Female Assistant Superintendent Elected

That Doris Quirós has been elected assistant superintendent of the Southern Latin District — becoming the first female in the continental U.S. Assemblies of God to hold that position — is perhaps unsurprising.

Her dad, bivocational pastor Ruben Quirós Sr., and mom, Mirta, moved to New York from Puerto Rico and pastored a Long Island church. Her parents later planted a church in the Bronx, while raising her and her six siblings in the Assemblies of God. At 18, when she was baptized in the Holy Spirit, she says she heard God call her to preach.

But then her trajectory took a detour. Her father’s company transferred him to Georgia. Upset over their move, Doris backslid. Rather than prepare for her calling, she majored in finance and banking at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She married a man who wasn’t a Christian. She took a job with the Federal Reserve in Atlanta as an analyst in the statistics department.

In time, she returned to the Lord, prayed for her husband’s salvation, and went by herself with their son to church. By 1999, she had moved to Georgia where, during a quiet moment at a women’s retreat with no one else around, she says she heard the Holy Spirit speak: The calling is irrevocable.

“I broke down,” says Quirós, 54. “I’m thinking, But how? I know You called me, but I can’t do anything unless my husband is saved.”

But in 2000, after her husband served her with divorce papers, at church a woman minister preached a message that brought Doris peace about fulfilling her ministerial calling.

“I said, Lord, if that’s what You want me to do, I submit to your will,” says Quirós, whose district election took place in June. She enrolled in a Bible institute and within two years applied for ministerial credentials. In the metro Atlanta Asamblea de Dios of Lilburn — Georgia’s first Spanish-language AG church where her father pastored from 1988-2010 and where her brother Ruben Quirós is now senior pastor — she became assistant pastor, while she worked her way up the corporate ladder at the Federal Reserve.

In her church’s section in the Southern Latin District, she began taking on leadership roles. Her responsibilities increased. For nine years, she served as district women’s director.

Meanwhile, she continued working in the banking industry. On Sept. 1, she became senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, part of the country’s central banking system. She is the first Hispanic of 12 districts in the bank nationwide to fill the position.

The turning point for her, she says, has been hearing God’s voice.

“For many years, I didn’t hear His voice,” Quirós says. “It wasn’t that He wasn’t speaking. I was not listening.

Quirós contends that God will take His followers places they never imagined if they let Him lead.

“It’s not because of us,” she says. “It’s because people need to be saved.”

Southern Latin District Superintendent Edson L. Dos Santos notes that Quirós is a woman of prayer who is grounded in truth. He calls her an important addition to the district executive team.

“The pastors voted for her because she’s a recognized leader,” Dos Santos says.

Maricela H. Hernandez, AG executive presbyter and secretary/treasurer of the Texas Gulf Hispanic District met Quirós when both served as district women’s directors. Quirós has brought ministry teams to the church Hernandez pastors, Family Christian Assembly, close to Texas’ border with Mexico. Hernandez says that Quirós brings much to leadership.

“God raised her to show us that God is calling women,” Hernandez says.

Hernandez says many women can identify with Quirós as a single mom working in a secular marketplace.

“Sometimes they don’t find a place in church,” Hernandez says. “If we honor God, God honors us.”

The U.S. Assemblies of God has 66 districts and ministry networks. Migdalia Quiñones served as the first female assistant superintendent in Puerto Rico from 2011 to 2014.