when it comes to being ministers of the gospel. Talk about where you’re at now, when it comes to congregations, and what were the struggles that you had to go through to go from one to two, and now two to three?

Walter Angelica: Well, when we started the church, I thought God was punishing us. When we started a congregation, we started a church and we thought is going to be only old ladies who don’t speak a word of English and that would be the rest of the story. But it happened. The reality is many families, young families decided to join us with kids, professional, fully bilingual, and we realized that God was doing something. And regardless of the size of the church, I believe that every congregation that is healthy needs to grow to some point and degree. There’s a group of people that believe that, you know, we will concentrate on the quality so we’re not going to grow. And although I’m a single child, I’m glad that many of my friends that have brothers and sisters or they’re the youngest. They are, I mean, the oldest or the youngest, I’m glad that the moms didn’t decide, well, we’re only going to have one kid that we’re going to concentrate on the quality of that kid. I’m glad that moms decided to have multiple kids. What I’m trying to say is that every congregation should think, I don’t know about using the terms exponentially, but decide to grow. This is one of the values of our church to grow one small group, two small group teams. I’m, yeah, we started in Jacksonville 10 years ago, and the church grew. Six years later, or seven years later, we thought there was something, it was great. We added more services, we even added English services, we hope to launch a full campus in the future.

Lee Stephenson: So let me let me pause you right there. Like you went from just being Spanish to actually being in two languages, right?

Walter Angelica: So right now, let me tell you the reality, we have four services in three cities in two languages. But we are trying to be one church. Let me say that again. We have four services. We are in three cities. We speak two languages. And we are trying to be one church. Complex, definitely complex. To the point that I spoke to one of my teachers. And I told him about the complexity of this task and I asked my professor, what should I consider? Because we want to be multicultural, multigenerational church in multiple locations. And he told me, you have to consider this suicide. And he was telling me the truth. It’s super difficult. And there’s challenges. I mean, we went from one service to two services to an English service. And then we decided to start a new congregation in a nearby city. I think one of the more difficult things for me, just let people go, we set aside 20 of our best leaders, the more generous leaders, the more mature leaders, and we add them 40 of the members that we don’t like anymore. And we put them in the package. And we send them to a city called Orange Park and they started a congregation and they have been growing, I believe, faster than the main campus.

Danny Parmelee: Walter. So, within the Latino church culture is church planting kind of like the norm? Evangelical white church planting is kind of like at least on the radar, is that true of Latino kind of church culture? And then second of all, what about multisite? So again, now that’s kind of the norm. Or did you also have extra barriers? Because even within your own subculture, if you will, at the church it’s like, well, wait, why would we do this? Do you understand kind of what I’m asking?

Walter Angelica: Definitely, we’re not the norm. My training for church planting back home was an empty head and an empty hen. So if you have an empty head and an empty head, you can baptize someone and send them to plant a church, so that was the strategy, and thank God, I learned a few things about how to plant a church. But I’m, one of the things that we noticed that in order to plant the church in many of the contexts of the Latino community is through splits. So that’s how you plant churches, you know, you split one.

Danny Parmelee: You’re saying in a negative sense. There’s a fight and so now these 20 people go off and they’re all mad, and that’s church planting.

Walter Angelica: Yeah, that’s called church planting. So we were one of the few that we implemented things like if, in Jacksonville, we were one of the first mobile churches. We rented the university and we set up and tear down there was so that was not usual, I mean, normal and the fact that we planted the church within the same vision and value trying to embrace unity among diversity. Even within our own church, we had 21 different people that call Iglesias their church, but they come from different backgrounds. So it has been a challenge, but it has been a beautiful challenge.

Lee Stephenson: Well, Walter, I appreciate you sharing the story. And it really is a remarkable thing of what God has done in the last 10 years in your heart to reach more and more with the good news of who Jesus is. And it’s evident your heart for your people and your heart for the state of Florida. And now that you’re in three different cities, and two different languages and four different services. I love that. But that heart of being one in the midst of that, any unique challenges that just as we kind of wrap up the conversation that you’ve learned as a leader, leading three different locations in the midst of COVID, in the midst of a pandemic, that you would just say, for our listeners that are out there that may identify with similar challenges.

Walter Angelica: Many. We have this new idea to plant here in Orlando, Florida. And I’m understanding that the cultures and I’m not talking about ethnicity, I’m talking about what we generate as a church. Each church has their own culture. Actually, it has been studied that culture comes from the word cultivate. So we are cultivating different cultures for our churches. And once we moved to Orlando, we realized that the culture in Orlando, the rhythms in our church are completely different. And we are struggling with trying to figure it out. The things that work in Jacksonville don’t work in Orange Park. The thing that worked in Orange Park is not necessarily working here in Orlando. But I’m struggling, I mean, this has not been an easy journey for all of us. And COVID definitely is not helping the process at all. But I do believe in the traditional form of the church. We are all for technology. We broadcast the messages. We do all that. But I’m still convinced that when the people of God are in the presence of God, the power of God manifests. Let me say that again. When the people of God are in the presence of God, the power of God manifests, so we’re doing everything we possibly can just to get back as a church. And we’re up to 65% of capacity when it comes to COVID and all the limitations. But be flexible, follow the Lord, keep your faith fresh, your vision open. Always seek the well-being of the city wherever you are.

Lee Stephenson: Love it, love it. Well, thanks for taking the time to share a little bit of your story and it’s been a great journey and can’t wait to see how the journey continues for you and the leaders that you’ve raised up around you. For our listeners, thanks for tuning in as well. This has been the Unfiltered podcast. Till next time, keep it real.