Fernando Lua

Last updated: October 14, 2024

From Engineering to Pastoring

Fernando Lua was educated as a civil engineer before becoming a pastor and theologian. Having become a follower of Jesus in his third year of college, he had already become very involved in his local church in the greater Manila area of the Philippines. Though he was looking forward to his career in engineering, he had a longing to remain active in the church. “I was bargaining with the Lord at first that I can serve in the church even though I’m working, just as long as my work will not take me too far away from the church location,” Fernando says.

The Lord answered his prayer by directing him toward a new vocation that certainly stays involved in the local church: full-time pastor. When his attempts to find an engineering job weren’t fruitful, he began to perceive this new calling. “I was looking for a job and then the Lord was actually working already in the sense that he was closing the final door towards my accepting a job,” Fernando says. “So, after several tries, I said, ‘Lord, whatever you want me to do, I’m willing to do it.’ I was looking forward to a career as a civil engineer, but the Lord had different plans.”

After sensing this new calling, Fernando knew he needed new education since his only formal education had been in engineering. “I started to look for a school where I could be trained because, as an engineer, I have a different training,” he says. “So eventually I studied at Alliance Biblical Seminary.” Alliance Biblical Seminary is associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the denomination in which he eventually became ordained and still serves.

Training and Challenges

However, Fernando’s pursuit of this new calling would be met with some difficulties. His father, a Chinese immigrant to the Philippines, had other expectations for him. “I’m the eldest son coming from a Filipino-Chinese family. My mother is Filipina, my father is fully Chinese,” Fernando says. His father was among many Chinese immigrants who, according to Fernando, moved to the Philippines to start businesses. Thus, his father expected that he would eventually help with the family business. “He was looking forward to me, as the eldest son, taking over the business and helping them. So when my father learned that I would become a pastor, he was not in agreement.”

Fernando attempted to honor his father by reasoning that he could still help the family business, even if not in a full-time fashion. However, his father was opposed to his son’s calling. “In fact, he came to the point of telling me that if I will not forsake this calling to be a pastor, he will forget me as his son,” Fernando says. “That was very difficult for me.”

Fernando found solace and encouragement from the faculty at Alliance Biblical Seminary. “I persevered under the guidance of the faculty in the seminary, especially Dr. Eunice Irwin, who was also faculty eventually at Asbury Seminary,” Fernando says. Fortunately, in time, his father’s attitude toward his calling changed. “Eventually, my father was able to accept my calling, especially when I got married,” Fernando says. “He was very supportive of me and my wife, and eventually my family.”

By the time Fernando started his seminary studies, he had already met his wife-to-be, Theresa, and was helping out in his local church. He was leading bible studies and occasionally preaching, gaining a little practice for his ministry career. He then graduated from the seminary in 1989 with an M.Div. in Pastoral Studies.

Pastoring Full-time

In 1988, before finishing seminary, Fernando took his first position as full-time pastor at a different church from the one he had been attending. However, his first vocational role proved to be very difficult. “As a young pastor, and because the church had no other pastor, I was the one who was tasked to do almost everything,” Fernando says.” My experience was quite difficult.” Being a young pastor placed in the empty shoes of the much older former pastor, he began to experience comparisons and expectations that eventually led him to decide to minister elsewhere. However, he gained valuable insight from the experience. “What I learned there is that it’s very important for you to have a mentor,” Fernando says. 

Fernando and Theresa were newly married when they joined the pastoral staff at this Christian and Missionary Alliance church and remained for seven years. While pastoring in that church, doors opened for Fernando to continue his theological education. “The denomination supported my further study,” he says. “So I finished my Master of Theology in pastoral studies as well, and then eventually I was invited to teach in the seminary one course per semester.” 

Though he did not plan to leave pastoral ministry, these opportunities for more education were sowing seeds for Fernando to eventually become a seminary professor. While he was pastoring at his third church, Asian Theological Seminary invited Fernando to be a full-time faculty member. “And this is something that I really had to pray for because my heart was in pastoral ministry, but I was also interested in helping train pastors for the ministry,” Fernando says. “Eventually, I talked to the church leaders, and then God directed me to accept the position of being a full-time faculty. I had to resign from my pastoral ministry.” Fernando gave up full-time ministry and became a volunteer pastor while teaching at the seminary, but he accepted the next phase of his calling knowing he would help train up many other pastors in return.

Pastor to Professor

As a new seminary faculty member, Fernando was required to get a doctoral degree. At the suggestion of Dr. Irwin, who had become a faculty member at Asbury Seminary, he applied to the Doctor of Ministry program at Asbury Seminary and was accepted. “In 2005, I started my journey as a student and I found the Beeson International Leaders Program to be very, very good, in the sense that I only had to be away for a certain period of time every year for my studies,” Fernando says. “That really worked well for me because the rest of the time I had to be here and do some teaching and work on my assignments.”

The focus of Fernando’s D.Min. program was biblical preaching and church leadership, and he has found his education to be directly applicable to his ministry and teaching. “The learning that I got from Asbury Seminary helped me to be a more well-rounded professor in the sense that I was able to develop more courses for the seminary and teach more,” Fernando says. “And at present, I’m also helping in our D.Min. program. I’m teaching transformative preaching and serving on the panel for the dissertation defense.”

His education has also greatly aided his work to solve a ministry issue in the Filipino church. While some countries and regions suffer from a lack of preachers and ministers to spread the gospel, according to Fernando, the Philippines has many active pastors. However, these pastors throughout the country are disproportionately lacking theological training. “Here it’s acceptable to be called a pastor even though you are not theologically trained,” Fernando says. “It’s a challenge because we have more pastors who have no training. It’s a big, big challenge for bible schools and seminaries.”

It was with this challenge in mind that Fernando pursued his D.Min. “That’s one of the areas that I studied when I was in Asbury Seminary,” he says. “My dissertation actually focused on that. How do you give training to pastors who are not qualified to go to seminary training because of their lack of education?”

Encouraging Pastors and Future Leaders

With his colleagues at Asian Theological Seminary, Fernando developed certificate programs to train many of these pastors and provide them with a seminary-level education to bolster their work throughout the provinces of the Philippines. According to Fernando, these pastors are hungry for this type of training and are very grateful when they receive it. Fernando has seen much fruit from this initiative since its beginning while he was studying at Asbury Seminary. “Since 2008, we have trained more pastors, and we are partners with different organizations so that we can help train their pastors, especially those who have no theological degree.”

In addition to training pastors across the country, Fernando is determined to raise up pastors within his church, Christian Alliance Fellowship East (CAFE), where he works part-time and leads a pastoral staff. Currently, Fernando shares preaching responsibilities with one of the other pastors, and he is looking for opportunities to encourage more pastors. When one of their full-time pastors resigned a few years ago, Fernando and the team made an intentional effort to bring on a female pastor. “Because most of us are male on the pastoral staff, we said we need to help so that these young ladies will be discipled as well.”

This work of mentoring young leaders and being a pastor of pastors is now the central focus of Fernando’s calling. When asked about his vision for the future of his ministry, Fernando declared clearly, “This is for the rest of my life now, to help train pastors.”