Pastors

I recently sat in the private meeting room of a restaurant in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with twenty-some pastors—women, men, Pentecostals, evangelicals, from both rural and urban settings.

Some had seminary degrees; most barely finished high school. What they had in common was a passionate commitment to misión integral. It is mission that integrates "spiritual" concerns with "physical" or "social" ones, needs of the soul and body, reconciliation with God and with one another.

My hosts had taken me to a beautiful array of churches. One reaches out to glue-sniffing street kids. One has developed an amazing healthcare system for 18,000 rural people who previously had no healthcare at all.

One uses a gym equipped with weight training equipment and space to connect with young people who would never come to church but find the church coming to them through this place. Its chaplain offers spiritual development to go along with aerobics fitness ...

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