A Puerto Rican Hillbilly in Colorado

I'm in Israel and so I'm having a guest blogger - Kevin Colon. He's one of my favorite people but, more importantly, started a church in what may be the most difficult place in the United States - Boulder, Colorado. Kevin is the real deal and we can learn a lot from him. Here's Kevin:

There are lots of things I never thought would have happened to me. . .

• I never thought I’d leave Puerto Rico…my homeland, the shinning star of the Caribbean.


• I never thought I’d end up living in Kentucky (my pharmacist parents always dreamed of having a farm)


• I never thought I’d be a pastor (I actually wanted to be a Veterinarian….or a cartoonist)


• I never thought I’d start a church (that’s just crazy!)


• I never thought I’d love people that were far from God (you’re not even supposed to hang out with them, right?)


• I never thought I’d live in Boulder, Colorado (I always dreamed of getting back to the beach)


• I never thought I’d do my overseas ministry in Vietnam (a Spanish speaking county would have made more sense)


• I never thought Vince Antonucci would see me naked.
  
  

But here I am, and as I write to you I can testify that all of these things did indeed happen! Goes to show …you just never know what life is going to throw at you.

So let me tell you a little of the story…this is Kevin Colón.

I was raised in a Catholic home in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. I was a happy Catholic kid. I did everything I was supposed to do….up, down, up down, down, up, up down. Then we moved to Southern Baptist country…Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where I learned to be a good Southern Baptist boy. Talk about culture shock!

All of that wasn’t all bad though, as what I learned from the Catholic Church and the Baptist Church sort of balanced itself out—Reverence and Relationship. And all along the way…good people crossed my path, too. Some of them, of course, were denominationally centered and others….you could just see Jesus seeping out of their pores in the most authentic way.

So let’s fast forward….I became a follower of Jesus, I committed to working for him and I headed off to seminary….in Texas. (They were right…it was big!)

Through unexpected circumstances I ended up getting a job at a church called NorthWood with this crazy pastor named Bob Roberts. NorthWood was known, even then, as a church planting church, but I was a youth pastor and I didn’t have any idea what church planting was all about. I don’t think I really even cared.

After working there for a while, one day Bob asked me into his office and said, “Kevin, what do you think about starting a church?” I thought I was getting fired, but Bob assured me that was not the case. Realizing my shock at his question…he said, “Just pray about it.” And so I did...and God began to move my heart toward this crazy thing called church planting. This meant that I had to be the lead pastor guy, and like I said before, I was a youth pastor. I had already decided that was not an option. I had actually already had that conversation with God. Youth ministry was a “Yes!”…but being THE pastor was a very strong, “NO!” I even made a list of reasons to prove it to Him.

Then, God checked off the list…he didn’t give me any way out and I had to do the only thing I knew he was calling me to. . .starting a church. But how do you do that anyway? I sure didn’t know then…and I’m not sure I really know now…but I’ll start telling you what I have learned tomorrow.

- featured on newchurches.com