The Kingdom over the American Dream

• Iglesia Gracia serves a diverse congregation representing more than 15 different countries.
• Following Jesus requires resisting the temptation to find identity in comfort, success, or cultural heritage.
• Immigrant experiences offer powerful reminders that our ultimate citizenship and hope are found in Jesus.

• Iglesia Gracia Webpage
• Iglesia Gracia Resources
• Iglesia Gracia Discipleship Stories
• Iglesia Gracia Life Change Video

Scripture

• 1 Corinthians 12:12–31

And this is unbelievable that 20% of Americans population is Hispanic. Hispanic meaning Spanish speaking people. That makes us the second largest Spanish speaking country in the universe. Is not Spain, not Colombia, not Argentina, is the United States of America.

Well, welcome back to the Grace Church Podcast. It's Whitney and I here today with one of our favorite friends, Brandon Garcia from Iglesia. Gracia, how are you, Brandon? I'm. Doing good and thanks for asking and thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks for coming and sitting down and give us a little update on what's going on.

And I just have one request of the two of you. I I would just ask that you don't go off on your own little Spanish language and lead me out of this conversation. See a lot of better well dia Brandon is cassiquieres salir Ora estavian en espanol nuestra premier episodio en espanol entonces Brandon cuenta la gracia gracia que Paso en Las meses pasados.

Now I'm just kidding. Yeah. I knew I knew it'd be trouble. I thought about doing this solo and I'm thinking better of it now.

But yeah, Brandon, glad you're here so. We are, we're, we're just kidding. Well, Cue and everybody here, Brandon, we really would love for you to just introduce yourself a little bit, your family, how you guys came to be here in Greenville and tell us how many instruments you play somewhere in there as well.

Well, it's been 9 years since we moved from Costa Rica. It was just my wife and I. Her name is Yanni. She plays the cello. I don't play the cello and it's been a great experience for us to just get to know grace and be disciple over here and also be part of our mission to make disciples, especially on the Spanish speaking community. Most of our churches immigrant. We're immigrants now.

We have 3 kids, Luca, Noah and Mia and it's a challenge to raise them in a different country that we didn't grow up in, in different cultures, right? They speak Spanish but now even my oldest is saying I speak in Poquito Espana. I'm like, come on. Come on. That's your first language, yes, but at home, you know, he might call me Papi sometimes and Daddy some other time.

So we're embracing the full bilingual household. It's. Gonna be so talented at such a young age. And did you, did you say Costa Rica home country? Costa Rica.

So how do you get here from Costa Rica? All right, so Robbie planted a great church in Espanola at a time that now it's called Iglesia Gracia, and he was looking for a worship leader. He has a recommendation from his friends and we got together. I had a couple of interviews. I don't know how they were able to understand my English at the time, but we ended up coming and now it's been 9 years. And just kind of fun fact about you learning English, how did you learn English?

Well, you know you had to take classes, but you actually don't learn on those classes. But then you also can watch shows with subtitles. On Netflix. On Netflix, so that helps. Music too of course.

So if you want to learn Spanish, I want to give you that advice. You can try the opposite way. You can so OK, so you come over your your worship leader and but now you're a campus pastor.

So how long? Tell us about that journey. That's right. So around 4 years ago, Robbie had another challenge and opportunity that he pursued and I took over the responsibility and the privilege and it's been and it's been a lot. Yeah, I'm grateful for for being part of what God is doing and in our church is specifically because the culture in the upstate is is changing, is growing the population in general, but then also the Hispanic population is, is growing. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about that. Tell us, give us some insight into what kind of numbers does that look like? Yeah. So actually we had a leader retreat a few months ago and I was doing some research for that. And this is unbelievable, but 20% of Americans population is Hispanic. Hispanic meaning Spanish speaking people, So that means that 65,000,000 Spanish speaking people live in America.

And then South Carolina is right up there as far. As percentage, South Carolina might be a little less than 20%, yeah, but still is a lot of people, yeah. OK.

So 65 million or 20% of the population is speaking Spanish. Yeah. You know what's unbelievable and crazy about that? That makes us the second largest Spanish speaking country and the universe. Wow, what's the 1st? Mexico is first, so you can find more Spanish speaking people in Mexico and that's it, we're second place.

Okay, so we're bordered by the largest Spanish speaking country. That's right. And then the second largest Spanish speaking country is within our borders. That's right, it's us. It's not Spain, not Colombia, not Argentina is the United States of America.

So in other words, you're on the cutting edge of a big cultural change here, Yeah. And if I'm honest with you, when we moved 99 years ago, I was not aware of that. Yeah, it was just like a small step that an opportunity just came up and we took we we thought that it was a good idea for our family.

But now I'm realizing that, you know, it was, it was part of a bigger plan. Yeah. So how does that growth affect the campus?

Well, there are some studies in the church world that will tell that after COVID, a lot of Spanish speaking churches, they, they open their doors, they're saying that. But year 8, they're expecting an average of 80 people attending their and their services, which is great. Yeah.

But what we've seen in Iglesia Gracia is that in over 11 years, a little more than 11 years, we're having an attendance of 400 people on Sundays, well, not counting kids or students. So you're saying that post COVID a lot of new churches started. That's right. And that the average trend is about 80 people after eight years.

So we have more churches, but they tend to be relatively small. And through the work of Iglesia Gracia, the church has grown. We've got, we've got folks coming from all over, right? That's right. We have people coming from all over, meaning countries, but then meaning also driving from different counties. Even inside the outside.

We have around 15 different countries representative in in our church. So this is the example that I always give to someone when I tell them that we have 15 different countries. Just imagine going to church with a guy from England and a family from Scotland and then a family from Australia.

So you speak the same language, but at the same time your accent is different, your culture is different, some of your words are different. So that is that brings a unique challenge for us. But then on top of that, even though we meet at Taylor's, not everybody comes from 5/10/15 minutes, you know, driving distance. We have people coming from Quinton. Which is interesting.

So can you explain a little bit like what is causing them to drive so far to come to this church? Yeah, that's a great question. Well, I would say that first of all, there are not a lot of Spanish speaking churches around especially. Compared to English speaking churches, that's right. Especially compared to the amount that we can find in English.

But then historically, most of the Hispanic churches tend to be either Catholic, Roman Catholic churches or charismatic. So we've seen that some of the comments that new people coming to our church will will say that that, you know, was one of the reasons they they stick together. It's just the emphasis that we put on the Bible, the Scriptures, and they'll start saying things like, well, I haven't been part of a church where we just study one book of the Bible and we go into that detail in the context.

And it's helping me see things that I've never heard before. Yeah. Or even I didn't know that I was able to read the Bible. I thought that it was something that just the priest was allowed to do. And I just received from him. Wow.

So it's it is amazing to be part of that journey for those people. You are seeing a lot of baptisms. Tell us about that. Yeah.

So just to give you an example, in the month of April, we had planned to celebrate baptisms. And when we tell our people, when we tell our people that we were having baptisms, we had that many people interested that we had to split in two Sundays back-to-back. So we celebrated 12 baptisms, 3 on each service because we have two services per Sunday. And it's, you know, it's showing the need for a good Spanish speaking church in the Upstate because the population is growing, the hunger is there and we've seen the fruit of that.

Yeah. Did you say what average attendance has been in the spring? Yeah. So the average attendance is around 400 people. Wow, yeah, that's amazing. And OK, so for those of us who have never attended a service, how does the Spanish speaking services line up and, and, and other programs with English speaking?

Are we, are you trying to do the same thing? Are you doing something completely different? You know, are we getting teaching from Blake and Schofield with Spanish subtitles like what are we? What are we doing? I would love for having Blake speaking Spanish in our services, but but no, we have, we have teachers in our congregation.

So I got the privilege to teach around every other week. And then we have Robbie who planted the church. He's he's teaching in Harrison, who is on staff so. You got a plurality of teachers just like English speaking just like. English speaking and then we are really blessed by being part of Grace Church as a whole and share the resources that we have as a, as a big church. I am part of the teaching meetings and you know, I'm part of the conversations with Jim and Bill and Matt and Scoffy and Blake preparing for the same sermon series that we are having in the English speaking campuses.

So, so the service look a little bit the same in this in terms of teaching and songs, but there are a little bit of differences like we're a little more passionate in worship. You might say meet and greets are longer because people keep hugging each other. But overall, we have pretty similar services. Yeah. Are there ever any times that you guys choose to teach something slightly different for your campus just to meet them specifically where they're at? Or do you always teach the same thing?

Every once in a while during the summer, we might do something specific that we need to address as a campus. But that's a good question because that brings another idea. Even though we have the same teaching, the illustrations might be different, or the application might be a little different based on our context. Sure, we have the same necessity. We need Jesus. We need to be confronted as we pursue comfort, as we pursue the American dream.

But some of the way you present that might might be a little different. And that's why we do We would want to have a completely different teacher teach it in their own language to be able to relate to a very specific audience. Otherwise, I guess we could just subtitle Blake, But there's something that is lost in the. 100%, yeah, that's right. And my understanding is a lot of growth in children's ministry and even student ministry. Can you talk a little bit about the the families? Yeah.

So that creates a unique challenge that we're seeing in his disciple in the next generation. Yeah, within the Hispanic church. And I've seen it in my house. And here's the idea that most of us, we don't have relatives in the in the city. Sure.

So I don't have my parents or grandma or brothers and sisters. So your family is actually the church, right? So we've seen the hospitality for us and in our context is not like a strategy that we have to pursue really hard. It's a necessity. We just need to be surrounded by other people, especially when we are raising kids.

So if I'm honest with you, I'm not 100% sure how the future looks like for us because we are not pursuing to just protect our Hispanic culture and and disciple our kids in loving the Hispanic heritage, right? So that's not the main goal. The main goal is for them to follow Jesus and be faithful to Him. In this context. In this context, by having parents that are immigrants, but most of them they were born in here, speaking 2 languages, going to school with people that look different than them, that they have a different experience at home.

But at the same time, you have the same gut. Yeah. And you have have most of the same issues. So I would love to have more answers, but we're trying to figure it out as as we go. Yeah, no, I love that. And thanks for bringing us into that, that tension.

It's a lot of us if we're not up close and personal with Spanish speaking culture, we may not, we may not think about it or or even worse, we have stereotypes that just aren't healthy. They aren't helpful. So well, tell us a little bit about, you know, you talked about being a a Church of immigrants, mainly first generation. How does that help you connect with the story of faith and follow Jesus, maybe in a unique way? Yeah, wow. I would say that as an immigrant, you are aware that this is not home, because it's not.

It's not. Yeah, this is. It's not Costa Rica. Yeah, but at the same time, you have the opportunity to live as a missionary.

So not just taking advantage of the city or the place that you're in, but also look for opportunities to bless and serve and be light around the people that is with you. But at the same time, as you are reminded that this is not home, you're looking forward for your how do you say in English, like your homeland? Yeah. Yeah, Homeland. Future home. Yeah, you're looking for for for your homeland.

And then as immigrants, you are also facing tough situations, hard situations that humble yourself and remind you that you're not self-sufficient, that you need a guy. This is a personal story. We were waiting for my wife's paperwork, like for four years, and at some point I was leading the church and not knowing if I was going to be able to stay here the next year just because of the immigrant process used to allow her to work. And that's just my story.

But then you have other families crossing countries, fleeing away from their countries just to look for a better future for their kids, crossing the border, crossing rivers, and then getting in here, realizing that that better future that they were looking for is not as easy. No. And they're realizing that it's not as promising. It's not everything that they were looking for. Yeah.

So when you face all of that, you realize that, oh, So what I needed, what I need is not in this country. It's not at this system is in Christ. So just seeing that first hand, it's, it's amazing. Because on any given weekend, you have, you already said you have folks coming from 15 different home countries, but their situations are in the hundreds of where they're coming from. I mean, some folks are seeking asylum. Yeah, I've heard stories, particularly coming out of some countries like Venezuela, just really, really difficult situations.

Elaborate a little bit more on your personal situation with Yanni. When you come into the country, you come in as a religious worker. Is that on a like a temporary visa? Yeah, like a two year OK.

And so then you're going through the process and Yanni's with you as your spouse. Not allowed to work. Not allowed to. Work is allowed to be with me. Yeah. And then how long does it take each of you to finalize your paperwork?

Well, in the middle of COVID, it took like close to six years for her to get her permanent residence residency, which is called a green card. Yeah. But just picture this as we were waiting for that process. We had kids, right, All of our families in Costa Rica.

So we wanted our family to get to know our kids. Yeah, of course, and just hang out with them. And we wanted our kids to get to know grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles.

So we were waiting over here not knowing if when that was going to happen. Because just to be clear, if she leaves, she can't get back. She can't get back. Yeah. And while she's here, she can't work, OK.

But she's allowed to be with me. Which is good, but yeah, there's just so much complication and complexity to everything that you're describing. And it does go to your earlier point that there's something clarifying that not this country isn't home, but this world isn't home. Like we're not illusioned to the fact that everything we need is going to be supplied in this moment because you feel the tension of so many things are not working out to expectations. And you kind of alluded to that earlier.

I think you had mentioned like comfort and some of the things that your congregation, they are here in this country, things that they're seeking. Can you describe a little bit more of that and just how you guys are having to lead your people through maybe some of those idols that they have? Yeah.

So as you come here pursuing the American Dream, I've seen like two different outcomes of that. On one hand, you're pursuing money and stability, and you're sending money to your countries, to your family. Some people are sustaining their family here and sustaining other families in other countries. Wow. And actually, $175 billion, yeah, are sent. With AB, with AB are.

Sent back, are sending back every year. Yeah. So as you start making money, I mean, you're working hard. Whatever it is that you're doing, you're working hard, but you're making money. I've seen two outcomes. On one hand, you realize that that's not enough.

And you realize I've heard stories like, hey, at some point I remembered that I was taking all the overtime possible, but now I'm not because I'm realizing that that's not it. And as you realize that that's not it, God allow you to get to know what is it that you're needing. And that is Christ and that is being part of a local church and serve others and love others and lead your family. And when you see that, it's a beautiful story.

But then on the other hand, just to be clear with you and tell you stories, I've seen people that as they're pursuing the American Dream and making money and pursuing more money and just just get absorbed in the system, their families just are destroyed and their relationship with each other is destroyed and their lives are destroyed just because they're pursuing. But it's not the need. Yeah, which so much of that can be specific to the population that you have, but even as you're talking about it, I'm like, that's not really that much different.

Yeah, not at all. Our English speakers, that idea of trying to maximize the country that we live in and get everything that we can out of it and comfort at any cost, like, yeah, I do. I want us to feel that tension and send. That yeah, elevate work status. Take that as your primary identity. Neglect family, neglect spiritual life, neglect physical, all that.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's that is real. That is very real. So, yeah, it's interesting that the commonalities despite the different origination points and.

And so you are. I was just thinking about you as a campus pastor and comparing you to our other English speaking campuses. I mean, you're doing all the same work, but you are contextualizing it.

And so this specifically is an area around warning your folks not to seek comfort. What are what are a couple of of spiritual things related to ownership of their faith or the way church works? What are you seeing as areas of discipleship that you're trying to really lead your folks in?

So continue with the same idea, work. It's a big deal. How do you manage your time? How do you see work as not the end goal, but just part of what you do to provide?

But then how you don't forget your family of origin and your family in the faith? Family faith, yeah. So that is that is one thing. And then just to going deep in, in your faith, not just marking a check as a tradition, as a, you know, a religious tradition that you have as a family, just show up on Sunday, but you cultivate a relationship with the Lord that you're living. You know, our core values that you're being biblically oriented, that you're prayerfully dependent, you're serving others.

So that is that is a challenge in this culture because you're you can get to absorb in what you need to do that you just give God what is left out. Yeah. And falling back on a religious experience. And you know, for many of us that grew up in the South, we had our own version of a religious experience.

And so again, we share that in common. Tell, tell us just as we conclude here in the next 5 or 10 minutes, what are what are you learning personally? And then what are you really excited about?

So it is mind blowing just to see how God transcend your background, your language, your story, your immigrant immigration status, whether you have Social Security or not, the color of your skin, your accent, He's above all of that. And just seeing in display with my own eyes, unifying the body, not just within Iglesia Gracia, but then as a as a church as a whole. Yeah, it's something that that I am not getting used to yet and that I don't want to take for granted.

So that's something that I am learning. Yeah, How is First Corinthians played into some of those learnings? It's been great because even in our church we talked a lot about families, you know, fleeing away from the realities in other countries and seeking for asylum and all of that.

But then we also have professionals that they were brought here by big companies, right, Because they were brilliant people, engineers and and things like that. So we have different demographic, yeah, we have different economic status within Iglesia Gracia. Different gifts. Different gifts.

So how we are united in Christ in the middle of all of that? Yeah, it doesn't make sense, right? If you think about it like a lot of Sundays, and I've seen that I have said this before, there is not a reason, original explanation why we're together this Sunday. Because if you look around, you're from different, different countries, different backgrounds, different social status.

But yet we're here and we're worshiping the same God while beside us at the Taylor's building, there are other group of people worshiping the same God in another language. Yeah. So that is, that is mind blowing and that is actually what excites me also for the future. Yeah, especially if I'm honest as I think about my kids and just the 90 kids that we have every Sunday that are just like my kids that they now have this bicultural by language culture. And that's how that's going to play out in the future in a country, you know, conformed by 20% of the Spanish speaking country.

I don't know if we if we need to do something different. Sure, yeah. And I am thinking about that and I'm passionate about that and just looking forward to what God has prepared for and. There is this common idea now, like the idea of diversity is just popular, you know.

But it does remind me when we were back in First Corinthians 12 and the idea of the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ and it talks about some are Jews and some are Gentiles, some are slaves, some are free, some speak Spanish and some speak English and some were born here and some were not born here. But we've all been baptized into one body by 1 spirit and we all share the same spirit and that's a beautiful like that is that's why diversity is good.

It's not just for the sake of it, but like, especially within the context of Scripture and the church, like there is beauty brought to the body by so many different kinds of people. It's really cool. Yeah, thinking about your kids and then thinking about my own kids. I have two that really got infected, fell in love with the Spanish language. One of those, my daughter who still lives in the Upstate, is a member, Iglesia Gracia.

So Whitney, just like you, very passionate about the language and the people, and I call it her superpower that she can translate, you know, that she can understand, that she can speak, that she can communicate, that she can do all these different things. So but speaking less to her and more to me as someone who doesn't speak the language, listening to this podcast, I hear what you're saying. I'm super curious. I want to know, but I am intimidated.

So what? What would you offer me as far as being able to come and see and engage with Iglesia Gracia? Well, I will encourage you to just come and see and be part and you'll be surprised how many Americans are in our service too. Really. OK. Yeah, yeah.

Well, first of all because we have mixed couples, so the husband might be American, the wife is not or vice versa. But then some other English speaking people, they just want to be part and we're welcoming them and giving them hugs too. And what music's just good? And what kind of accommodations do you make for language? Yeah.

So we have simultaneous translation. So we have talented people that are listening what we're saying in real time and then speaking over your ear, OK in English. Yeah, sure.

So you don't have an excuse, Just come. That's. Awesome. That's awesome. And I think we talked about just with the the prevalence of the Spanish speakers in the area, we want to make sure that we're evangelizing and advocating for Iglesio Gracia as a as one of many church homes, but as one that has a lot of resources, life experience, and a lot of love and care for our community.

And so invite someone to be a part of that community. That's right. Pray. What can specifically we be praying for? Just what we talked about, unity within our church and then for strength to live a godly life, not pursuing the distractions of this world of the American dream and for the future as we are just figuring out how to disciple the second and third generation that they are, you know, bilingual. Yeah.

And as a whole, you know, just a reminder that our eyes will keep fixing Jesus because we're not pursuing the protection of our Hispanic heritage. That's not our our agenda. Yeah. We're here to just be faithful to God's mission, making disciples and, and be faithful to his Kingdom, not our culture or language. Yeah. Love that.

Any final thoughts with? No, I, I just love it. I mean, I think something else that I'd love to mention, I'd love to shout out not the Richardson. She does so much translating for our women's resources. We get to send those to other countries and not just her. I mean, so many volunteers and people at Iglesias Gracia.

Like there there's something about being a part of the greater church and just that God has been really kind and faithful to us and that we get to take these two brothers and sisters all across the world and support and love them. I know we've mentioned that several times, but I just, it's one of the coolest things I think we are able to do. So specifically translating resources and then sending them to some of these 15 different countries, being an extension of of Grace Church and encouragement.

Even if we physically can't be present, being able to send resources because of what folks like you who are listening as you give to the mission of Grace Church or helping support all of these different things. We're asking you to pray. We're asking you to come visit. And Brandon, thanks. Yeah, We really, really enjoy having you here and having these conversations, and we'll hope you'll come back soon. Yeah.

Thanks for having me. All right. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again on the Grace Church Podcast. Oh yes.