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Trading comfort for a new calling
After 40 years of service to the Lord, including 12 as a pastor, Rey Cantú was called by God to plant Iglesia Bautista La Esperanza in Brazoria, located in the building of a church that closed prior to the global pandemic.
Cantú said people did not understand why, after a long career in ministry, he and his family would leave everything behind to start over. Leaving Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida in Freeport, where he had served since 1982, seemed like a step backward to many.
But not Cantú.
“I am not here to progress, but for the gospel to progress,” Cantú said.
Nueva Vida was where Cantú experienced his first call to pastoral ministry. On multiple occasions, the church found itself without a pastor and church leaders asked Cantú if he would be interested in stepping into the lead pastor role. He declined the first two times, feeling it wasn’t in God’s timing for him to serve as the full-time pastor, but agreed to serve as the church’s interim pastor. However, after the position came open again, and after six months of prayer, Cantú sensed the Lord calling him to accept the full-time role—beginning a 12-year journey leading the church.
Cantú spent those years working hard for the Lord, watering the gospel seeds planted by the church with sweat, tears, and prayer. That hard work was slowed significantly when Cantú became ill with COVID. The virus hit him so hard, he was forced to spend three months in bed. What could have been a discouraging time instead led to a transforming experience with God.
Even as he struggled to breathe, Cantú often went out onto his porch to talk to the Lord. “You have given me another chance to live,” Cantú would pray. “What do you want me to do?” He began to feel a change was on the horizon, and he would tell God, “I am ready for any change.” He assumed that change would happen at his current church.
But the Lord had another plan—for Cantú to plant a new gospel work at a location that Nueva Vida had once helped, but which had since closed.
“I didn’t know anything about church planting, but I obeyed His call,” Cantú said.
“The SBTC conference opened doors for us to partner in the kingdom of God, as we learned there how they supported church planting.”
Cantú hadn’t yet shared with his wife, Juanita, what he felt like God was calling him to until a trip to a church planting and revitalization conference hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Juanita initially did not understand why they would leave an established ministry where they had worked so hard for so many years. Her heart changed during the conference, however, when several women who had been a part of church plants shared testimonies of how they’d seen God work even as He moved them from location to location.
In the midst of those testimonies, Juanita thought, “I have not suffered compared to these women.” Then she offered her “yes” to the Lord.
Said Cantú: “The SBTC conference opened doors for us to partner in the kingdom of God, as we learned there how they supported church planting …. That’s where we saw God’s hand and His plan evolving.”
Upon returning from the conference, Cantú shared the new calling on his family’s life with Nueva Vida’s deacons. Together, they prayed and spent the next six months preparing the church for the transition. That included restoring the decaying building where the new church plant would be located. Other pastors in the area—many of whom Cantú knew through serving as president of the Gulf Coast Baptist Association’s Hispanic Fellowship—committed to pray and even offered to help with getting the new church off the ground.
Six months after they began renovations, Iglesia Bautista La Esperanza held its first service on Sept. 28, 2022. Two families were in attendance that day. Since the beginning, Cantú and his wife have made it their mission to visit homes in areas of Brazoria with the greatest needs. As a result of that work, God has continued to bring families and people from different backgrounds and cultures to experience Him moving in their lives. About 40 people regularly attend the church.
“God has been very generous with us,” Cantú said, noting many of the miraculous provisions that have helped La Esperanza do ministry. In one instance, a couple of neighboring churches provided not only supplies for a vacation Bible school, but a van to transport children.
La Esperanza opens its doors at 5 a.m. on Mondays for prayer, Wednesday evenings for Bible study, and Sundays for children’s and youth Bible classes in English, as well as a bilingual worship service. Cantú said the church seeks to be a beacon of light for Brazoria, proclaiming the hope they can find in Jesus. In a population of 3,000 people and 800 Hispanics, mostly Catholic, they have been able to share that light.
“There is a lot of brokenness, broken families that are hurting,” Cantú said, “but we pray that God will allow us to have a good relationship with the [community] and the families that attend the church who have not given their lives to Christ yet.”
