Overview
Today on the podcast, I talked to Rev. Dr. Iosmar Alvarez. Dr. Alvarez is an Asbury Seminary alum and the Global Executive Director of Disciple 21, a church planting and re-missioning network that the Seminary has partnered with. He is also a pastor, church planter and district superintendent for the United Methodist Church in Lexington.
I could not be more excited to share today’s conversation with you. We talked about Iosmar’s Jesus story, his call to church planting, some ways that we can continue to explore and find our own calling, some discipleship strategies that he practiced on me during the podcast. It’s super easy and was really helpful and something that y’all listening can practice by yourself or with someone else because as we’ll learn in today’s episode, relationships are a key part of our growth as humans.
Let’s listen!
*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.
Rev. Dr. Iosmar Alvarez, Global Executive Director of Disciple 21
Dr. Iosmar Alvarez, a native from Cuba, came to the United States in 2001. God began to work in his life in supernatural ways as he began to serve as a local pastor in the Kentucky Conference in 2002.
A veterinarian doctor of profession, Dr. Alvarez is now passionately serving God by planting worshiping congregations and making disciples. In the last 10 years he has planted several Hispanic Churches for God’s Kingdom.
Dr. Alvarez’s educational theological journey began when he graduated from Garret Theological Seminary, with the Course Studies Program in 2010. In December 2011, he finished his Masters in Divinity from United Theological Seminary, Dayton, Ohio. In addition, he earned another Masters degree in Christian Leadership in 2012 from Lindsey Wilson College and won the Harry Denman Evangelism Award in 2013.
Dr. Alvarez is a prolific author on leadership development and church growth with 5 books written on those subjects and is also the Founder & C.E.O of Disciple 21 Church Planting Network. Disciple 21 is A National Multicultural Network with the goal of planting 2500 churches by 2028. In addition, Iosmar is a certified coach for SLI & Path1, who are nationally UMC recognized agencies for church planting, development and transformation.
Dr. Alvarez graduated with his Doctoral Ministry degree at Asbury Theological Seminary in 2017, becoming a keynote speaker for nationally recognized networks such as New Room and Fresh Expression USA and an active board member of GO International.
Dr. Alvarez has the honor to train leaders nationwide on how to plant churches and develop church cultures and processes to make disciples. He pastors these wonderful churches along with his wife Zulayne Alvarez, who supports and helps him in carrying the vision to the future generations.
Heidi Wilcox, host of the Thrive Podcast
Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.
Transcript
Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast, where we bring you conversations with authors, thought leaders, and people just like you who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s deep need. Today on the podcast, I got to talk to Reverend Dr. Iosmar Alvarez. Dr. Alvarez is an Asbury Seminary alum, the global executive director of Disciple 21, a church planting and remissioning network that the seminary has partnered with. He is also a pastor, church planter, and he’s the district superintendent for the United Methodist Church in Lexington.
Heidi Wilcox:
So you guys, I cannot be more excited to share today’s episode with you. We talked about Isomar’s Jesus story, his call to church planting, some ways that we can continue to explore and find our own calling, his discipleship strategy that he practiced on me during the podcast, and it’s super easy and simple and really helpful and insightful. And it’s something that y’all listening can practice at home, either by yourself or in relationship with someone else, because as we’ll learn in today’s episode, relationships are a key part of our growth as human beings. So let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Alvarez.
Heidi Wilcox:
Dr. Alvarez, thanks so much for being on The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast today. I am really looking forward to our conversation. We connected a couple years ago for your Voices story, and we’ll link to that in the show notes as well, but I’m just looking forward to this opportunity to catch up and find out a little bit more about what God is doing in your life and through your ministry as a pastor and church planter.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Amen, thank you.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I want you to tell a little bit about your story in Cuba. You were a veterinary doctor and a surgeon, but you still were dissatisfied. How did you come to know Christ and then experience your call to be a church planter?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I mean, as a Methodist pastor, one of the reason I am Methodist is because of the doctrine of grace, and the way the Methodist church explain grace is very powerful. And me being a thinker and a processor, so make sense to me the way Wesley expose grace. So I really believe in prevenient grace and justifying grace. So because of that, I believe that even though I was a vet doctor, veterinarian doctor and a surgeon, and I was happy and doing what I supposed to do. After a while, I just have this emptiness and lack of fulfillment, even though I was doing everything I plan to do.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And because of prevenient grace, the Holy Spirit was already hovered all over me, the same way he does in Genesis 1. He said that even everything was dark and formless and void. The Holy Spirit was moving. That’s the best definition of prevenient grace. No matter where you are, the Holy Spirit is moving with you, around you [crosstalk 00:03:35]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… bringing you closer to Jesus. So I think I was under that umbrella, and I didn’t know it, because even though I was doing what I was supposed to do because I’m a visionary. I plan things, and then I pursue them and I have a resilient spirit, no matter what I’m doing. So I was what I supposed to be as a doctor and what I was doing, but right to your destination and guess what? It’s not fun. It’s hurting your mind, but then you are there and you’re not satisfied the way you should be. So I think that the Holy Spirit used that, satisfaction and begin a work even deeper during those years.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I’m talking about 2000, 2001 and I just realized that there is something more. And when my home church in Cuba, they had a revival that I decided to go because everybody was asking me to go and I said, “Okay, fine.” I go with a neighbor, and this neighbor was relentless. She was every day inviting me to church, every Sunday since I was little.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Boy, and God have a plan for you, and God have a plan for you. And she grew old and me too, and not going to church, but for some reason, that Sunday I decided to go. I mean, I was 27 and boom, explosion. So everything happens there [crosstalk 00:05:13]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Now-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… this encounter with grace again, this time not prevenient grace but the justifying grace.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Just experienced God and Christ to a whole new level and I decided, “This is it. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow, how did you experience your call to be a church planter, because coming to know Jesus as savior is one thing, but then knowing what he wants you to do with your life is something else altogether. So how did you know?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I learned that by accident. Well, I learned that by accident. I believe that people needs to stop asking questions about what God want them to do and begin to ask the question of who you are, because-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, interesting.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Because at the end of the day, God would never ask you to do anything disconnected from who you are. So if you know who you are, you pretty much would have a sense of what the mission would be. You’ve got to-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I believe you cannot move if you don’t know who you are, because if you begin to move, you’re beginning a journey without knowing who you are. You might end up in the wrong place, because that place has nothing to do with who you are, and that happened to me as a doctor. I wanted to be that, all that, and then I arrived to my destination and then find out, “This is not what I want to do.” So I learned really fast that the first step is knowing who you are. So being a church planter was by accident. I never prayed to be a pastor. I never asked that prayer.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I receive it a word when I came to Christ, “God’s calling you to be a pastor.” I was laughing about it, because last thing I wanted to do. I received Christ 2001, August 4th, 2001. And August 7th or 9, I receive this word. I was just brand new and I received that, and I just laugh about it, whatever. And then, seven months later, I was planting a church.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
But for me, it was by accident, because I never prayed, “I want to be a pastor. I receive your call,” nothing like that. It was more like my desire to help people. As a vet doctor, I wanted to help animals. I wanted to help the owner of the animals. I wanted to invest in people. That’s who I am. I invest in people. I love people. I’m a people person. That’s who I am. I was doing that through a channel of medicine and now through the channel of the office of a pastor, and that never changed, but I was doing that with passion in both places. And then, I was just helping people when they ask, “Hey, can you teach us some Bible? Give us a Bible study or something.”
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And I just teach them what I knew. Again, seven month as a believer, only I just receive one course, Saving a Step of Faith, something like that. And I gave them what I had received. And then, they say, “Why you don’t preach us a sermon? This is powerful. We like this. Why you don’t preach a sermon?”, and I preached the same thing. The same thing I taught them, I preached them. I preached that to them, because I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything. I just knew enough and what I knew, that Christ is powerful. He changed my life. Sometimes, people, they want to know.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
They want to be more ready than the apostle, Paul, before they go to ministry. God doesn’t need that. If you know what he did in your life, your story, I mean, the most powerful thing that you have is your story. It’s not your seminary degree. It’s your story, because you are a testimony, a walking testimony that Christ can change your life, and I believe that we not use our stories. And that’s why I love this program about the [inaudible 00:09:12] stories, because we are not doing this enough. And after a while, you want to change the story or not tell it anymore, because you just get tired of telling the story, but the reality is that’s the most powerful weapon that you have in your life, because you are a new witness testimony that God can change your life.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And the first church I planted, that’s all I was doing every single sermon. I didn’t know much. I didn’t know about the minor prophet and the lesser prophet. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything. I’m serious. I mean, I just knew the gospel. That’s it.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, but you had your story. And I remember when we chatted for your Voices interview, you said something that still stands out to me, that the most effective weapon of God is a Christian still in the first love stage of their relationship with Jesus Christ and-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly.
Heidi Wilcox:
That’s what you were doing.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly, exactly. We’re killing people. We’re killing people with too much knowledge. When you’re in the first love, that’s the most powerful weapon you have. Don’t fight. Let people go, let people go. Just send them and that’s-
Heidi Wilcox:
So-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… what I did. So it was accident. And then, before I knew, a church was there and people asking me to baptize them, and I began to do that.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So was this in Cuba, your first church-plant, or was this in the US?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
No, here in the US. I left Cuba. I left Cuba in 2001, December 2001, came to United State with the idea of the big American Dream. I think I shared that in the testimony, having my own house, two kids, one dog, a new car, go to [crosstalk 00:10:53]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I had it all planned out. That’s who I am. It’s like check, check, check, check. That’s my plan when I came to the United States, and then I had an experience where I see my people. The growth of the Hispanic population back then was crazy, even though it’s growing now, but not like in 2001. It was massive. It was like sheep without a shepherd, like what Jesus refers to when he was in Jerusalem, same feeling. So I decided, you know what, I either go this route where I become a doctor in the United States, and I can operate as a doctor in the United States, or I embrace the calling. So I [crosstalk 00:11:37]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, I really liked what you said about not asking what God wants us to do, but asking who we are, who we are created to be, and you talked about some of the things that you came to know. You wanted to help animals at first and help their owners. So it was all tied into helping people, which is what you do now, just in a different way. How can we come to know who we are? How do we discover that?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s good. That’s a good question. What is strange sometime, that we have information fatigue. Do you know how many-
Heidi Wilcox:
Sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Do you know how many books do we have about that?
Heidi Wilcox:
A ton, because I’ve read a lot of them.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Do you know how many sermons that you have on that? Do you know how many podcast do we have on that?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
At some point, you have to stop reading stuff and go to the sacred place and find your voice with God and listening from your creator, from him, from him and through scripture what he wants you to… who you are, who you are, who you are. And from that will flow what you have to do, but it’s basically do an inventory of your life, just go inside. Make a list or something of some sort of who you are, what you love, and what you hate. In my experience, it is a combination of what you love and what you hate. That’s who you are, okay? So whatever you have to do will flow from that, from what you love and from what you hate.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So what you love, that will connect that. You love people. Okay, that will connect you to something, different channels, different platform for you to love people, invest in people, equip people. That’s a part of who I am, and then you go to the other side, what you hate. Well, I hate injustice. Some people hate when they go into a house and the house is a mess. They cannot stand the mess.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
They can lead one through the mess, but they cannot stand the mess. They have to clean out. They have to put everything in order. So if you hate this chaos, God maybe, just maybe, God wants to send you to places of chaos for you to bring order, because [crosstalk 00:13:56]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… God does. He goes into chaos and he brings order. You hate injustice. Okay, maybe what you going to have to do with that. Maybe you will be a judge, or you will be a pastor, or you will be a civil-right-movement person. I don’t know, but believe me. Whoever you can’t stand, God himself placed that in your heart so you get up and you do something about it. It’s not for you to talk about it and pray about it and read about it. It’s for you to get up and go and do something about it, become the change that you want to see. So for you again, everything flows from who I am, who I am and it’s basic first.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You’re a child of God. That’s basic. You are a child of God, and then what? You are a believer, and then what? You are a disciple, and then what? You are a leader, because we are all leaders. We are all leading something. You’re leading your household. You are leading your friend. You are leading a neighbor. You are leading a corporation. You are leading a church. You are leading a ministry. Everybody’s leading, because we are born to lead. That’s the way God created us. That’s the DNA that we have. So do something about it. Just find out what you love and what you hate. That would be my recipe, kaboom. You know what-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You will know pretty fast what [crosstalk 00:15:20]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I keep interrupting you. It’s hard when we’re doing it virtually, because I can’t see your mouth or whatever when you’re at a stopping point. I apologize.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
No, it’s okay. You’re fine, you’re fine. It’s a conversation, back and forth.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, it sounds like what you said, what makes you angry in a way, something you’re like, “This has to change in the world. Somebody has to do something about it.” It sounded like you were like, “It’s going to be me.”
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly, exactly, exactly. At some point, you have to realize it’s you. If it’s not you, who? Somebody else, somebody [inaudible 00:16:01]. If it’s not you, if not now, when, things like that, but again-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So you saw the need in the Hispanic community when you came over, when you immigrated from Cuba. What was that need like, and what did you decide to do about it?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Okay, well, the Hispanic people, again they left the country. So you experience a deep loss. There is a big, huge loss and emptiness-
Heidi Wilcox:
For sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… because you have to leave behind your family, your friends. If I ask you questions, you have friend from high school, from elementary school, and you see them and you laugh about it. Well, you lose all of that when you [crosstalk 00:16:43]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, you do.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You lose all these connections. You’re disconnected. You have this emptiness. And then, if you don’t have Christ in your life, you will find ways to just feed that void. And people, they use drugs or money or success or whatever, people or relationships. So they go 300 direction just to feed their void. And then, after that, you have so many issues. You end up broken, broken. You end up broken and the brokenness in the Hispanic community, you have violence. You have sales. You have drugs, sex, child abuse, domestic violence. You have these homesick and people that get depressed, and then you have this anxiety because you don’t understand the language.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You don’t know the culture. You don’t know the rules, and then you’re undocumented, and then you’re persecuted. I mean, it’s like a wave, a massive wave of brokenness and it’s overwhelming, it’s overwhelming, it’s overwhelming. So even every nation, every culture, has its own challenges, but if you are a pastor in an American church, you have 30 people. You most likely pastor that church, people in America, because most of the people that we pastor in our churches are middle-class people, okay? So middle-class people, they have a good idea how to live.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
They need God, of course. Everybody needs God, but they have their life organized in many cases. They have issues, but they know what to do. If they need something, they know who to contact. They know how to process things. They know how to think, do stuff well. When you go one level below middle class which is poverty, even in the United States, try to pastor a congregation that is at poverty level and see what happen. You have two people and you work twice. You have to work double. You have to double work even more, because they have so many issues, so many challenges.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Same thing happened with the Hispanic people. You have 20 people in the congregation. Guess what? You’re working like you have 200, because they call you for everything. They have so many issues that it’s crisis after crisis, which is part of their poverty level. So it’s one crisis after the next. They don’t have a system, and you become the system they have, right?
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And you-
Heidi Wilcox:
[crosstalk 00:19:24]-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Are you still a pastor, because I know you’re a district superintendent now? Do you still pastor at Fuente de Avivamiento? Am I saying that right?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did a good job, yes. My wife now is the pastor. She’s the pastor. She’s the licensed local pastor for the Methodist church. So right now-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, that’s cool.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… she’s pastoring. She’s the senior pastor. I help her, of course, but [crosstalk 00:19:48]-
Heidi Wilcox:
But you’re not actually pastoring.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
No, no, no, I’m not active pastor.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, I would think that would be huge, if you were actively pastoring and being a district superintendent. That would be more than a full-time job.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, I mean, and I believe that it can be done, if we have better systems. The way it’s set up, you can do just one thing, but at the end, the response to all this massive… Just to answer the last piece of your question, the last-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… of your question. The response to this massive wave of brokenness was me saying yes to Christ and to my calling. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew that I had to say yes, and here I am. Here I am, one person saying yes, and I was very discouraged until I read the Book of Judges. And when I read the Book of Judges, I said, “Wait a minute, this means again one man or one woman,” because we also have women in there leading, by the way, okay? So I always point that out. I really believe in women in ministry, okay? So we have leaders in the Book of Judges who are women and men, and one person changing the course of the whole nation.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So I said, “Well, it looks like it can be done. I don’t need 300 people,” but God is looking for one person that said yes. And then, the Holy Spirit will come over that person with power to anoint that person to do what needs to be done. So when I saw the power that one person can have if this person is obedient to God’s call, I said, “Well, it can be done. It can be done. We can create a dent.” We cannot change the world, but we can create a dent in this community.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, I love your faith.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
It’s like, “Well, let’s do it.” And when I began to plant churches and train leaders and plant more churches and teaching people how to start their own businesses, and now they’re are business leader, leading them and helping them to leave poverty behind-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah, because you didn’t just pastor their souls, if I’m understanding right. You helped them. You helped educate them and learn where resources were so that they could access the different things that you were saying that middle-class people take for granted to know, “Well, this happened. I need to go do X,” or whatever-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly.
Heidi Wilcox:
… which is huge.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly, exactly.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You know-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, go ahead.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
No, I just wanted to add that the Kingdom of God is about words, okay? The Kingdom of God is about words. In fact, Jesus, he says, “I am the word,” okay? He’s the maximum expression of the Kingdom of God on Earth is Jesus. So the Kingdom of God is about words, which means that sounds very middle class. When we bring the Kingdom of God into a poverty context, we are going to have change, because in that context, words mean nothing. It’s more about action. If you have a conflict with somebody, with a person, most of the time, at least in Cuba, here in the United States in many cases, but in Cuba if you have a conflict with me, I’m going to punch you in the face.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s what poverty is. You don’t talk. Let’s talk later after I punch you. After you go to middle class and up, middle class, “Oh, let’s talk about it. If you don’t want to talk about it, it’ll be my lawyer or it’ll be the police.” So in the poverty context, where I come from, you fight first, and then you talk about it. So the Kingdom of God, what God is doing and saying to us, “Listen, before you begin to fight, you need to learn the knowledge of the kingdom, okay? You need to begin to use words to express yourself, to communicate.” If you’re a citizen of the Kingdom of God, you need to know how to communicate in the kingdom.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You need to know how to pray. It’s so counter-cultural that it’s so powerful that when people really grasp what Jesus is asking from us, it’s powerful. It change your life. It’s a holistic approach. This is not one thing or one area. It’s a holistic approach.
Heidi Wilcox:
What does that approach look like for you as you plant churches and you equip others to plant churches?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, I can do that with you right now, if you want to.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, usually this is what I do, okay? I have seven areas, and I ask people these questions really fast. And when they finish, I just focus on the area that they want to work, and that’s [crosstalk 00:25:00]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… the discipleship that we do. That’s the way we do it. So it’s really simple, very simple. You can do this and get trained. You can do this in the marketplace. You can do this anywhere easily. So I have seven areas. The first area is the spirit world, the spirit-world area, fasting, praying, reading the Bible, okay? So the spirit-world area, from one to 10, what do you think are you and 10 being the max?
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, gosh. I think maybe five.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Five, okay, good. There is no right or wrong questions, okay? So five, good. Now, let’s move to the second area. Second area is emotional area. Are you attentive with your emotions? When you are sad, you are sad. When you are mad, you are mad. You process. You talk about it. So from one to 10, what are you?
Heidi Wilcox:
Maybe seven.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Okay, let’s move now to either social or relational area, your friends, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers, how your relationships are meaningful and strong, if you have to forgive or have forgiveness. How you do it, one to 10?
Heidi Wilcox:
Eight.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Eight, good. Now, let’s move to the physical area. How is your body? Are you eating well, resting? Are you stressed, yes or no? One to 10, where are you?
Heidi Wilcox:
Maybe seven, because we’re in a pandemic right now, and that’s creating some extra stress.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s good, that’s good. So now, let’s move to the intellectual area, the development of your mind. Are you growing? Are you studying? One to 10, what are you?
Heidi Wilcox:
Maybe four.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Four. Let’s go now to the financial area. Are you in debt? Are you tithing? Are you helping the poor? Are you giving to the church? Are you giving to the kingdom? Are you collaborating with God to advance the Kingdom of God on Earth? One to 10, what are you?
Heidi Wilcox:
I think a nine.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Nine, good. Now, let’s move finally to the recreational, your hobbies. You’re supposed to enjoy creation, enjoy yourself, enjoy that you’re alive, because you’re going to be alive once. Are you having time for yourself? One to 10, enjoy it with your family, your friends, just doing [crosstalk 00:27:07]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Uh-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… you, one to 10?
Heidi Wilcox:
Maybe four.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Four. I will start with you in those areas where you self-evaluated yourself less than five or five, okay. We’ll go to those areas and the area that you mention it. One was your spirit-world area, the intellectual area, and then the recreational area. Those are the three area that you highlighted this time, and it change all the time. It’s very organic. Sometimes, then you work on this area, and then maybe next time we talk about it, you other areas, but my point is you are the one leading the way you’re going to be disciple. I’m not telling you. I’m not evaluating you. It’s a self-evaluation. That’s what discipleship is. You’re supposed to be growing in these seven areas. You are [crosstalk 00:27:56]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… these seven areas. And if you are growing in these seven areas, you are going to be a very holistic person, a very balanced disciple, a passionate, spiritual disciple in the 21st century. And for me, that’s it, and then that’s why it’s so effective. I don’t impose myself on people. I don’t talk about areas that they didn’t give me permission to talk about… you know, because it’s about permission. Sometime, people don’t want to be disciple in one area. They have to be ready to embrace that, and basically that’s what we do. It took me, what, five minutes to do this to you?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah, I love it.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
[crosstalk 00:28:31].
Heidi Wilcox:
And even on my own, I can remember these areas and go back and reevaluate myself, too. So I like that tool for myself and for the people listening. That’s awesome.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s awesome, and the thing is that most of the time, I don’t know if that happens to you, but it happens to me a lot. Most of the time, sometimes, I learn new things. Sometimes, I’m reminded of the things that I know that I was doing and I stopped doing it. And it’s not a big revelation of the last cloud of the heavens, what I’m saying. It’s just a practical tool that we need just to have a person, that relationship, what makes this tool powerful. You and I having this conversation, and then pursuing after this conversation and continue the relationship where I spend time with you.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Discipleship’s about relationship. So it’s not the tool. The tool is just a tool, but then with spending time together, drinking coffee together or reading together. We are having breakfast or lunch or whatever, and we’re having this conversation. You’re going to grow. You’re going to-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Because this is what I would call mentoring. I don’t know if that’s the term you would use. How many mentoring relationships do you have right now?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, I have mentoring relationships at different levels. It’s a one-on-one. That’s mentorship levels that I have, and I also myself on the mentorship. I don’t believe in people who mentors others and then ask them, “Okay, who’s your mentor?” “I don’t have one.” “Okay, guess what? Find one and then talk to me, because nobody can have the luxury of disciple yourself. Nobody can do that, okay? That’s the nature of discipleship, but I have just one-on-one with people. I also have small-groups mentorship, when I talk to people, like a group of 12, 15 people that I just meet with them and talk about all these areas and training and stuff.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And then, we have more mid-size groups where you do trainings, which for me it’s a different level of mentorship, and they can follow up with you if they have more questions. They want to go deeper in one area or the next. So right now, I’m investing myself a lot in leaders, and I define leaders like how mass will define it. If you are a leader, somebody’s following you. We’re playing with leadership, but at the end, I ask you, “So who’s following you? Who are you leading? No one, then you’re not a leader yet. You’re a leading nature, but you’re not in a position of leadership anywhere.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So I always invest in people who have people behind them. So whatever they teach them, they will go back and transfer and impart, but I’ve been teaching them through the others. And my ministry has been growing like that from 2001 to 2020. It’s not like it has been always like that. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah, yeah. How do we find a mentor?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Good, that’s a good question. You’re asking very good questions. You’re-
Heidi Wilcox:
You’re a great conversationalist. So I’m like, “Wow, this is awesome.”
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You see, that’s your gift right there. That’s your gift. That’s your gift right there.
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, thank you.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes. So to find a mentor, again we go back to the same question, who you are. And once you find out who you are, you will also learn where you need to grow. What are your areas of strength and your areas of weaknesses? So the best way to find a mentor is to find a mentor who is better than you in the areas that you need growth. Sometimes, people have mentors that are very good friends, but they are not good at the area that they need grow, okay? So that doesn’t work. If I need a mentorship in the area for marriage, in the past… That’s a very good question, because in the past, we used to have one mentor for everything, right?
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Not anymore. 21st century, we have experts everywhere for everything. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Everyone is an expert. So we have to find the real experts in the middle of everyone.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly. And now, you can decide, “Okay, I need to grow within my marriage, finances, whatever.” I will have mentors for every area where I need to grow, and I will make sure and I have a mentor that is like the relation connection for me. It can be a mentor that can mentor me and welcome me and listen to me, any area, but then to actually grow and go deep, I will find a mentor in whatever area I need to grow. When I do this evaluation on myself, how I’m doing on these seven areas, I will go and find, okay, maybe the relational area, the social area.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
My social skills need to grow with my family, my kids, my coworkers, then I will find somebody who’s good people person, just to teach me, to work with me, to read books, to ask me questions, hold me accountable, and then I will grow more in those areas. So find a mentor that is strong in the area that you need growth. Don’t do the opposite. Some people make that mistake. It’s like you are married, and all your friends are single. What do you think is going to happen to you? Most likely, you’re going to end up single, because next time you talk to your friends, “Oh, my husband did this or said…”, that’s why I’m not married.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Okay, you do the same things, and then you say, “You know what?”, to your husband, “You know what? I don’t care about what you’re saying, bye,” and then you’re single. You can have a mentor that is disconnected, have no fruits, no fruits in the area that you want to grow. Find fruitful people, fruitful people in the area that you need to grow. God says, “Be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful and multiply.” So find fruitful people first, not only go by the multiplication and the growth they have, make sure that they are fruitful.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So are these people, in your experience, are they already their friends, or do you reach out to people that are maybe acquaintances or maybe that you don’t even know, but you’ve seen the fruits of their lives and want to spend more time with them?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah. I think the best and the easiest way to answer your question is sharing with you the system that I have again for mentorship. So I have what we call M5, M5, the letter M, M as in Mary, M5. The first M is modeling, so you have to model. So you have to model. What can I use as the character? You model what you know, what you are. You model it. The second M is motivation, so you motivate people. So you find someone that you can motivate, someone who is a motivator, and then the third M is mentorship.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So the reason I’m mentioning this to you is because before mentorship, you have modeling and you have motivation. So who is your friend? Your friends usually are people that you know that are modeling that for you, that are motivators. Mentors are not friends, okay? Big mistake, colossal, trying to find a friend to be your mentor. A mentor is a person you have that you give that person relational rights to intervene in your life and tell you what needs to change and hold you accountable for that change and for the change that you want to see in your own personal life.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So a mentor doesn’t have to be your friend. It has to be a person that is truthful, like a [Nathan 00:36:24] in your life. A mentor is a Nathan. It confronts you and say, “Hey, listen, you are that person,” like he did with King David, “Listen, you are-”
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So we need that. We don’t need a mentor that is walking around and not saying what he needs to say. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s why if they have to be your friend, if they have to be your friend, if it is your friend, you have a caveat there. It’s cherry on the top, okay? It doesn’t have to be your friend. I really believe that mentors doesn’t have to be friend. They need to be person that are ready to equip you in the area that you need to grow.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Did I miss one of the Ms? There were-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah, you have two more. I was waiting for you to ask the question.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah, yeah, what are the other two?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I know you will. The fourth M is multiplying, multiplication. So after you mentor, a disciple will grow and multiply himself or herself. Disciples multiply himself. So the fourth M is multiplying. So if you are a disciple and I’m training you, I’m going to challenge you to multiply yourself, find somebody, at least one person. And then, the last M is mobilizing. So if you don’t mobilize, then it’s a cancer. Growth without mobilization is cancer. I’m a doctor. I’m telling you. That’s what cancer is. It’s a growth without movement, okay? So we want to not only grow stuff. We want to mobilize.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s the Kingdom of God. So after you multiply, I’m going to ask you to mobilize, find something to do that is according to your gift and graces, your goal and that’s the last M, but if you go through those five Ms, it’s really easy to disciple people, because first, I’m going to model for you. I’m going to live by example. This is a West and Mideast, this is an Eastern culture, that discipleship is a kingdom culture that is coming from the Eastern culture. It’s a relation. It’s living it out. This is not Greek. This is not Greek. This is not knowledge.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You have to model that out. You have to live it out, and that makes a difference, because here in America and Cuba and other places, because we are so influenced by the Western world, discipleship is information. So you can teach all day, and you got to live it out. You can teach finances and you are broke, and that’s a problem. That’s a problem. How can you be a professor in the university and you are broke? You are in debt. It makes no sense. In the kingdom, that’s not possible. That’s not possible. God will never allow that.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course, you’re totally right. That is a good word. I like that. So as you mentor people, as you equip leaders for church plant… Is this only for pastors and church planters, or is this people in any area of life?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, I think for everyone, especially in the 21st century. I’m a strong advocate for preparing the church for the 21st century. And when I started my ministry 10 years or 15 years ago, now I’m 20 years in doing this. I was very focused on the local church only. Only when I began to grasp an understanding of what the Kingdom of God is and the Kingdom of God’s not only for the church, my friend. The Kingdom of God is for the whole world. We need to invade and sweep the marketplace. And if this is true, then we have to step outside of the local church and engage the marketplace by teaching a way that it can suit anyone.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
If you are pastor, if you are a layperson, if you are a business person, whoever is listening to this podcast will find a way to connect that to what they do, because you’re supposed to be a disciple in the marketplace. I don’t care what you’re doing. You’re supposed to be the disciple where you are in your own context, and we use a lot Ephesians 4:11. And when you use Ephesians 4:11, apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets, you use all of that and people only see that within the church, which is a mistake, colossal. I mean, one of the powerful truths behind Ephesians 4:11 is that it is for the whole world.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You will see that within the church in the traditional way, and you will see those five ministries in the streets with people who are not even formal or traditional ministers. It’s happening everywhere and I’m a doctor. I still am. I love medicine. I love being a pioneer, inventing things. I was a surgeon, and my focus in surgery, as a surgeon, was doing things in a new way, creative.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Okay? So-
Heidi Wilcox:
And now, you’re a doctor of people. You [crosstalk 00:41:36]-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s right. So even though I didn’t have that clue, the connection. I considered myself a pioneer back in the days when I was doing this full-time. So we have pioneers, not only inside the church. The apostle voices are pioneers. Apostles are pioneers. It’s not about anything else. We want to make it big, a big thing. I’m an apostle, this and that. That’s not the purpose of this. So it’s the voice. It’s the mantle that you are carrying. It’s who you are as a pioneer, and you will see that in business people, launching new minister startups, new businesses, new scientists, people who are doing things new. That’s the apostles’ office, and then you move to the prophets’ office, which is the yellow seed for justice, and you will see that in civil right movements.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You will see that in people on the streets, and you will see it in the church too, okay? And the evangelists, who are the evangelists in the church, okay, the cross, the DNA, the gospel, the message? Go to the world. Who are the evangelists in the world? Okay, go journalists. They are willing to die for the news, okay? Then, you go to the teachers, go back to who are the teachers in the world. Okay, you have teachers all over the place, then you have pastors. And who are the pastors in the sector in the marketplace? You have to have doctors. You have nurses. You have psychologists, people who are offering care to people.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So again, we can be here all day. I can talk about this all day. Just to share with you that we are doing a disservice to Christ when we are only speaking to the church and not the whole world, because if you show me from Genesis to Revelation one time when the gospel was preached to you believers, I will quit my job, okay? Never in the whole Bible, sermons were preached to you believers, never, never. Every time you see believers receiving, it was discipleship. Sermons were always for the outside.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah, totally. So talking about doing something new and pioneering, one of the things that you’re doing as part of the church-planting model that you’re using is house churches, and at least that was new for me. So tell us a little bit about the house churches and how that works with the Disciple 21 church planting network.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Again, yeah, I think without knowing that you were going to ask that question, what I just shared about Ephesians 4:11, that’s the DNA for house churches. So we send people in group of five, right? Based on they are again, who they are, we want to make sure ideally that we have one voice for every office, because that’s what makes the ministry effective. When we have one of those voices missing, then we cannot grow the church. So we send this group of five, ones that help to start with the house church. That’s it, the apostolic voice, finding the place, finding the house, recruiting people, launching.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s very apostolic to do that, then you also need a teacher who’s willing to teach the classes, teach the children. We have children in the houses, and then you have a pastor who’s going to call the people, follow up, making sure the people are fine, offering pastoral care and things like that. Then, you have the evangelists, and the evangelists’ job is to challenge people in the house, the house church, to [crosstalk 00:45:37]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… the gospel to others and begin to plan how to multiply the house and reach others around the neighborhood and share the gospel and train people to share the gospel. So you have that, and then you have the prophetic part, and the prophetic part is all about holiness and covenant. So with the [crosstalk 00:45:57]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… holiness, covenant, the word of God, loving again, as I said in the very beginning of this interview, loving what God love and hating what God hates. That’s a connection with who we are also. So we do all of that. And when you have those voices, that’s why I believe that the house churches are multiplying so fast, because when you have that, you have all these voices. You move fast and not only that, but you grow. Now, how’d we get to there, because that’s the next question. So how I got to-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
How I got people that I can do it well, again church planting is very simple. For whoever is listening to this, we have information fatigue in the 21st century, so many seminars about church planting.
Heidi Wilcox:
For real.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And then, there’s books, information paralysis. In Cuba, you say, “I want a Coke.” Guess what? You go to a store, and there is only one type of Coke, okay? You just go and grab it. You don’t have to think. So you come to the United States and say, “I want a Coke,” go to Kroger. When you go to the pubs and stuff aisle, you go there and you have seven type of Cokes.
Heidi Wilcox:
At least seven, sometimes more.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Sometimes more, and then you’re there and you are freezed, looking at the whole stack and say, “Okay, what I want?” So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, it’s totally overwhelming.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
It’s overwhelming, so it’s information paralysis. So this is what is happening to people with church planting. They are reading so much, learning so much that they are paralyzed. Okay, I’m going to simplify this for you, because the first church I planted, I was only seven month in Christ, okay? I knew nothing. I only knew my testimony, okay? So I’m going to simplify this for you based on the Book of Acts. For you to plant a church, what do you need? You need one person, or two or three people. It better if you have two or three person, a team of two or three people who know what God did with them. That’s it and if people will share that story and invite to connect with you so you can teach them how to tell the story.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, because really all we have is what we know that God has done for us.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly. So they will share their story. They share the story of the gospel, and then they will have new believers, new believers in what? In the gospel, not in the new era, in prosperity and stuff like that, the gospel, okay? Once they receive the gospel, you begin to train them. And once you train them, they become disciples. The moment they become disciples, you bring the sacraments and organize them in [foreign language 00:48:41]. You have a church. Easy, okay?
Heidi Wilcox:
You make it sound easy.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, it is easy. The thing that we’re complicating this, I didn’t mention money once.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, you didn’t.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
I did-
Heidi Wilcox:
So how did that work out?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Because of that, because people. When people get excited about things, I mean, money will come. God’s vision never lack resources.
Heidi Wilcox:
True.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Forget about the resources, just find the people. People are the resource of the kingdom.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, true.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
In this, that’s what we do. We train people. We preach the gospel to them. They receive the gospel. We preach the gospel. We’re not talking about prosperity and yoga and playing around. So you have to have an urgency in preaching the gospel, and then everything else is cookies and cream. So the one thing is focus on the gospel and train them, train them. We have trainings that we [crosstalk 00:49:48]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… people, and we train them in those areas to become… for them to find out what their voice is. It’s a apostolic voice, a prophetic voice. Is it I’m a teacher? I’m a pastor. What’s my place in the kingdom? The moment you know that, that is called a specialization. You have to know who you are, because that’s the purpose of God. You see creation. God is a god of specializations, see creation. I’m a doctor. See, and I knew there is nothing in creation that does everything by self, nothing in creation. Everything have a specific role and assignment from God, and you have one.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
You can do whatever is needed, but you need to know who you are. And once you have find that, you don’t compete anymore. This jealousy that we have in the church, jealousy that we have in the ministry and competing and arguing, it’s because you don’t know who you are. Once you know who you are and what you’re supposed to do, you don’t compete. You complete people.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes. So you planted several churches, but now you’re the global executive director, I believe I have that right, of Disciple 21 Network. How did that come about? And the latest update I have on it is that you’re active in seven nations, 28 cities with 45 team leaders and 307 house churches. So how did this network come about, and how has it grown and still growing?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, now we are in 20 nations, just for you to have-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow, okay.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So it’s growing. It continued growing and-
Heidi Wilcox:
That’s amazing, because I just got that update, I think, just a couple weeks ago, because I wrote a press release about what was happening, yeah. Wow, that’s incredible.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, it’s a new development. This is the craziness of following the Holy Spirit. That recently came about. Again, it was a fire and a love for the church, for the 21st century, how to prepare the church for the 21st century. The church for the 21st century needs to be more organic. In the past when I was younger, now I’m 46, when I was younger, I used to find people and then train them, equip them, raise them up, send them off. And now, I’m 46. I don’t have time for that, okay? My time is running out. My time is running out.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So now, I’m trying to find people who already have the DNA, and then I train them and find people who have the same heart, the same passion, and I train them and release. And it’s very effective this way, because it’s a covenant, again covenant relationships that we have. So basically, in Disciple 21, we move through covenant relationships. Everyone in Disciple 21 has been friends or connected for more than five or 10 years. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Maybe, you and I have relationship from 10 years or more, five or six. And then, I say, “Okay, I want to put in people for Disciple 21. Who do you think?” “Okay, I have this person.” And then, when you show up, usually the person who invites you, you trust that person for years. So we have speed, because we transfer the confidence in the relationship from one person to the next based on covenant that they have for years. And then, when you invite another person, guess what? They’re going to invite another person that is also in covenant with you, because I think you have a saying in America that birds of the same feather fly together, something like that. I don’t know.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
We are communal people. You’ll find a leader, and you’re also going to touch all the leaders around you. So Disciple 21 is growing because what the Holy Spirit led us… I mean, this is not my organization. This is a whole team of people from so many nations and so many places. I’m just one more person in there, but the reality is that when God led us to do this, he said to us, praying in different nations, different countries, different ways, “Seek the nameless and the faceless,” okay? In other words, so many people who are now in the pews, who are not working on their calling, because they have not been released because of the paradigm of the church.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So so many people have been, and they know that God is calling them. They know that they have thousand of prophetic words and affirmation from many people that God is calling them, but year after year, they are still doing nothing. So people are dying. They are dying without ever experience everything that God have for them, and that’s why we call them the nameless and the faceless. They are not known. They are like John the Baptist in the desert. Nobody knows their voice. It’s time for you to manifest to humankind. That what happens with John the Baptist.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So we have people in that state, yeah. They’re in the desert. They are a voice in the desert. They are speaking and screaming, and nobody’s listening, okay? So they do that time. So Disciple 21 creates that link where you don’t have to quit your church. You don’t have to quit what you’re doing. You can continue what you are doing. Disciple 21, we work with the Methodist church. I’m a Methodist church pastor. We work with Baptists, Pentecostals, non-denominations. I mean, we work with everybody, because that’s what we do. We just want to activate people and create spaces for people to work on their gift and graces.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
And then, if they say yes, we work with anyone. You want to multiply your church. You want to grow your church. We’ll work with you. That what we’re doing, and people are getting excited, because we are not asking anything. We not say, “Okay, now we are in authority over you,” no, no, no, no, no, no. We are covenantal friends. That’s what we are.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So really, Disciple 21, it’s just equipping people to grow their church or to plant new ones. Is that right?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Both, yeah.
Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, good.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Both new churches and also remissioning churches, revitalizing churches, and also new churches. So we have planters in different size, and also we are also working with business people, entrepreneurs. We are training entrepreneurs to be disciples in the marketplace, start new churches to be sustainable. So that’s-
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… what we’re doing.
Heidi Wilcox:
Wow, that’s awesome. We will definitely link to your website, if somebody listening is like, “Oh, I want to learn more about that and get involved.” So we’ll have all that in the show notes for people.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Please.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I love this. How have you seen or have you seen any effect of the pandemic on the house churches and the church-planting movement?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Well, I have to say that because we have been talking about this since 2016, ’17, we have been preparing the church for the 21st century, and we have been teaching and preaching from A to Z that business and that buildings are going to disappear, okay? We have been prophetic to the core, saying, “Listen, buildings are going to disappear. The traditional way of church is going to disappear.” Why? Because the 21st century’s changing and it’s more organic. There is no loyalty anymore. It’s a mobile world. People are moving fast. They’re moving from one place to the next.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Our infrastructure was built for the pandemic. So instead of decreasing or stalling, we have been growing. That’s why I said to you we went from seven nations to 20 nations, okay, because of the pandemic, now we have people’s attention, okay? People were very busy back then. Now, we have their attention. So just to give you a practical example, if we have time-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
A practical example. Okay, we said, “Okay, listen, we need to pray. The only way to respond to this pandemic is prayer.” That’s the first step. You will take action later, but the reality is that nobody have a clue-
Heidi Wilcox:
That is true.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… what to do, what needs to be done, or how to lead forward in this unprecedented times. So we said, “Okay, we need to begin praying and start praying again, but see, we cannot meet anymore. Let’s have digital houses of prayer.” That what we call it, digital houses of prayer. So we’ll start here in Miami. In Miami, we have one at the beginning. And then, here in Kentucky, we have one and we were praying every day, 5:30 to 6:30 in the morning, praying, praying, praying, praying. Well, after one month doing that, six weeks doing that, the Holy Spirit begin to say, “Okay, now why you don’t do this and open this to people?”
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So we begin to contact our friends and covenant people and say, “Listen, do you want to start a house of prayer, digital house of prayer in your nation?” “Yes.” “So the only thing you need to do, use Zoom or WhatsApp. You then use the camera,” like we have right now, “and you pray, and we’ll take turns. We pray and that’s it. You can be in your house, and you can be in bed. You can be walking. You can be whatever, in your car. Nobody will see your face. It’s just [crosstalk 00:59:21]-”
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… “okay? We pray together.” Well, it’s amazing what happened. People begin to just pop up from everywhere. For you to have an idea, in Latin America, we have 28 countries that are, I mean, important countries, big countries, not little islands, just 28 important countries in the sense of the size, geographical size and national in the continent. And then, we say, “Okay, we have 28. The goal is 28, and we need to reach those 28.” One house digital, one digital house of prayer in every nation. We start in July, the last week of July. And now, we are in October, and we have 20 nations out of 28.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh my.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So for you to have an idea, and it’s beautiful to see this constellation of nations, because we use WhatsApp and we use Zoom, okay? So we have the whole week. The whole week, they have national prayers and they have ministry prayer for the nation, and they have the continental prayers, and they have the global prayers. So there is a common strain of praying for the whole continent that it’s amazing to see the whole continent, almost the whole continent, in one accord praying the same thing. So I’m excited about what is next. What is going to [crosstalk 01:00:42]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… when you have 20 nations coming together out of 28 and saying, “Let’s bring revival, bring change, change the world, save the souls,” I mean everything. It’s like asking for forgiveness for the sins of the nations. It’s powerful, it’s powerful. So now, we have 20 countries out of 28 in Latin America, and then we have India, Dubai, and Nepal. And then, we have three house churches in China. So anywho, I don’t know. I don’t know-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, that’s incredible. Are there other things that you’ve seen, because I believe if I’m right, you were going through some steps in how your church has responded to the pandemic, and the first one was prayer. Were there other things or not?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, yes, well, we have been ready for this in the sense that we have the app. So we have been having an app forever.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
We have an app, our application, where people download and we pray through that. They are connected through that, Zoom, digital. We have conferences online. We have been training. We have systems. So we have groups of disciples. Groups, they have been connected forever. And by the way, this connection is not only happening with Disciple 21. It’s also happening in the district. I pastor 100 churches. Even before the pandemic, they were organized. So they knew the connection, the systems and everything. When this hit, they were connected. They-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
So even Disciple 21, we knew the same thing. So we have systems. We lay systems. We build these connections. We have the application, the app. We have the Zoom, and then we have Facebook. We have WhatsApp, which is an application that we use everywhere. So we have been doing all of this, and all the steps that we have, the system to make disciples, have continued through online teachings and discipleship that we have, different levels-
Heidi Wilcox:
You were ready for the pandemic.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah, we were ready. We were ready. I mean, the hard part was the fact, the burden and the pain that people went through. Nobody was ready for that.
Heidi Wilcox:
No, that-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
But I’m talking about the system. I don’t want people to [crosstalk 01:03:04]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
We were ready. We were ready. We had the system to face-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, that’s what I meant, too. Your systems were in place.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Was in place. When the pandemic hit, it hit everyone, but we were able to respond better, because we already have a system. You have the system for war. You are ready, and then you’re in war. You are at war, and now you can survive, because you have a system.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. Well, Dr. Alvarez, I want to honor the time that I gave you, but I feel like our conversation could just go on for at least another hour, if not more. I’ve enjoyed it so much, so thank you.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having the opportunity. And for me, it’s a pleasure to share a little bit of what God have done with us and through us, and hopefully someone up there will grasp one word and [crosstalk 01:04:03]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. Before we sign off, we have one question that we ask everybody who’s on the podcast. So because the show is called The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast, what is something that is helping you thrive in your life right now?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Thrive. Well, one is relationships. Again, I always will go back to relationships. Because of the relationships that we nurture and the relationships that we have and the people that we spend time with, that make you thrive. We are communal people. We cannot thrive without people. If you can thrive without people, then maybe you are a horse, or you are a lion or something, or an eel, but we are the crown of creation. We have to live with people. We are created to be in community, and I believe that if you want to thrive and what makes me thrive is people, people.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
People give me energy. I see people, and again I use sentimental… Even in those places that say, “Well, you need to go out by yourself and disconnect from the world and find yourself,” for me that’s crazy. For me, that’s crazy. That’s the craziest thought ever, with all the respect for the people that do that. I respect that. If that works for you, keep doing it, but for me-
Heidi Wilcox:
It’s not who you are, though.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yeah, it’s not who I am. It’s not for everybody. My point is some people are very… I don’t know. They need that. They can do that, but I get energy around people. I get energy around people and because I’ve spent time in the secret place, I already have my time alone. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Ah, that makes sense.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
To answer your question in one word, people. It’s people. I love people.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. That’s great. I think nothing has shown us more our need for people than the time that we’re living in right now, so that’s awesome.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
[crosstalk 01:06:10].
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So thank you again, Dr. Alvarez. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed our conversation and so appreciate you taking the time.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, here I am to serve you. And by the way, just before you go, Asbury has played an important role in this movement. So-
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, because all the training that we have, all the systems that we have, we have centers. We are partnership with Asbury. We are doing the bachelor for all the Hispanic people. We are doing institutes with Asbury. We now are connected to Asbury Connection with Dr. Winfield and doing church planting also. And then, I’m a graduate also. I mean, I’m [crosstalk 01:06:50]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… from Asbury. So because of that connection, wherever I go, again we go back to people, wherever I go, we develop relationships. Wherever I go, I say, “Okay, what is the purpose of this relationship, what God wants to do?” And when I asked that question about Asbury, boom, hey, you have a massive engine of disciples you make here in United States in Asbury. We are not even tapping into, well, scratching the surface of what Asbury can do, but Asbury need people like me who are in the mission field, and many people are listening to this. They need [crosstalk 01:07:32]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… you, especially you can make this connection, become a bridge between Asbury and the world. And when you do that, not only for the sake of relationship, just to go in partnership together, [crosstalk 01:07:46]-
Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
… together, and that’s what we’re doing. Disciple 21 have a very strong Asbury relationship and because of that, the education, the training that we’re offering are high-quality trainings. They don’t need to go anywhere. Asbury is there where they are.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Some of the training that you offer is through the seminary, right?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Yes, most of the training we do, because now we have a partnership with Asbury. Now, we have this MOU, memorandum of understanding, we can offer. You have regular centers where we offer bachelor’s and institutes that we develop together with Asbury.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow, that’s awesome.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
It’s powerful. When they graduate from the bachelor’s, it’s an Asbury bachelor, institute. It’s endorsed by Asbury. The certification they receive has Asbury’s seal on it and the bachelor and everything, and now we’re planting churches, because we have laid an initiative by Asbury to plant churches, not to plant churches but to be a hub, to bring networks together. Winfield is leading that. Now, we are connecting with Asbury at that level too, so we have everything. We have bachelor’s, academic, no academic. I loved learning with the institute, and now we’re planting churches with Asbury. So I don’t know what is next.
Heidi Wilcox:
I guess time will tell. We’ll have to find out, but it’s going to be great.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
My point is people are under-utilizing Asbury.
Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yes, yeah-
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
That’s my-
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Go and find ways. Asbury’s open, ready to go into the mission field in partnership, but you have to ask. They don’t have a crystal ball yet, okay?
Heidi Wilcox:
Well, that’s biblical. Ask and you shall receive, right?
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Exactly.
Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks again, Dr. Alvarez. I really appreciate your time, and your words have been very meaningful to me, so thank you.
Rev. Dr. Alvarez:
Thank you. God bless you.
Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Alvarez. I hope you found it as helpful and informative as I did. I especially enjoyed the part where he talked about stop trying to figure out what God is calling you to do and figure out who he is creating you to be. That was super helpful to me, and I hope there was a part of this conversation that you found especially helpful, as well. As always, you can follow us in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @AsburySeminary. Thanks again for listening, you guys. And until next time, go do something that helps you thrive.
