Ron Bueno during the opening session of the event“To be a leader, you must lead,” started ENLACE’s founder and director, Ron Bueno, at the 2010 pastors and leaders retreat, “But to be a servant leader, you must first serve.” The theme of the retreat was, “Lead like Jesus,” and the weekend was filled with teachings and workshops conducted by influential pastors and leaders who work with ENLACE, as well as video workshops from Willow Creek’s Global Leadership Summit. Participants learned that to lead like Jesus is to seek God, serve others, and empower passionate individuals to take your people from an unacceptable, metaphorical “here” to a brighter and better “there.”
This essential and successful movement from ‘here’ to ‘there’ is precisely what is happening in the churches and communities partnering with ENLACE. For instance, in the community of Abelines, Pastor Victorio has used passionate, motivated individuals to help him move his community from a place where children were dying, families were without safe housing, the roads were readily inaccessible, and people were living without potable water or electricity to a present reality where there is hope for the future. Through partnerships with the local government and other local entities, Abelines has become a community with access to running water, electricity, latrines, safer roads, foot bridges, and the infant mortality rate has decreased significantly. Even more impressive, broken relationships between individuals and entities have been restored, giving the community a forward momentum that is being replicated throughout the surrounding area.
The number of churches working with ENLACE has grown 6 fold since 2005. We are now working with 32 churches and have a projected growth of 100 churches within the next five years. The success of what we are seeing is owed to the function of replication. Influential leaders are those who continue to move their people forward while also fostering and developing new leaders who have the vision to serve and lead their people. In the Abelines region, because of Pastor Victorio’s direct lead, nearly a dozen other churches have come to partner with ENLACE and at least as many are now interested to begin the process of moving their congregations and communities toward a better future. We are seeing similar movements of service and replication all over the country and hope to see El Salvador reach a ‘there’ in which local churches throughout the country serve as a beacon of hope and an instrument of change in their communities.