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I became a pastor when I was 40 years old. So, it was a 20-year training process, not through seminary, but through different pastors and churches. I can tell you more than a dozen churches and more than a dozen pastors who discipled me and mentored me.
My spiritual journey began when I was 16. I lived in the Philippines and a college student from Campus Crusade came to my campus—he was the first person to share the gospel with me. A Southern Baptist pastor discipled me when I was in college. He was a campus minister, and he really spent time with me. That was a turning point in my Christian life.
God really spoke to me through this preacher. We would meet every day because his ministry center was close to my dorm. I would hang out at his house, and we would be talking until sometimes three in the morning. We talked about the Word, discipleship, prayer, confession—all basic responsibilities of Christians.
After college, I was on fire. I wanted to share what I learned with my own church back home. So, I went back and started a ministry among the youth, and that was fruitful—some of the youth that came out of that are leaders in our church now here in Austin.
I started working in Manila and met my wife, Rela, there. We later helped plant a church in Cavite. That was my first time to be involved in church planting, just assisting the pastor, a worship leader, musician—all kinds of other roles, except being a pastor. My landlady was our first member. That church continues today.
I did want to attend seminary after that time in college because I was interested in being a pastor, but God closed those doors repeatedly, so I ended up being mentored by all kinds of pastors from different churches.
I know many pastors would say, “God called me to plant a church,” but in the case of our church, it’s different because it was not a single person who was called. It was my entire family. I had moved to Idaho where I was working as a semiconductor engineer. My brother moved to Memphis and my sister moved to Nebraska. Because we wanted to live close to one another, I think it was in 2007, we agreed to find a city where we could all be together. We all moved to Austin and joined different churches. My wife and I started a Bible study with my sister’s family and my brother’s family, and we met in South Austin. That small Bible study was just us at first.
There were two other families that started attending our group as well, so we ended up having five Filipino families. Then neighbors started attending. I called Dr. Kim [Asian ministries consultant] at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and told him we needed a place to rent. He connected me with Gilbert Chavez. Pastor Gilbert was very encouraging and accommodating. He let us use his youth room for our Bible study. The first night we had 64 people. He said, “I don’t think this is a Bible study. Why don’t you plant a church?” I said “no” since none of us was in the ministry. My brother and I worked in the tech industry and my sister was a nurse. Pastor Gilbert still encouraged me, and that led me to begin training through the SBTC.
“It’s all part of God showing me that I have to depend on Him.”
But in our Bible study, we had three different pastors who were connected with us. Every time a pastor came in, we would all agree that we would defer to him: “OK, you might be the pastor of this church.” Three times we tried that and none of them worked out. It was just as if God was giving me this basketball, then every time a pastor came to our group, I would pass this ball to him. And each time, the ball was back in my court. The third time the ball came back to me, my brother said, “Al, I guess you’re the one.” I agreed. When I surrendered to that, things moved very, very fast. A year later, I was ordained as a pastor. Now, 12 years later, I’m the pastor of Riverlife Baptist Church.
On this long journey, I believe the biggest thing I’ve learned is full dependence upon Him. Just think about the struggle that I am going through every week. I don’t have any seminary training on which to base my sermons or my judgment whether I’m doing a good job or not. So basically, the thing is when we started, I really don’t know how to pastor. I was praying to the Lord, “Lord, I don’t know how to do this.” And I know that’s still my mindset even up to this point in time.
It’s all part of God showing me that I have to depend on Him.
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