SWU hosting program that equips Hispanic ministry leaders
Orvan Link of Walhalla has been involved with church planting in Dallas, Tex.; Norcross, Ga.; and Greenville. Link teaches several courses, including Old and New Testament, Homiletics,
Rev. Frankie Rodriguez has a contagious enthusiasm for spreading the love of Christ to the growing Hispanic population in the Carolinas.
Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico who moved to the U.S. as a teen, is grateful to Southern Wesleyan University for providing a strategic location to prepare leaders who are reaching out to Spanish-speaking people at their Greenville learning center.
“We are delighted to host FLAMA and watch how God is using this group to impact the Hispanic community. Working with Frankie and providing classroom space here in Greenville has been a true pleasure,” said Brice Bickel, regional director for recruiting at SWU’s Greenville learning center. “Frankie’s passion and desire to minister to the Hispanic community is inspiring. SWU desires to transform lives and serve our communities and this is one way that we can support this mission.”
As the Hispanic ministry leader of The Wesleyan Church, Rodriguez works with more than a hundred Hispanic churches from California to the Carolinas.
He’s quick to point out that there is more to the Hispanic community than people who emigrated from Mexico. While Mexico represents the largest Hispanic population, significant numbers of people also come from Colombia.
“We also reach out to Uruguay, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Peru,” Rodriguez noted, adding that there is great diversity within the Hispanic community, yet in Christ “We’re all one body.”
FLAMA (Spanish for “Flame”), a program within the Division of Education and Clergy Development of The Wesleyan Church, helps Spanish-speaking ministers receive theological training. Locally, these ministers come to Greenville from across the Upstate as well as the Hendersonville, Asheville, and from Greensboro/High Point areas of North Carolina.
Two types of classes are offered: Intensive sessions that take place on Fridays and Saturdays and seven-week classes that meet for three hours, one day per week. Course topics include spiritual formation, leadership and administration, Bible (New Testament and Old Testament) holiness, supervised ministry, pastoral ministry and pastoral epistles. Classes will resume at Greenville in September.
One of the professors, Orvan Link of Walhalla, has been involved with church planting in Dallas, Tex.; Norcross, Ga.; and Greenville. Link teaches several courses, including Old and New Testament, Homiletics, and courses devoted to spiritual growth, evangelism and leadership. For Link, the Greenville learning center’s environment is one where his students feel motivated to a higher level of participation and involvement in the subject matter.
Gabriel SantaMaría, who recently completed FLAMA, said that without the program it would not have been possible for him to start a prison ministry at Tyger River Correctional Institution. He added that the program has benefited him in his work with Hispanic congregations in Greenville, Norcross, Ga., and other locations.
“I have found so much in the assigned reading, new information, encouragement, and live examples of what it means to live for the Lord,” SantaMaria said.
“The greatest need in our Hispanic community is to come to know the Word of God – what the Bible is all about,” said María Eugenia Catano, one of the program’s students. “They must make the switch from the figures of Christ to the Living Lord. The FLAMA classes are helping us to be more effective in this work.”
Another student, Alvaro Verdejo, says that God is calling him to become more involved in Hispanic ministry. He credits FLAMA for its role in his spiritual growth and helping him realize opportunities to reach out.
“The urgent need that I see in our Hispanic community is knowledge of God's Word. They have not read the Bible nor have they been introduced to the Bible story and for that reason they do not know who the real Jesus is, what He has taught us much less what He has done for us,” Verdejo said.
“SWU has bent backwards to help us in many ways, whether there are 25 to 30 students or four to eight students. Every professor we’ve had who came down literally says you’ve got the best place. In other parts of the country, they have to use local churches and campgrounds,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez pastors El Camino Wesleyan Church, a Hispanic outreach in the Greenville area, along with his wife Deysi, a Southern Wesleyan alumna.
For details about FLAMA, contact Rodriguez at or go online to wesleyan.org.