Ramirez Addresses Historic Church of God Election
During the 76th Church of God International General Assembly held last month in Nashville, Bishop David S. Ramirez became the first Latino elected to the International Executive Committee as Third Assistant General Overseer.
By Déborah E. Ortiz, Office of Hispanic Ministries
Bishop Ramirez was raised in the Church of God in a pastoral family in his native Chile. He is married to Maria Fernanda Snaidero, and they have two sons and one daughter.
Bishop Ramirez holds a D.Min. from Asbury Theological Seminary (Beeson Scholar), a Master of Divinity from the Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and two honorary doctoral degrees recognizing excellence in Christian leadership.
In response to the call of the Lord he became the pastor of a Church of God congregation in Almagro, Argentina. While in Argentina, he began his lifetime engagement with education at the Seminario Ministerial del Cono Sur (South Cone Ministerial Seminary of the Church of God) in 1986. He has taught courses on Christian Global Leadership, Narrative Preaching, Church Planting, and Practical Theology. The school relocated to Quito, Ecuador, where it became SEMISUD, Seminario Ministerial Sudamericano (Ministerial South American Seminary). Bishop Ramirez remained as president until 2006. While in Ecuador, Ramirez followed his love for practical theology with planting Capilla del Valle church.
Deborah Ortiz of the Hispanic Ministries office recently conducted this interview with Dr. Ramirez in his office at the International Offices in Cleveland, Tennessee (click photo to enlarge)
In 2006 Ramirez was appointed as overseer of the Southwest Hispanic Region in the United States. In 2008 World Missions appointed him as Field Director of South America, and finally as Director of Latin America. Ramirez has also been elected twice to the Council of Eighteen of the Church of God. He has served in different boards and committees, such as the steering committee of the 4/14 Window Movement, the Strategy Working Group for the Lausanne Movement, Compassion International, and others.
His wife, Rev. Maria Fernanda Snaidero Ramirez, has also been very involved in working with the women of Latin America, mobilizing them to join the mission of Jesus. She also worked with others in the development of a curriculum to educate churches about the problem of domestic violence.
Church of God Hispanic Ministries recently sat down with Brother Ramirez to speak about his historic election:
What does it mean to have the opportunity to work with the International Executive Committee?
It represents a tremendous moment. Our time has come. Many ministers were crying when they came to congratulate me. It was a very emotional moment during the International General Assembly.
During the last eight years you have been overseeing the work of the Church of God in Latin America. What you have learned of the work of the Church of God?
I have spent forty years working in Latin America. I have had the opportunity to work in strategic partnerships with Compassion International, and other organizations across Asia, Europe, and Africa. In Latin America we have been developing something very interesting. For more than twenty years we prayed and dreamed about the integration of all Latin America. Since 2010 we integrated both administrations (formerly the regions of South America and Brazil and Central America). I was the first leader who had to work on the integration of Latin America. This integration has been going on for the last six years; and it has been very beneficial for us to understand who we are as a church, our identity as the Latino American Church of God, and to get organized. Now we have one director, a Latin American Executive Committee, a Latin American Executive Council, which is comprised of the twenty bishops of Latin America. We also have a Latin American Pastoral Commission, formed by fifty male and female pastors; we have an educational alliance (ALEAL) between the four major seminaries (SEID Brazil, SEBIPCA Guatemala, SEBIME México, SEMISUD Ecuador), and about 27 national and regional Bible institutes. All of these are now a network and a product of our interaction. And education was the first thing to model that integration in Latin America.
The Church of God has started The FINISH Commitment, an emphasis on finalizing the Great Commission. What are some of the ways in which churches can live out this commitment?
All these things [what has been mentioned before] has been a part of what we called the 20/20 Vision, which seeks to integrate Latin America into the global vision of the church. 20/20 Vision has very clear six priorities: (1) the renewal of vision through church planting; (2) the renewal of hope; (3) the revitalization of churches; (4) the reeducation of the church; (5) to reflect the glory of God; (6) and to respond in action in society.
We believe that you won’t be able to restore the hope of a people, a city, unless the church is present there. Then, we believe that when you plant a church, that becomes a sign of hope, because the church is a micro-model of community that teaches the values of the Kingdom to the greater community, to society. And, if we have the church modeling a micro-community, then there will be hope for the greater community to learn from the church and be transformed. So, for us is very important to connect hope with church planting.
As the International Executive Committee Liaison with the Division of Education, and as an educator, what role does education play in finishing the Great Commission?
We have to reeducate the church in order to respond to the contemporary challenges. And this means to relearn, reeducate, to learn again about the great questions that society is asking, to which the church should respond with a biblical conviction. And that is an enormous challenge.
So, it is to rethink the faith; to rethink about what society is asking today, and to answer in the proper way, to educate the church, so that she is able to answer them.
And as believers, what can we do to finish the Great Commission?
[In Latin America] we set the fifth priority of reflecting the glory of God in everything we do, think, and feel; personal and corporative holiness, missional holiness. And, that has to do with the spiritual disciplines. It has to do with reflecting Christ in our personal and communal life.
We also have to act. This is not about dialectics, or just mere talk, but about the concrete actions we will take to fulfill the vision.
Dr. Ramirez concluded by sharing his emphasis on evangelizing children, and reaching out to the emergent generations inside the church. His vision is to see a church that is actively engaged in living the Great Commission in front of the world. “Two important things: [we have to] get the church out in the street”, he says, “The idea is to replace with windows the mirrors placed inside the church. That is, to take responsibility for the environment, and to once again see the need that lies outside the church’s, and to become a highly visible church.”
