A Los Angeles native, Salvador Garcia is no stranger to Southern California Conference (SCC). He has pastored 12 churches in SCC and also shared youth week of prayer with multiple other churches and SCC schools. His greatest passions in ministry are children’s and youth ministry, followed by health ministry.
“After spending four years as a D.Min. student and participant in the family ministry cohort at Andrews University, learning more about children and youth ministry from Claudio and Pamela Consuegra’s class Family Discipleship, and reading George Barna’s book, Transforming Children Into Spiritual Champions, I got a ‘holy itch’ for becoming more involved and intent in discipling children to be reached with the everlasting gospel.”
This November, Garcia joined the SCC office as the incoming director for Youth Ministries. “My goal is help disciple children through the best leadership and discipling program that the Seventh-day Adventist Christian church has,” Garcia shared. “That program is Pathfinder leadership . We also hope to create God-seized opportunities through youth vespers, community service experiences, and mission trips to help children connect with God and be youth on fire for God’s kingdom.”
In his new role, Garcia hopes to impact the youth of our conference “We plan to build positive relationships with the youth in our conference and territory by supporting local churches to help each youth have three things to help them grow spiritually and remain an active member of their local church. One, receiving a Christian education; two, participating in regular family worship; and three, being a part of a dynamic youth ministry in a local church.”
“By God’s grace, we hope to partner with local churches to see many children and youth become involved in the leadership of the local church,” Garcia said. “For too many years, we have had easy access to the back door of the church, with children and youth leaving the church. Our motto must be, ‘If you invite them, they will come. But if they build it, they will stay.’ Our hope is to have young people and children build the church of today and tomorrow, and to decide to stay to serve Christ and their community for a church of today and tomorrow, and to decide to stay to serve Christ and their community for a very long time.”
