Top evangelist gives glory, credit to God
The Revs. Jorge Acevedo (right) and Bill Walker give a report during the Florida
Annual Conference in Cape Coral, Fla., in this May 2008 photograph.
A UMNS file photo by Greg Moore. |
By Larry Macke*
Oct. 5, 2009 | CAPE CORAL, Fla. (UMNS)
Average attendance at Grace United Methodist Church
in Cape Coral, Fla., was 488 when the Rev. Jorge Acevedo was appointed
senior pastor in 1996. By 2008, it had risen to 2,388 congregants
spread among three campuses.
The growth is a key reason Acevedo was recognized by The Foundation for Evangelism as the 2009 Distinguished Evangelist of The United Methodist Church.
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The Rev. Jorge Acevedo
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Acevedo, however, gives glory and honor to God.
“First and foremost, (our growth) is by the grace of God,” he says.
“Anybody who experiences the favor of God knows that it’s not
self-generated.”
Acevedo, 49, is the 20th recipient of the national award from the Lake
Junaluska, N.C.-based Foundation for Evangelism, an affiliate of the
United Methodist Board of Discipleship. He also is a past recipient of
the Florida Conference Denman Evangelism Award, named for the late
Harry Denman, who began The Foundation for Evangelism in 1949.
Acevedo will receive the national award Oct. 31 during the foundation’s 60th anniversary celebration.
The Distinguished Evangelist award is presented to a United Methodist
clergy or lay leader whose life and ministry reflect a personal
commitment to helping others experience God’s transforming love through
Jesus Christ. The foundation seeks to promote Wesleyan evangelism that
incorporates both the personal and social aspects of Christian faith.
Those are Acevedo’s goals.
“To me, evangelism absolutely is all about the individual and the
social. It’s about fostering the redemption of individuals and enabling
them to surrender to Jesus,” Acevedo says. “Wesley said there’s no
holiness but social holiness, and this gets recognized in our
ministries.”
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Some
600 people attend the launch of Grace Community Center in North Coral
Gables, Fla., in this November 2008 photograph. A UMNS file
photo courtesy of Grace United Methodist Church.
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An important focus of Grace Church’s ministry is its Celebrate Recovery
program for people recovering from a variety of addictions and “hurts,
habits and hang-ups.”
More than 800 are involved in the program at the Cape Coral church.
Participants meet every Friday night for dinner, large group worship,
small group meetings and a coffee house for casual fellowship. Among
the small groups offered are those for chemical, food and sexual
addictions and anger issues.
“The vision God gave us is this: ‘Lord, please send us the people that
nobody else wants or sees,’ and often that has been the broken, the
marginalized,” Acevedo says. “What we do with recovery, we do really,
really well, but it doesn’t define who we are. That’s perhaps one-third
of our congregation.”
The Wesleyan mandate is also realized at the church’s newest campus, a
56,000-square foot supermarket the church began renovating in 2007
after it had closed. In addition to offering more worship space, the
church launched Grace Community Center from that facility in 2008 to
provide more holistic and multi-site ministry to the community’s poor
and marginalized, Acevedo says.
The center offers a Sunday morning service, but the rest of the week is
dedicated to education courses and parenting classes, the Celebrate
Recovery program, free medical care for area residents and a thrift
shop and food bank.
After the grace of God, Acevedo says the church’s success is the result of “a host of amazing, gifted, and committed people.”
Doug Whittaker, a church member, says the opportunities to serve enrich everyone.
“(The growth) reaffirms for me that God can take normal people and
literally work miraculous outcomes,” Whittaker says. “That is, when
those normal people are willing to let him do it and not get in his
way.”
But it also takes a pastor who is “visionary, high-energy, passionate, focused,” Whittaker says.
“He has the ability to see the ideal, all the rich possibilities of
something, communicate it and get people to buy into it,” Whittaker
says of Acevedo. “He inspires people.”
Pressed to react to his recognition, Acevedo says he is humbled by it.
“It’s very special to be told by the leaders that you’re doing well
because ministry can be really hard and really messy,” he says. “It
also means that I serve with some amazing people. I’m just a follower,
and I’m so grateful that I get to be a pilgrim with these people.”
*Macke is a freelance writer based in Vero Beach, Fla.
News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
The Foundation for Evangelism
Grace United Methodist Church
Florida Annual Conference
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