Re-Imagining Team emphasizes importance of youth and young adult leadership for future of Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian ministry
Leaders from across the denomination met in Puerto Rico to evaluate their work so far and plan next steps for General Assembly-mandated Re-Imagining initiative
For the past six months, dedicated Presbyterians have traveled across the United States, including Puerto Rico, working tirelessly to organize and facilitate a series of regional encounters dedicated to Re-Imagining Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian ministry in the PC(USA). Last week, this Re-Imagining Coordinating Team gathered with other church leaders to reflect on that work, which they’re calling “phase one,” and to dream about what’s to come.
The coordinating team is made up of eight PC(USA) teaching elders: the Rev. Marielis Barreto Hernández, the Rev. Edwin Andrade, the Rev. Dan González Ortega, the Rev. Carlos Baladez, the Rev. Marissa Galván Valle, the Rev. Pablo Morataya, the Rev. Jorge Abdala and the Rev. Rosa Miranda.
The team’s work came about in response to action taken by the 226th General Assembly in 2024. The assembly voted overwhelming in favor of a resolution which called for “a Re-Imagining of Hispanic Latino ministry in the PC(USA)” directing the former Presbyterian Mission Agency and Office of the General Assembly (now jointly known as the Interim Unified Agency) to allocate resources and funding toward this purpose.
Recognizing how different ministry needs and realities are depending on geographic, cultural, and sociopolitical contexts for various Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian congregations across the denomination, the coordinating team opted to begin its work with a series of smaller regional collaborative “encounters” rather than a single large national gathering.
Despite these contextual differences, organizers knew they needed the opportunity to assess the encounters collectively, identify what needs and hopes rose to the surface more broadly, and then dream together about what the future may hold and what next steps would lead them forward. To this end, a group of 30 remained in Puerto Rico after concluding the regional encounter that took place in Sínodo Boriquén to assess and plan. In addition to the coordinating team, the group included leadership from the National Hispanic Latino Presbyterian Caucus and some participants from each of the regional encounters.
Participants in this evaluative meeting emphasized the importance of remaining focused on Jesus and attentive to the presence of the Holy Spirit throughout the re-imagining process.
“The process of re-imagining ministries invited us to sit around a broad and diverse table, where every voice helped us re-read the words and metaphors of Jesus,” the Rev. Jorge Zijlstra said. “From that shared space, we began to re-think, re-define, and re-design the church and its mission with renewed imagination and hope.”
The Rev. Annie Pantoja noted how the presence of God was deeply felt among the group, strengthening their faith and courage.
“Reimagining is not simply about change, but about faithful responsiveness, seeking where the Spirit is leading and having the courage to follow," Pantoja said.
Community connections have also proven crucial. Andrade said, “strong relationships and the assurance of mutual support were essential to the process."
Andrade went on to say this foundation created a space of hope in the regional encounters, where they have already seen “renewed regional connections, increased willingness to take risks, and greater readiness to mobilize both energy and resources.”
Going forward, the coordinating team sees strengthening this sense of interconnectedness as vital. Participants lifted up a desire to partner more deeply with mid councils and cultivate more opportunities for engagement across regions and across generations.
While the coordinating team does not yet know all the tangible details of how the re-imagining process will unfold in the future, members are clear on their priorities.
Miranda, who also serves the Interim Unified Agency as the U.S.-based Global Ecumenical Liaison focused on Hispanic and Brazilian ethnic groups, said the group has made a point all along of keeping the power and ownership for this process in the hands of the individual communities. That will remain essential going forward, Miranda said. She said she's hopeful, as participants in regional encounters have come away from them asking about next steps and making plans for how to bring their learnings to their congregations using the Re-Imagining Tool Kit that was shared at the regional encounters.
Miranda said the team would love to develop cohorts that would allow communities to have trained people on the ground to support their re-imagining process.
In addition to the nearly one-third of Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian Presbyterians the team has yet to reach, the group also said it's clear that the Spirit is leading them toward a focus on youth and young adults, allowing young people not only to participate in re-imagining, but to take the lead.
“Our absolute priority now is the empowerment of Hispanic, Latino, and Brazilian youth, developing a multiplying [Re- Imagining] movement designed by them and for them. We are driven by an uncompromising commitment: never again a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) without the full participation of our Hispanic-Latino-Brazilian youth,” said González Ortega, who also serves as co-moderator of the National Hispanic Latino Presbyterian Caucus.
He added that he sees this re-imagining process as “the birth of a decolonized, intergenerational movement where young leadership serves as the engine for a transformation that will not turn back.”
Andrade said the evaluation meeting has given the team an increased sense of urgency, driven by the ways this work has affirmed “that Hispanic/Latino and Brazilian communities of faith extend important gifts — wisdom, resilience, and missional imagination — that can enrich and strengthen the entire denomination.”
“We must maintain momentum, steward the relationships we have built, and invite middle governing bodies to engage energetically along this journey as a faithful response to the missio Dei,” Andrade said.
According to the Baladez, the group unanimously shared the belief that “the end of phase one is only the beginning of breakthroughs yet to come.”
Miranda said group members will meet again in a few weeks after they’ve had a chance to process their experiences from Puerto Rico. They will once again review feedback surveys and then prepare reports to send to the mid councils where they’ve facilitated encounters. They have also prepared a report for the upcoming 227th General Assembly, which meets online and in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, June 22-July 2. Beyond that, they have to wait and see what resources will allow their work to continue. They are clear, however, that the movement should continue, one way or another.
Abdala, who is also moderator of the Portuguese Language Presbyterian Council, called the conclusion of phase one a “threshold,” further describing the process as “the birth of an intergenerational, decolonizing, and theologically grounded movement that learns from lived experience, develops contextual resources, and continues to re-imagine and re-design our ministries for the good of the denomination and the glory of God.”
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