Puentes Initiative: Empowering Pastoral Leadership for Sustainable Church Growth
The Puentes Initiative, launched in partnership between The Gathering Place Church (TGP) and the National Latino Evangelical Coalition (NaLEC), is a groundbreaking bilingual program designed to strengthen Latino churches across the United States by equipping pastors with the tools, resources, and strategies they need to build sustainable leadership structures. The name “Puentes,” meaning “bridges” in Spanish, reflects the program’s core mission of fostering shared leadership and equipping emerging leaders to carry the vision forward.
Program launches in March 2025!
Key Objectives:
The Puentes Initiative aims to equip Latino pastors with leadership development tools to multiply their leadership DNA—vision, values, and philosophy—among emerging leaders. This ensures sustainable leadership within their churches and communities, mitigating the risks of burnout and succession challenges.
Core Components:
- Leadership Development: Training pastors to identify, mentor, and empower emerging leaders within their congregations, ensuring leadership succession and reducing burnout. This includes workshops on conflict resolution, leadership delegation, and spiritual leadership.
- Change Management: Providing pastors with the skills necessary to navigate leadership transitions, church growth, and organizational change, ensuring that churches remain resilient during challenging periods.
- Networking and Peer Support: Creating a support system where pastors can collaborate, share insights, and encourage each other, fostering a community of mutual growth and empowerment.
- Strategic Partnerships: Strengthening NaLEC’s reach by forming partnerships with educational institutions, other faith-based organizations, and community groups to enhance the resources available to Latino churches.
Outcomes:
- Sustainable Leadership Models: Pastors will develop and implement shared leadership structures, alleviating the burden on individual leaders and enabling churches to thrive in a collaborative environment.
- Resilient Congregations: Churches will be better equipped to navigate transitions and challenges, ensuring long-term spiritual and organizational growth.
Expected Impact:
Through the Puentes Initiative, Latino evangelical churches will experience stronger leadership, more stable congregations, and a greater capacity to serve their communities. As pastors build leadership teams and implement shared models, burnout will be reduced, and the overall effectiveness of ministries will increase. This initiative will not only transform individual churches but will also contribute to the revitalization of Latino evangelical communities nationwide.
We invite you to partner with us in this transformative initiative, creating lasting change that empowers both pastors and their congregations to grow in faith, leadership, and community impact.