GLORY! Passion for Great Commission drives Eddie Lopez’s mesh of ministry, business

Baptist Press: “God’s will will always be done,” Pastor Eddie Lopez said. He teaches young church planters that sometimes God will ask you for the very thing you love the most, put it aside, prepare you for ministry, and then reconnect you with what you forfeited. “That’s my experience,” Lopez said. “Now, God blessed me with a ministry, God blessed me with a business.” He and his wife had a second daughter, Selah, eight years ago. Lopez had told God he not only wanted to work in ministry, but he wanted to own a business so he would have something more to give to the church. He had expressed to God a desire to minister not for what he could gain, but for what he could give. For Lopez, business would not be about gaining, but about giving.

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FGGAM Photo of Sharon sharing the love of Jesus in rural Montana. FGGAM is a Great Commission Ministry.

What a wonderful, refreshing story I needed. Years ago the late Pastor Don Kimbro warned me that the lack of carrying out The Great Commission and baptizing people and helping them grow up to be mature Christians would catch up with the Church. It surely has. The failure of many Churches to carry out The Great Commission in their community has resulted in failure. Some Churches here in New Mexico have not baptized anyone in 8 years! Why be a Church? George Barna: “People have become more selfish, churches have become less influential, pastors have become less Bible-centric”

The greatest failure of the American Church in the last decade or more is the failure to carry out The Great Commission!

Get out of your comfort zone! Get out of your walls! Why Pastors Talk About The Great Commission But Do Not Do It

Pastor Eddy has the answer!

Baptist Press

By Diana Chandler, posted June 21, 2024 in EvangelismSBC Annual MeetingsSBC News

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) – Eduardo “Eddie” Lopez likens himself to the Old Testament Prophet Jonah.

Having taught Sunday School and led worship as a pastor’s son growing up in Coahulia, Mexico, he knew he was called to ministry there.

Eddie Lopez points to an ichthus symbol outside the restaurant he owns. The symbol sometimes leads to Gospel conversations, he says. Submitted photo

“That’s one thing I did not want to do, to be a pastor,” Lopez told Baptist Press days after his election as Southern Baptist Convention second vice president. “I said God, ‘You can ask me whatever You want, just please don’t ask me to be a pastor.’ And running away from my calling, that’s why I came to the United States. I’m like Jonah, running away.”

Lopez married, opened a restaurant and by 1999 at just 30 years old, considered himself a successful businessman.

“Young guy, handsome guy – at that time,” he laughed, “with my own business. And I said hey, I made it, with my beautiful wife (Zoila), my beautiful daughter (Arianna), but I had a big emptiness in my heart, huge, big emptiness in my heart. And I knew the reason for this emptiness (was) because I’m running away from my calling.”

Lopez’s experience and eventual surrender to God’s calling drive his passion for ministry today, intentionally mentoring and encouraging young pastors.

The three restaurants he owns are closed on Sundays, no alcoholic beverages are sold, and only Christian music flows from the speakers. The Rest of The Story Here

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