{"id":40336,"date":"2022-10-18T13:09:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T17:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridabaptist.wpengine.com\/?p=40336"},"modified":"2025-11-04T16:13:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:13:56","slug":"church-planters-recharge-at-send-network-gathering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/church-planters-recharge-at-send-network-gathering\/","title":{"rendered":"Church planters recharge at Send Network Gathering"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI\u2014 Set against a backdrop of sunshine and palm trees, Send Network\u2019s Gathering in Miami drew more than 600 church planters and their wives for the South region\u2019s annual meeting Oct. 10-11.<\/p>\n

Themed Built for This, the two-day meeting at the Turnberry Resort and Spa in Aventura offered participants a time to worship, pray, fellowship and recharge.<\/p>\n

\"Send<\/a>During the general sessions attendees heard from Vance Pitman, Send Network<\/a> president and pastor of Hope Church<\/a> in Las Vegas; Martin Vargas, pastor of Iglesia Real<\/a> in Hollywood; Jimmy Scroggins, pastor of Family Church<\/a> in West Palm Beach; and Ryan Rice, lead pastor of Connect Church of Algiers<\/a> in New Orleans. Their messages focused on being conformed to Christ as individuals, through marriage, and as churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe church is not the goal \u2026 The church you are planting is one day going to die. The goal is the kingdom of God being expanded all over the world,\u201d said Pitman.<\/p>\n

In addition to the general sessions, eight breakout sessions covered a variety of topics including women\u2019s discipleship, men\u2019s soul care, and multi-ethnic church planting.<\/p>\n

Jose Abella, pastor of Providence Road Church<\/a> in Miami, and Felix Cabrera, newly appointed vice president of Send Network Espa\u00f1ol<\/a>, led two Spanish-language breakout sessions.<\/p>\n

\"Send<\/a>Abella led his group of about 70 through a brief history of planting a bilingual church in Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies being split up for Sunday worship is not the vision \u2026 The Hispanic church has to have a bilingual component to be able to reach second- and third-generation Hispanics with the gospel,\u201d said Abella.<\/p>\n

Cabrera\u2019s session, also attracting about 70 participants, encouraged pastors to care for their souls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a tragedy when we can see the sin in the lives of others, but we are ignorant to the sin in our own lives \u2026 If our foundation is weak, our fall is imminent,\u201d said Cabrera.<\/p>\n

Noel Morera, English language pastor at Iglesia Bautista Northside<\/a> in Hialeah, said he was encouraged to hear from pastors like Abella who have been where he is and can offer insight into the process of becoming a bilingual church.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been encouraged in the mission God has given me, and I feel that I am not alone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For pastor Jean Robert Baptiste of Evangelical Church the Witnesses of Jesus Christ in Port St. Lucie, the main sessions refreshed his soul. \u201cBeing able to sit and hear a fresh word from God has been my favorite part of this gathering,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Set against a backdrop of sunshine and palm trees, Send Network\u2019s Gathering in Miami drew more than 600 church planters and their wives for the South region\u2019s annual meeting Oct. 10-11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":40361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2621,40,24,25],"tags":[255,256],"class_list":["post-40336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-developing","category-region-southeast","category-stories","tag-church-planting","tag-send-network"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67554,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40336\/revisions\/67554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}