TRANSCRIPT

NATHAN JONES

On today's episode, we have the opportunity to speak with Miguel Castillo from Spain, who is coaching and developing church planters.

I'm your host, Nathan Jones. Thank you once again for joining me on this episode of the Inspiring Stewards podcast.

Well, Miguel, thank you for the time this morning. I've been looking forward to our conversation. Let's jump in. Give us a little bit of your background, where you're from, your life growing up, that sort of thing.

MIGUEL

Thank you for the invitation. I was born in Monterrey, Mexico. This was a while back. I'm part of a family of five siblings. By the way, Monterrey is a pretty big urban center in the north of Mexico, with a huge value for industry, entrepreneurial work, and education center. Basically, the big values in the city are hard work and money.

And it was founded by Sephardic Jews back in the day, 500 years ago. I was born into that family, five siblings. I'm the second one. My family was a loving family. I can remember til this day. My parents are alive, 87 and 82.

Again, I can tell you right now, still to this day, my dad has been my hero, a man of faith, a man of a lot of fun. I have great memories growing up, just him getting baseball equipment and getting a bunch of our friends and my brothers and him taking us out to play baseball, and those kinds of things.

My parents also took us to church since I was very young, probably about five or six years old. I remember also listening to the Bible stories from a very early age.

NATHAN

Miguel, walk us through – how did you come to a saving relationship with Christ and what impact did that then have on your life?

MIGUEL

I always say it was a divine appointment. Because even though I had learned the Bible stories and the Bible heroes. I guess I've heard the gospel since I was very young. But it was not until my senior year in college – I was studying business accounting properly in Monterrey, Mexico, at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. And I always say I went to MIT, but that's south of the border, Monterrey Tech.

And it was my senior year in college. I visited a friend, and he was not home, but his brother was. He was going to medical school at that time in Texas. I ran into him, and there were two things that impressed me. We ended up having like a three- or four-hour conversation in the kitchen at his parents' home.

And he was a really, really wild guy, a violent guy in the football field or in the soccer field, just do a bunch of things you shouldn't be into when you're in high school and growing up. He was in all of those.

All of a sudden, here I am, sitting with him in the kitchen of his parents' home, and two things caught my attention very quickly. His radical transformation, because he was speaking to me with a lot of tenderness, and just taking interest in me, asking me questions about my personal life, my future, what I wanted to do after I graduated from the university. Just a really meek spirit. Today, I can tell you it was the character of Christ in him.

Then, the second thing: he points me to Philippians 3. He opens up the Bible to Philippians 3, where Paul shared his resume about all the different achievements he had accomplished, and you know where he says, “I have all these things as rubbish when I compare them to gaining Christ.”  And I remembered something different. I understood the Scriptures in a different way that day.

I actually told him, asked him, “Hey, Jerry, I think I've never read the Scriptures this way,” and he told me, “The Holy Spirit was helping you understand it.” And he even went to the extent of explaining what that rubbish meant in Greek as excrement. And he said, “It's not that those things were bad, but when he compared them to gaining Christ, they were rubbish.”

I really sensed the Holy Spirit was calling me to God in Christ. And I remembered that day, there was no prayer. There was no ritual, but I remember in my heart saying, “I want to follow and give my life to this Jesus that the apostle Paul was talking about.”

So, what difference has it made? I think from day one, day two, my life began to change. I began to sense the Holy Spirit really bringing the light into my life, into different areas of life. And even what I wanted to do with my life in terms of vocationally.

So, a few years later, I basically decided to go into full-time ministry. It was actually probably five years after that happened. So, til this day, I have a co-vocational ministry, but nevertheless, a transformation.

NATHAN

Praise the Lord. Well, let's go there. What does the Lord have you involved in today: life, ministry, work?

MIGUEL

After years, if I look back, it has been years of preparation from the Lord, in different ministries, evangelism, discipleship, learning. I've been able to lead the Alpha course here in Spain or be part of the team that leads it. Be part of a freedom ministry that helps people just break through different hurts, habits, hang-ups. It's called “Freedom in Christ”.

More than anything, I've always told people that I've given my life to church planting. I've been a church planter myself. I've been part of church planting teams in Mexico, in the US, and also in Spain. I've also had failures in church planting, and I have some successes to the point where my wife and I – my wife and I got married 15 years ago.

She's a textile artist and is serving in that community, reaching artists through her art, and living her life in the midst of that world. She joined me 15 years ago when we got married. But I've given really my life to church planting.

But there was a point where we just put it in the shelf. We just said we need to make a shift and decided to go marketplace. I was going to be a coach. I got certified as a coach. She got certified as a pattern maker. We were going to go into marketplace.

At that time, a ministry was coming into Spain that had been working in different countries in Europe already, helping church planters and entrepreneurs. Basically what I called "starting new faith startups."

Until this day, that ministry is going strong in Europe: 18 countries today, helping teams plant new faith communities and new churches. They asked me, "We're looking for coaches." It was a good match, taking all my experiences. That’s why I was saying, looking back, I saw how God was preparing me.

For the last 11 years, I have been a coach for church planters here in Spain. We have helped 39 church planting teams. And I'm also coordinating the coaching field in the areas in Europe, which means equipping them, training them, motivating them across Europe. So, I'm a coach, but I'm also a trainer of coaches to come alongside these entrepreneurs starting new churches.

And it's a thrill, it's a blast. I can tell you it's taking a while, but I've found my sweet spot in God's kingdom, if you will.

NATHAN

Beautiful! How long have you been in Spain now?

MIGUEL

I have been in Spain for 22 years.

NATHAN

Did you meet your wife in Spain? Or is she Spanish?

MIGUEL

She's Italian. I met her in Torino, Italy. She was working with Compassion International at the office there. And I always say God was on my side because she wanted to learn Spanish, and guess who helped? I volunteered. She didn't give me the time of day at first, but that's why I say the Lord was on my side. So, here we are, 15 years.

NATHAN

Well, this is the Inspiring Stewards podcast, Miguel. Give us some insight into how the biblical principle of stewardship plays a role in your life.

MIGUEL

Absolutely. It piqued my interest to go a little deeper. I looked up the definition of stewardship, and it was very confirming on what I have believed and my convictions about stewardship. It reads like this, “It's the responsible management and care of something entrusted to one's care.”

And it's interesting. I asked my wife, “Hey, when you think of me in the realm of generosity, what do you see? What's the first word that comes to your mind?” She said, “Trust. I see that you trust in His providence. You trust in His goodness. You trust in His provision.”

And looking back, I think I was taught, Nathan, at my house growing up, the very principle of being careful, being a good manager, a good administrator of those things that God gives us, coupled with what some mentors have put into my life as well across the years.

There is a passage that has really impacted me. One of my professors at seminary shared with us 1 Corinthians 4:7, I believe it is, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? “

So, it has just brought the conviction from a very early age that everything we have: my own soul, my own body, my own everything else that outflows from there. My faith, my decisions, we are to take care of them, and then just take it all the way to your material possessions and your investments and your assets.

So, from a very early age, I have been very conscientious and aware of taking care of these things, taking care of these gifts that have been entrusted to me. And the way this happens is basically, I think, just being responsible on a day-to-day basis, bringing accountability into my life from my wife, in this case. Most recent case in my life, from friends, from trusted colleagues, teammates in ministry.

And I would say also, sustainability has probably been another aspect that most recently has played a role. I've been involved more and more growing into fundraising. Our ministry has been a faith-based ministry for 22 years, plus another five. So, it's 27 years, where I have been basically raising funds for our ministry.

So, I think over the years I have been very impressed just by, you know, going back to the very basics in Genesis and the creation mandate and God saying, "Okay, the first human beings, this is creation. Go manage it. Go administer it. Go steward it."

So, that is very close to my heart, being careful with everything that has been entrusted to me, and from there, just make the wisest decisions, so we can trust God for the best outcomes.

NATHAN

You are in a unique position to see God working in individuals' lives across countries, across the region. I'd love to hear you answer the question: how are you seeing God at work uniquely in our world today? You can answer it more locally or regionally, globally, whatever the Lord puts on your heart.

MIGUEL

I'd like to go a little bit more in detail – and I think it ties to the local side – a little bit more in detail from a stewardship standpoint or lenses.

Something really cool that has happened is about eight years ago, a missionary here in Spain was retiring. And til that day, I had been a very jealous and zealous person when it came to my donors and my partner base.

And he did something that just completely broke all my paradigms. He introduced me to his portfolio. He introduced me and opened up his entire portfolio, to call it in one way, of partners and donors, and says, “Miguel, I'm retiring. I'm going to introduce you to all these people, to these churches, to these folks.”

And brother, that blew completely my entire paradigm that I had been working and operating on. So, I can tell you, and I say it with humility, but also with joy. I have been doing the same with others. I can tell you of a handful, but not to limit it. It's a dynamic, and it's a realm of God's economy.

So, basically, I'm helping other church planters connect them to donors, to partners, to people that have a heart for ministry, but have also a lot of resources. And they are able to come and connect and say, “Lord, this is your kingdom. This is your church. Lead it.” So, seeing that in my local reality with church planters in Spain has been a thrill for me.

Now, in a more global, I can tell you, I’m very excited about what I am seeing God doing Europe. Europe, for many years, has been called "the cemetery of missionaries." It's been a dry place, while a lot of other continents are thriving when it comes to the gospel.

And just to hear there is a document recently published in the UK of this phenomenon that's going on called, “The Quiet Revival,” where Gen Z by the hundreds and hundreds of hundreds are coming to Christ and coming back to church.

To see in Spain that, not one influencer or a couple of influencers, but a good number, like dozens of influencers, are coming to Christ. And you know what happens when an influencer comes to anything: everybody is going to find out their story and what happened, and their experience. So, they are being able to share Christ in a viral way in Spain. That has never happened in my 22 years in Spain.

And then, just to finalize a third example: a young couple in the middle of the war that is going on in Russia and Ukraine. I can tell you of a couple of dozen families, young families that have said, “Yes, I want to stick my foot in the ground to start a new faith community.”

So, we are seeing dozens of churches planted in the last three or four years. It is out of the 18 countries in Europe that I was telling you earlier, it is the nation that is growing the most when it comes to church plants.

So, seeing that gives me a lot of courage. So, I see a sense of urgency. And I wouldn't be surprised – and I'm not a prophet at all, I'm more of a shepherd and a pastor and a coach – but I wouldn't be surprised that we see the Lord's coming in our age, because of everything that's going on in the world and the sense of urgency that I am sensing in Europe.

NATHAN

One follow-up question on that: As churches are planting today, what, if anything, needs to be done the same or different than maybe churches planted 20, 30, 40 years ago?

MIGUEL

I would say we need to come back – which is not different – it's just going back to basics. But I think we need to go back to the universal priesthood of all believers.

And I think there's a big responsibility on leaders on really embracing that and saying, “How can we just equip, empower, and release every single believer?”

I don't think we're there. I think there's pockets. We call it the "missional movement." We call it the "underground church," in some spaces and some places of the earth today. But if every leader in the face of the globe would really have that awareness and that conviction, that revelation, to start really equipping, empowering, and releasing every believer, just to be a missionary to our culture, to our neighborhood, to our circles, to our schools, to our marketplaces, I think that can make a major difference in the church, in the way we plant churches because everybody can see themselves as a church planter in their little local reality.

NATHAN

Miguel, any final thought or final word you'd leave us with today?

MIGUEL

I would say I have a passion for health. And when I say health, I say spiritual health, because we see so many shipwrecks in ministry – well, in life and ministry. And a lot of it, I'm realizing, it has to do with spiritual health, emotional health, mental health, and physical health.

So, I would encourage everyone that is listening, just like the parable of the virgins. There were five virgins that were not ready, but there were five virgins that were ready. And I would say to be prepared.

All ten virgins had lamps. Five had the lamps full of oil, and five were empty in their oil. So, the five virgins were open and prepared and ready, and five virgins were not open, were not prepared, or were not ready. In one word, we were healthy.

So, what are three aspects that can keep you healthy? Be in the Word of God daily. Live full of the Holy Spirit. And keep your lamps shining. Keep sowing abundantly who Jesus is in all your contexts.

May God bless you.