Michael: 00:08

Welcome to Speak The Truth, a podcast devoted to giving biblical truth for educating, equipping, and encouraging the individual and local church in counseling and discipleship. Hello. Hello. Hello. We are officially at the tail end of the ABC Called to Council Conference twenty twenty six at Doxology Bible Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Michael: 00:27

And, this is our last recording today, but I'm excited because we get to talk about some initiatives that we're doing through ABC. And within this, have some guests today, one who's coming all the way from The Dominican Republic and another person who has been with us, I don't know, three or four times at this point.

Brad: 00:48

Multiple times, yes.

Michael: 00:49

Yeah. So some of you recognize that voice, but for those of you who don't, that's Brad Hambrick. Then we have Matias.

Matias: 00:54

Thank you for having me.

Michael: 00:55

Yes, we're glad you're here. And if you've been at the conference, you got the handout, you saw and read a little bit about Matias and you saw the seminary and the translation work that we're trying to do and the Equip to Counsel stuff that we're working on as well. And so that's why we wanted to do this podcast is just bring some exposure to what we're doing because this is a donation ultimately that we're looking at. We're trying to raise some funds for this and all of these efforts. But before we jump into some of those pieces with the seminary and everything, just wanna take a few minutes Matias to just introduce yourself, give us a little context, family, whatever you wanna share there.

Michael: 01:26

And then the context of ministry.

Matias: 01:28

Yeah. Thank you. Again, it's an honor for me to be here. It was a long flight, about nine hours to be here. And I flew here for two reasons.

Matias: 01:37

First to be at the conference and it was worthy. And the second is to find out if the barbecue here is good.

Michael: 01:43

So did we check out on the barbecue?

Matias: 01:45

Yeah, you check. Yeah, it was really good. My name is Matias Casco, I'm Honduran and I live in the Dominican Republic. About six years I've been living there. I married my beautiful wife, she's Dominican, and we have one little boy.

Matias: 02:01

So I've been working for Santiago Theological Seminary around four years. And in 2022, I did a kind of survey among churches in a region. And we find out that most churches, they don't have a constant ministry established. So we sought the need. The only counseling ministry you can see down there is the pastor giving counseling.

Matias: 02:25

Even then they are not trained to do it. So we sought the need and we created the one year program, six modules, and we focused on the most demanding topics, family, marriage, addictions, suffering, and ethics. So it's been quite a journey. We've had around three cohorts. We had by God's grace graduated around two fifty students from the two main cities, Santo Domingo, Santiago, and few from Latin America to Colombia and some parts of The States also.

Matias: 03:01

So Brad Hambrick has been one of our professors, and it's been a great blessing to have him also in our program. So the news is that now we are partnering with ABC. And it's been a great blessing also because we've realized that we need a more specialized training. We need certification for our pastors and leaders. That's a kind of new thing.

Matias: 03:26

We are pioneering and translating everything full into Spanish. So that would be a great blessing for church in Latin America.

Michael: 03:34

That's a lot. That's awesome. First of all, that's awesome. But just how did you establish the relationship with Brad? You mentioned Brad coming in and being a part of the seminary and obviously Brad being a partner with ABC as well, and a huge contributor to the things that we do here.

Michael: 03:49

How did this relationship happen?

Matias: 03:51

Was quite providential. First we have Michael Gambola. He teaches at CCEF and he was one of the first professors we had and he recommended that. And also we had Nate Brooks, Beth Broome, Eliza Huey, maybe you might know them.

Michael: 04:08

Yeah, Southeastern. Here we go. Shout out to Southeastern. Yes.

Matias: 04:12

Yeah. So we have been blessed with them because it's something that we don't have there. And we have had these classes with translations, with translators. So they recommended each other and they have been traveling to the Doctor. So they have been having the good stuff, good coffee.

Michael: 04:36

Do you have any bags left? Or did

Matias: 04:39

you hand

Michael: 04:39

those out already?

Matias: 04:40

Yeah. I already You

Michael: 04:41

only came with one bag, dude.

Matias: 04:42

I gave one big one to Shauna, so

Michael: 04:45

I Oh, so I'll be drinking it.

Matias: 04:46

If you gave it

Michael: 04:47

to Shauna, Shauna doesn't drink coffee, so I will gladly be drinking it.

Matias: 04:49

That would be

Michael: 04:50

Yeah. Also gave her a mug too, right? Yesterday? Yeah. So that's what I'll be using.

Michael: 04:54

Drinking your coffee from your mug.

Matias: 04:57

So you are blessed too with your wife.

Michael: 04:59

Yeah. Yeah. That's the benefit of oneness. Her loss is my gain.

Matias: 05:03

Yeah. That's true.

Michael: 05:04

Yeah. That's great. Brad, just any initial thoughts, just your side of the relationship, the partnership, just how long did that partnership take?

Brad: 05:11

Yeah, so I think this is the third year that I'll be going down. And when you go down and you're a part of the work that's being done there, it's just such a warm group of people. They are hungry to learn. They are eager to care. They want what they do to be rooted in the local church.

Brad: 05:29

They have a deep love for God's word. And so it's a delightful place to be. And it occurred to me pretty early on that you heard the names that he just mentioned. And those are people who frequently lead tracks here. And so it's, ah, you guys are creating a diploma program.

Brad: 05:46

And you've got in three years, two fifty people already have gone through the program. Yeah. Like it just made sense to me.

Michael: 05:54

Get behind this thing.

Brad: 05:55

How do we get a partnership with ABC? Because that symmetry is already there. Yeah. And really what we've spent much of this year doing is asking the question, if you were going to design a program to optimally impact the local church, how would you design that program? And Matias was kind enough to kind of let me infuse a few ideas there.

Brad: 06:21

You and I have talked about these things that for most laypeople, they've got one or two areas that they're really passionate about. What draws them to counseling is whatever that work is that God has done in their life that they want to see God do in somebody else's And so the program itself is designed to where each class, students are, they're not just reading good books, but they're books that are designed to be programs that can be implemented so that when they come to their pastor and they're saying, can we run this? And that there's something there, whether it's mentoring or group based counseling that they have an idea of what it looks like to begin to let that take root in their local church. And then some of those folks, they get to the end of the program, like for some folks, they're going find the one thing they want to do. And they're going to do that and they're going to run with it.

Brad: 07:20

And other folks are going to go counseling is my passion. I want to begin to be very full orbed and more holistic, more of a general practitioner, if you will, in the way that I go about counseling. And that's where laying that foundation under the program as a whole, that if you want to do one thing, you can do it. If you want to become certified, that partnership with ABC. And that's where so much of the translation work was needed with Equip to Counsel and other resources from, so that everything that an English speaking certified counselor with ABC has, the Spanish speaking certified counselor would have the same.

Michael: 07:59

Yeah, that's a tremendous work. And just over the last couple of years and the fact that it's was flourishing to what it did and to get behind just the fruit of what the Lord's doing. And so how do we prune the process to add more, bring more stability, more support to it, to multiply that, which obviously part of what we're trying to do within that partnership, global expansion, And our financial goal there. But just much of what Brad, you had already talked about and what you mentioned as well. But just Spanish translation, the student scholarship, depending on wherever they are in the local church where maybe they don't wanna officially be called biblical counselors and do that, but they can serve in the local church and they can take part in discipleship and informal care and being very intentional with those conversations.

Michael: 08:38

And then also digital accessibility. Obviously resourcefully speaking, there's not a lot of those things. Would imagine, I don't know about you, you mentioned two cities, so I don't know, but I would imagine the quicker you get out of the city, the less likely you are to come across some resources and stuff. So being able to have things digitally and just do wanna speak on that for a moment?

Matias: 08:55

Yeah. Now we have the blessing that we have a platform in which any person can connect with us and also receive the course and material. So having resources available digitally has been a great blessing. And the good news is that not only people in the Doctor will be able to receive this course or this program, but also anywhere in the world. If you have some people interested at the church and there are like four or five people that are interested, they can co host virtually.

Matias: 09:31

And yeah, so that's been a blessing to have resources digitally and video records or live stream also.

Brad: 09:40

And that was from this past year. We were just there and talking about everything that was going on with the seminary. And I heard them saying, oh, we've getting requests. Yeah. We're getting requests from Peru and Columbia and Honduras and other areas of, can you make the training that is available at STS?

Brad: 09:57

Can it be available in other places? And I think the initial kind of brainstorming part was like, how many plane tickets are we going to need? And how do you do that? And it was like,

Matias: 10:06

we can multiply, multiply Brad.

Brad: 10:09

There's real limits.

Michael: 10:11

Yeah. I

Brad: 10:13

serve at a multi site church. And so making something available at multiple locations, I was like, you guys continue to do with what you're already doing, ever increasing excellence. And let's make it available so that the people who are co hosting it, there's a lot more ownership that they And have of I know at my own church, we've got our summit in Espanol campus. My linguistic limits. Like I needed what Matias and his seminary was doing so that we could equip our Summit in Espanol campus.

Brad: 10:47

And so, of this was just very selfish. Our church needed what was happening at Matias Seminary. And so I said, yes, why would we not pour into that to make that available for our churches and churches across the Spanish speaking world, United States and otherwise, so that with a simple simulcast livestream, they can own, they can have a conference that will be, I'll let Matias talk about that. But in August coming up, a kickoff event that is meant to cast vision for this and every class that it would cost churches so much if they tried to do that on their own. And this is gonna be available at an incredible rate.

Michael: 11:30

Yeah, that's awesome. And speaking the financial impact of that and multiplying that, and it's obviously the goal of ABC and the partnership of within these six things that we're highlighting is that there's basically a $100,000 worth of expansion that we're trying to undertake and do. And obviously in this episode, I'll put the show notes for that purpose to give and help us meet that need. And it's a big need, but we have a big God. And a $100,000 is a small amount of money in the kingdom work when you go across the world and within just our partnerships alone.

Michael: 12:02

So I think we'll reach this. Obviously we keep talking about it and pushing it, but this is so how have you been impacted by this? Just to see this come to life.

Matias: 12:09

It's been an answered prayer. We have been praying for this for a long time And to see these now becoming real and be here at the conference and meet with a lot of people that are interested in our program, even here at The States, they have their partners, they have their Spanish campuses, or they know Hispanic churches or leaders, and they are making the connections with us. Just to see that Wired being spread out, I don't know. I can explain how I feel how feel, how glad I feel. And also I'm praying God that He helped us to handle this because it would be a huge wave of people requesting setting up meetings.

Matias: 12:55

Yeah. We will need also human resources to handle this. Yeah. But I feel like honored and also very happy to see this happening.

Michael: 13:05

No, that's really great. And you had mentioned just some of the surrounding countries Yeah. That would be able to access this. You quite literally could become, and of course that's my prayer. And you obviously will need the help for that, but you become the hub.

Michael: 13:19

And then you're multiplying in your own language versus trying to bring a bunch of Americans over there to do those things. And so it's putting it in the culture and tongue that's going to minister the most and make the most impact. And so that's the multiplying beauty of having it in that tongue and in that culture and just equipping those who are already there to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

Matias: 13:47

Amen.

Michael: 13:47

So Brad, any concluding thoughts?

Brad: 13:49

Matias, why don't you tell us about that conference coming up in August and the way that it's the kickoff event. As people are listening, they're like, what would be that first thing that we could co host and bless? Tell them about what's coming up in August.

Matias: 14:04

Yeah, while we were restructuring the program in order to meet with the requirements with ABC and have everything ready as Brad already explained. And we changed the reading part. We didn't want just content books, but model books to help to reach the goal we have now. So while we were working with that, we thought that it might be great to launch this with a big conference. So everything was arranged providentially.

Matias: 14:33

And we are going to have this big conference in Santo Domingo in La Ibis, which is one of the largest church there with pastor Miguel Nunez. He ministers there. So we will focus on mental health, living with a renewed mind And by God Grace and help of Brad Hambrick, we will have also Ed Welch coming down and teach there at the conference. Brad Hambrick will be teaching there also. Beth Broome and Miguel Nunez will be teaching also on that same topic.

Matias: 15:06

So we will be launching the new program there and we will gather around, we help to gather around 2,000 people there.

Michael: 15:15

So 2,000 people experiencing the very thing that you're launching. So they get to see it in real time and the benefit of what it would look like and the people that are gonna be participating in that

Matias: 15:24

All of it in Spanish. And the good news is that if you are listening to this and you live, for example, in Mexico or Colombia, you can also co host this conference at your church virtually. So can you tell us a little And bit more about

Brad: 15:41

so if you think 2000, 2500 people live, we should eclipse that number in terms of across The United States and the Spanish speaking world where every church that's Spanish speaking can have a conference with Miguel Nunez, Ed Welch, Beth Broome, and setting up where it's not just like, man, this was a one time conference. That for the people who get excited about it, each of these six module classes that they can get to be trained, everything that we were just talking about. It really is meant to be that kickoff that as people get excited, it's immediately actionable. And that the ability within a short period of time for Spanish speaking churches across the world Start to have, like when you said you did the surveys and they're like, we want to have more counseling resources. Like that's the kind of thing we can make a major impact on that in this calendar year.

Michael: 16:39

Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And so you said this is August?

Matias: 16:44

August twenty first to twenty second.

Michael: 16:46

Okay. This episode will be out definitely.

Matias: 16:50

If, sorry, if anyone is interested, maybe in the description that you have in the podcast, we can give you the contact information so everybody can contact me and we will gladly give everything they need.

Michael: 17:02

Okay. And also with that information, is there a website or any sort of landing page? So as the person who's listening to this while they're driving, who doesn't have the time to get to the show notes, but just where they could go initially.

Matias: 17:13

Yeah. So we are partnering with a big ministry conference that it's called CIS Christian Church. So we are partnering with them to do this big conference. They have this webpage, so you can go to oesyschurch.com and you will see all the information of the conference, the speakers, the topics, everything you need to know. But also you can write to me edu dot com.

Michael: 17:43

Okay. I will have that in the show notes. So hopefully you get a lot of inquiries and we'll continue to try to push this. Thank you for being with us. I'm glad you were able to make it.

Michael: 17:53

And I'm glad you were able to have some Texas barbecue.

Matias: 17:55

Yeah, it was really good.

Michael: 17:57

Good.

Matias: 17:57

I had brisket.

Michael: 17:58

Good. Brad, any concluding thoughts before we wrap up?

Brad: 18:02

This is a answer to prayer for our church to be able to serve our Spanish campus. To see that ripple in the ways that are abundantly more than I could have asked or imagined when I was trying to figure out how we were gonna best serve pastor Rodell. This is exciting.

Michael: 18:18

Yeah. So with that, I think I'm going to try to take a look at some of the analytics. We have people listening in different countries, like Spanish speaking countries. So I can look at that. And so hopefully either those, obviously those listeners will hear it.

Michael: 18:30

So with the information that you just provided, they'll be able to share that. Right? So hopefully, let's pray for that too. Like that the Lord multiplies the listening and the action so that we have the attendance to Brad's point and obviously that'll be our prayer. So well, thank you for joining us, Brad.

Michael: 18:48

Thank you as always for your time, brother. Thank you guys for listening. I will have this stuff in the show notes. Again, we are trying to raise a $100,000 because this global expansion care costs, education, equipping the saints for their work and ministry costs money. And I'll have more details on that in the show notes, so you guys check it out.

Michael: 19:05

You can multiply the opportunity to give by sharing it with other people. So we would pray that you would do that. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see you guys next time.