Seek and Save Events Make Increasing Impact on Churches, Communities

“Eighteen months, 18 events,” says Bert Pizarro emphatically and with a beaming smile. Pizarro, the coordinator for Seek and Save ministry outreaches, an initiative of AG U.S. Missions, recently returned from the 2024 concluding November outreach in Las Vegas, and he has a lot to smile about — the numbers and personal testimonies received throughout the year explain why.

In just Las Vegas alone, nearly 500 people made decisions for Christ and were connected to a local church, with more than 2,300 being exposed to the gospel message. Then there were places like Tulsa, Oklahoma; Queens, New York; Little Rock, Arkansas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and more where hundreds more chose Christ, and thousands more were impacted with the gospel.

“Through these 18 outreaches, held over the last 18 months, we have recorded nearly 4,500 salvation decisions, with each person then connected to a church body,” Pizarro says. “We’ve also had more than 50,000 people attend one of our block parties or assemblies and 66 missing children have been found through our ministry connection with F.R.E.E. International and CAN Freedom. We also distributed nearly 100,000 bags of groceries through our partnership with Convoy of Hope.”

VOLUNTEERS MAKE THE DIFFERENCE

Yet as encouraging as these statistics are, one statistic Pizarro is really excited about comes under the category of “volunteers.”

“At Seek and Save events, we are seeing the Church come out in significant numbers,” Pizarro states. “Congregations are catching the vision for reaching their communities for Christ — and not just for a one-time outreach, but an ongoing effort to impact and become relevant to their communities. This also means that pastors, who truly play the key roles, have bought in and are passionate about evangelism and discipleship.”

Pizarro shares one of countless testimonies that he has heard.

“A pastor friend of mine, Sam, and his wife, Angie, were part of a block party at a park in New Orleans,” Pizarro shares. “They were talking with a woman who had not stepped foot in that park since two of her sons were murdered there, caught in the middle of a shootout, 12 years ago. But God drew her to that park — a park she would otherwise never have entered — and Sam and Angie led her to the Lord.”

Statistics show that for roughly every five volunteers (7,580), three people have committed their lives to Christ (4,496). What’s perhaps even more impressive, is that weeks and even months after the Seek and Save event, pastors are reporting individuals who attended the event “just showing up” at their churches.

Although Pizarro recognizes the connection, he is quick to point out that although Seek and Save has resulted in thousands accepting Christ as Savior, in many other cases, the outreach may have served as a seed planted or it provided a little more spiritual watering. However, it’s the churches’ ongoing commitment to ministering to their communities that is providing the continuing harvest of souls for Christ.

CONTINUED CONTACT

Carlos Medina, who has ministered at Elohim Christian Church in Richmond Hills, Queens, New York, for the past 27 years (16 of those years as senior pastor), confirms Pizarro’s observation.

“This Sunday a lady came to Sunday service — she had been at the Seek and Save event, and we had prayed over her there,” Medina says. “But since the event, we’ve also had our Family Festival — where we able to invite over 100 families and saw many of them attend — and held a number of other outreaches to our community. We use the Seek and Save contact list to reach out to people and personally invite them . . . because of that database, we’re able to keep in touch with the community.”

J.J. Jennings, who pastors Woodlake Family Church – Turley, located just outside of the city limits of Tulsa, Oklahoma, hosted one of eight Seek and Save events held on the same day in the Tulsa area earlier this year.

“Our church is located in one of the poorest areas of Tulsa County,” Jennings notes, “but we had about 500 people attend, served by 90 volunteers.”

Jennings explains that the church is already heavily invested in outreach. However, the Seek and Save event, as it had for Medina, helped build their contact list and enabled the church to follow-up and maintain connection to those guests through texts and emails.

“It was a great, incredibly awesome event for us — seeing the salvations and seeing the families come back since that event has been awesome,” Jennings states. “And for us, it has been a unifying event for the Assemblies of God in Tulsa. Sometimes you forget — you get so involved in your only little area — that there are others around you who are also trying to win people for Jesus.”

And although Jennings says that a big event such as Seek and Save wasn’t new to his congregation, that wasn’t necessarily the case for the other churches participating that week.

“Before the event, more than half of the churches had not done that type of a big event,” Jennings says. “Seek and Save helped them realize that they could do it and do it successfully!”

Pizarro again emphasizes the importance of congregations being invested in Seek and Save in order to experience ongoing success. He notes that approximately 85% of the salvations taking place are through the constituents sent out to serve their communities.

MIGRANT MINISTRY

Abraham Garcia, who pastors in East Brooklyn (Ark of Salvation) as a member of the Spanish Eastern district, says he originally wasn’t supposed to be a part of the Seek and Save event as it was being held in another section of New York City (Queens), but Pizarro called him because they needed some help.

“I was actually scheduled to be somewhere else, but changed things to be there,” Garcia says. “And it turned out to be the greatest blessing! We went into the migrant camps — I saw how structured, how well organized, how planned out the Seek and Save event was and just thought, Wow, we need more of this!”

Garcia says that his small church has continued to reach out to the migrant community following Seek and Save as well as to the church’s neighborhood.

“We have a burning desire to serve and reach people,” he says, “and our church tripled in size within three months of the Seek and Save outreach (now averaging about 170).”

Like others have noted, Garcia has seen the continued efforts of the church to serve its community result in the growth of the church and its influence in the communities it’s serving.

“I love what Seek and Save is doing — they have birthed something,” Garcia says. “They are sparking a fire . . . and if people pay attention, they will grow; if we follow and obey what the Lord has called our ministry to do, we’ll see His hand move miraculously . . . and we’ve already seen that happening — people are getting saved week after week!”

Garcia says that he stays in regular communication with Pizarro, being coached on how to sustain their impact and growth. For as Garcia puts it, “Growth is great, but now, how do we handle it?”

LOOKING FORWARD

Pizarro is excited about what God has already done and is still going to do through Seek and Save as it helps awaken a passion in congregations to reach their communities for Christ.

“People — America — is thirsty for Jesus,” he says. “I’ve seen the need, the heartbreak, the disparity across America and then I’ve witnessed the resilience, faith, and hope that only Jesus can bring. If you really are seeking to see the hurt in a city, you really don’t have to look far, you’ll find it — you’ll find it everywhere.”

In 2025, Seek and Save already has numerous events scheduled, including events in Puerto Rico, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, a massive six-event Seek and Save combining the three Florida districts (that culminates with General Council in Orlando), and then events in Omaha, Nebraska; Greenville, South Carolina; Salt Lake City; and Pensacola, Florida.

Pizarro believes the outreach in Puerto Rico is going to get the 2025 Seek and Save efforts off to a strong start.

“We have close to 100 people from Florida, Texas, and Georgia committed to a missions trip to help with our outreach in Puerto Rico in January,” Pizarro says. “We also have several U.S. Missions ministries assisting, including Intercultural Ministries, Church Mobilization, Chaplaincy, and Adult and Teen Challenge all working together in this outreach as we partner with the local church to train and reach people for Christ.”

For more information about upcoming Seek and Save events or to connect with Pizarro, see SeekandSave.ag.org.