New Strategy and Vision Inspires Revive Church Pueblo
Pastors Diego and Claudia Castaño planted Revive Church on the eastern side of Pueblo, Colorado, in 2014 after serving as youth pastors for 14 years at a church in Las Vegas, Nevada. Claudia is the children’s ministry pastor at Revive Church. Diego is a graduate of the Latin American Theological Seminary in La Puente, California.
The population of the Pueblo area surrounding Revive Church is made up of the economically poor, and the families living there have remained true to their roots for many generations.
Ministering to and discipling people who have seen churches with different ministry philosophies come and go through the years is difficult, Diego Castaño says. Most of the people in the community have lived there far longer than Revive Church has existed, and few new people move into the community each year.
Trusting God for His leading, the Castanõs presented the Revive Church congregation with some direction and goals, but they found that inspiring them to move forward and work toward those goals was difficult.
“The Acts 2 Journey helped us create a strong and unified vision,” Castaño says. “Our leadership team came alongside us in the process of training and rethinking our vision, and after hearing the challenges of developing a proper strategy, we sat together and brainstormed. That was amazing and very encouraging!”
Today, Revive Church has set forth a vision to CONNECT people to Jesus, GROW together in faith, and SERVE the community.
“We’ve created a simple process of intentional discipleship that is easily communicated to the congregation and visitors,” Castaño says. “The Acts 2 Journey we began implementing in early 2018 was an absolute game changer for Revive Church. Thank you to the AGTrust partners who gave and made it possible for our congregation to participate.”
To help implement the church’s vision and teach the congregation how to walk it out, the vision statement is mentioned in services, taught to children and youth, and relayed on the church website and in the church social media accounts. Vision statement cards are also placed in the visitor handouts.
"Through the Acts 2 Journey process, we came to understand the importance of clearly communicating what is in our hearts to the congregation," Castaño says. “The examples presented to us of past success stories and challenges and the difficult conversations we had were essential.
“At Revive Church, we want to help everyone feel welcome and that gathering together at church is their most memorable time of the week. We know that as the people unite in worship and celebrate Christ, they will experience the life-changing power of the gospel.”