I’m Pastor Tobey Williams at Brookcliff Baptist Church. I’m the lead pastor here. I’ve been here since 2019. There is not one day in this church that someone’s not in this building. And it’s very busy, especially with two churches using it.
Before I got here, the iglesia was looking for a place, and the pastor’s wife was actually our financial secretary, and she worked it out with the previous pastor to come into our building in the afternoon, and they thought it would be great. And they couldn’t pay a lot. We just charged them, I think, at the time, 500 bucks. And then they came in and took the facility, and we just hand off the baton. We can still do that today. That’s how the relationship began. And then that pastor retired. And when he retired, Pastor Ernesto came to me and said: “We would like to come under your wings and for you to mentor us”.
Hola, ¿cómo estás? Mi nombre es Ernesto Loera. Soy el pastor de Iglesia Nueva Esperanza. En la iglesia yo empecé hace 16 años como miembro nada más. De allí continuamos yo y mi familia sirviendo al Señor, hasta que el Señor, después de 10 o 14 años, me llama al pastorado. Esto comenzó cuando estábamos en una iglesia en Riverside, y la esposa del pastor en ese entonces trabajaba para Brookcliff como secretaria y nos estaban pidiendo la iglesia de allá. Entonces ella habló con los líderes de Brookcliff y nos ofrecieron este building.
Williams: Our church is very unique in wanting to help others and to love other churches. It all began in a very interesting way. They were part of a different convention, but they weren’t happy. If I can remember Ernesto’s words, he said: “Listen, we never got any help. We never got any support”. And he says: “If your church can do that, and the reason we want you to do that is because you’re right here with us”.
Loera: Ha sido un gran gozo, un gran placer el poder ser parte y poder trabajar junto con el pastor Toby. Tiene un corazón grande. Está siempre para nosotros. Él y su congregación siempre nos apoyan y nos soportan en todo. Ha sido una gran bendición. Siempre piensas cuando estás en la iglesia y pasa alguna situación, que las puertas se cierran, pero nunca tomas en cuenta que Dios cierra una puerta, pero está abriendo otra. Estamos saliendo a evangelizar, a repartir el evangelio. Estamos tratando de alcanzar a las personas que más se pueda. Tenemos en mente plantar otras dos iglesias por el momento, una va a ser en Palisade y la otra va a ser en Fruita. La iglesia is wanting to start new work, and we want to be a part of that.
Williams : We want to help them, whatever the need is, financially, mentoring, help them start their work. And so when they go to Palisade or Fruita, we want to support them.
We want them to be successful in those plans. And it’s like us planning also. We want to plant together in a need, I think that is greater than maybe where we are as a church in this area. But to be able to start something different to a different culture is very exciting.
Loera: Para ser honesto, siempre hemos sentido que somos una sola iglesia, aunque hay diferencias entre el idioma inglés y español, pero en lo espiritual sentimos que somos una iglesia. Trabajamos mano a mano juntos en lo que se necesita de hacer.
Williams: I would have never thought five or six years ago that we would have this many pastors and we’d have Hispanic work and we’d all be working together. I didn’t plan that. That wasn’t my vision. It was God, and he provided the opportunities. When that happened, then we moved forward on it, and it’s been a huge blessing ever since. We feel from the beginning because God lead us. So we not decide to come together. God decide that we come together.
