Pastor Eli Gutierrez

[Music] cheers liim God bless you Shalom ola guess what it's that time of the year and I love being able to come on um this set which really we don't call this a set we call it a sanctuary we don't call it a studio we call it a sanctuary why because the presence of God is here the anointing is here the Trinity is here you're here we're doing body life together we are being um a book of Acts church but I love this time of the year and by the way uh I just want to say a special thank you to Janette Murdoch Janette Murdoch Home Interiors right here in the Tampa Bay Area incredible woman of God attends uh the river under Pastor Rodney and adonica Howard Brown she came and she sprinkled all of her love around this set so I hope it brings you some cheer maybe this year you're not decorating so you can get a little bit of Sparkle through the program listen no matter what is going on in your life don't get caught up in the minutia of the Season get caught up in the heavenlies with the Holy Spirit and remember unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name Shall be Called wonderful counselor the Mighty God the prince of peace the Everlasting father you can't talk about Jesus Yeshua without getting emotional and I'm so grateful and I know you are and that's what this season is all about make that the center of all your feasts and all your celebrations and all your decor and all your time together it's all about Jesus well today I get to introduce you to an awesome Jesus guy Pastor Eli gutterz he pastors locally he is the chaplain oh my husband is going to be so jealous he's going to have to repent for the New York Yankees right here in Tampa Bay Florida he is a powerful preacher he empowers he's a trainer he loves equipping the Saints and he's going to share some powerful truths with us today to encourage you to lift the load and to remind you of how precious you are to the father but before we go to Pastor Eli let's go to Dr Brian Simmons he's talking about a devotional which would be a good stocking stuffer for you to get for the woman in your life you can also get her some you know Jen Malon lipstick jon.com best stocking stuffer ever okay here we go to Dr Brian hi friends Brian Simmons here I have a devotional that we put together just for you you know we all want to know God's heart don't we we want to hear his whisper we want to hear his voice our communion with him early in the morning there's nothing sweeter I every single day I take time to spend alone time with Jesus just to hear his whisper and as I hear his voice I've written down a devotional just for you actually this is a devotional I hear his whisper for women God wants your heart to be touched by his heart the word of the Lord for you every day we put it here in a 365 devotional that will help you connect with the Living God on a daily basis we all want to know who he is we all want to know his heart but it it's his whisper in the early morning that changes us and makes us like the deer panting after him I know your heart is for God and his heart is for you pick up a copy for yourself I hear his whisper share it with your friends God's going to speak to you you're going to hear him daily as you go through this one-ear devotional it's going to touch your heart God bless you thank you Dr Brian Simmons we love you and we appreciate you and Candace your wife so much well I love pastors probably because my husband and I pastored for 32 years and we know the ins the outs the UPS the Downs of shepherding sheepies and there are so many blessings and there's so many challenges and Pastor Eli and his wife are precious they invited me to speak at a Women's Conference and I felt so honored and when I walked in their place it made me miss uh being a local Pastor for just a minute though um but they are Dynamic um they love the lord they're passionate worshippers and they are Equippers uh they're taking the education Mountain they're raising up the body and training them the way that we are to be trained and you're going to so enjoy this interview Pastor Eli thank you for being here thank you for having me what a joy to be with you today wow so we were talking Sports you know off camera and um so for all of our male viewers tuning in uh tell us about your love for sports what we're going to reel in the guys because we've got a pink tree and you know all kinds of pink so so talk about growing up in New York and being a big Yankees fan absolutely well first and foremost I'm a native New Yorker and so I love all New York Sports I love the Yankees I love the Jets I love unfortunately I love the the Jets but I do uh the Nicks the Nets I love all types of sports I grew up playing sports okay so I was always uh pretty good at basketball football baseball it was just a dream of mine um and so Sports has been a huge part of my up upbringing in fact I would say I wouldn't have graduated high school had I not been involved on the sports teams so the coaches always had me come in on the teams and because of that I think that they helped me graduate uh and I was able to move on to my college career you can say I think a lot of men could say that that Sports got them through high school yeah I actually encourag my son he's actually Star Basketball player now and he's playing on various a teams and for his high school uh and so I encourage it because it inspires discipline in their lives that's right and so my my daughter's more of a dancer she loves cheerleading and dancing and uh but I think all of that gives gives kids discipline that's right and I think it's more for them to see people outside of their home that also provide structure in their households in their in their lives so well and you know I always say if if you have a child that is a dancer a a you know active a musician an athlete it has everything to do with their parents encouraging them to do that and so you know I do a lot of traveling in ministry right I travel a lot across the country uh and one of the things that I try to do the best I can is try to be at every game every game or every event every showcase uh just because I want them to know that they are my first priority they need to know that my first Ministry is at home so that's very important to me well that's a big deal and even though they may not thank you now because they don't know how to um later on they'll look back and they'll see all the effort that you went to to show up for them thank you I appreciate that yeah okay so in in all of this the Lord entrusted you to be the chaplain of the New York Yankees yeah well you know I I talked about this right I've I travel a lot yeah so in one of my uh primary uh positions is as Pastor New Life Covenant Church we have various campuses and every year we do a conference called the jumpstar conference in Chicago and throughout that time I met so many Pastors in our Network pastors all over the country and in Puerto Rico we have pastors as well and so it was last uh a year ago when we started our 21-day fast the pastor called me from Puerto Rico and literally said hey they're looking for a chapain for the Yankees and you know I was naive I asked are you are you talking about the baseball yanies Major League uh and he said yeah absolutely they're looking for they're looking for a chaplain in the Tampa Bay Area because because you know this is where they do spring training as well as their minor league teams uh I was super excited about that and and I come from a Pentecostal background and so I was a little bit afraid that with my charismatic experience that they might not like enjoy my preaching or teaching but to my surprise when I sent over the videos they they they accepted me and I've been uh doing that ever since it's been a joy uh to meet players and coaches and managers uh I look forward to doing that as long as I can that's awesome that's so fun and and once again what an honor and a privilege because it's such a Ministry and it's a Pulpit where they most of those athletes aren't going to the active members of a local church because of their travel schedule because of whatever and you get to bring um the Lord to them body life to them love to them anointed preaching to them and absolutely and that's that's important because everybody needs a pastor absolutely I think one of the things that I enjoy the most is the relational part of it and so these guys are often have relationships with their family members or coaches and teammates where somebody always needs something from them yeah that's not what we're trying to do we want to we want to make sure we encourage them and and just love on them because uh we we're not asking anything of them but for them to know and and know Jesus Through us and so that's our that's our hope as we do the work awesome okay so the Lord called you to the Tampa Bay area to come and Pioneer a work and start a community and raise up a team and and pastor and so talk about how you got that calling how you and your wife received it and then just some of the challenges that you've had oh wow that's a loaded question I it is well to be honest with you I pastored in New York City for six years okay uh during that time frame if I just reverse a little bit before then my parents were pastors for 35 plus years in New York and so I kind of grew up in Ministry my wife her parents were pastors for 25 plus years two PKS yeah we were two PKS yeah and unfortunately I did the PK thing I was messing up but the Lord had a plan for me amen and one thing I always encourage our people is this my parents always uh revealed to me what the true north was yeah what does that mean is that regardless of what I was doing I knew where to go on Tuesdays on Thursdays and Sundays cuz I knew that they were going to be consistent in their faith and so that kind of started my journey I kind of was born into this um I learned Ministry in in in a different capacity so I was a a musician I was a worship Pastor I was a youth pastor I was working with an organization Defenders of the Christian faith nationally with our young young Defenders uh so I got to meet a lot of people within Ministry never thinking that I was going to really C be called into pastoral Ministry uh but the Lord allowed me to then move on from New York City to the Washington DC Metro Area there we were executive pastor at a local church uh it was a great experience it was thriving it was growing the community was being built up and we heard we heard from God we began to pray and ask God what what are you asking of us it would have been really easy to open a church either in New York or in Maryland the DC area but the Lord called us to Tampa now when I moved to the Tampa area which in the Wesley Chapel area of Tampa uh I realized that it was a growing Community uh I believe that every Community needs a lifegiving church do and uh we felt like God had a plan for us and so before we started doing Ministry just being completely transparent we spent a couple of years just getting to know people that's good and what it taught us is that we're not saviors of the community Jesus is amen so I needed to learn the language what are the people speaking what are their problems and how can we use the gifts that God has given us to be a place of hope and refuge for the people and so to the glory of God in 20 18 we we launched the church uh God has been faithful uh I can I can say to God be the glory we've seen a lot of people come to the faith uh we've seen a lot of people uh join our ministry um but we know that we can't do it without God that's right and so we rely on the Holy Spirit we rely on what God has already done for us and we just try to be as um as bold uh we want to be a propit to what's happening right now and we want to be contextually accurate to the scripture and so we've done a lot of uh a lot of work work in our community uh but this this I know The Best Is Yet To Come amen we're just getting started yeah no when I was with you I sensed that you have been um plowing and laying the groundwork amen and you know it it takes a long time to build that Foundation but once you get the foundation right then the rest of the structure can go up very quickly and I was so impressed with those in body because they had the DNA of of the pastor who you have the DNA of Jesus and you know Paul said follow me as I follow Christ Christ and there was depth and there was they were Dynamic and passionate and anointed and sold out and um and and in love with Jesus and you know the anointing it's tangible it's it you can feel it you know it and um your people are all in I loved it you well you know that means a lot coming from you first and foremost so thank you uh but I would say that it didn't start off that way and so what we noticed in the very beginning was that a lot of people were coming to the church yeah and unfortunately we did not have the foundation to contain or sustain what God was doing and so we had to come back and kind of understand what what is God doing through us and what we realized is that we didn't need to be a mega church to have mega impact that's right that's we can impact within the context that God has called us we contextualize the gospel and we allow God to use us for his glory yeah and so somebody gave me a piece of advice he said Eli make sure you have a a large front door but have a small back door there you and so what you do is welcome everybody to the church but then get out of the way and let the glory of God make the changes and so we're super excited about what God has done and and and we've learned we've learned a lot lot of mistakes but God has been faithful yeah that's how we learn you know I think sometimes we think that mistakes mean failure and they don't no mistakes mean you know we repent we we learn we grow and we try again we we get up and try again with new eyes new heart new knowledge absolutely new experience and you learn and the WID you learn from your mistakes but also learn from others yeah I get to see other ministers and ministries of what they're doing I I've tried my best to connect with many Pastors in my local community I want to hear what they're doing what are some of the challenges that you're having maybe we can work together partner on certain initiatives but also let me learn from your mistakes so I truly believe in mentorship so because you said that tell me about the committee that you sit on that you run is it called core yes and where you're you're representing tan and brown and black and all kinds of pastors and and kind of zoning into their unique needs and then coming together as an army um to keep building yes absolutely Ely I get to be the executive director of core this it's the church operations and resources Edge what does that mean is that when I started church planting I didn't have any resources I also didn't have much support yeah and so what I thought was I thought I was isolated I thought I was on an island I had no one to call I I didn't know how to connect with denominations I didn't know how to connect with certain Ministries can I be honest with you absolutely there was a season where there were some other pastors that were launching at the same time but they were launching with a lot of resources yeah often I would ask the question how can you connect can you connect me yeah some of them would tell me well we can't really fund any other on any other Ministries that are so close to us so it seemed like they closed all the doors in fact I would knock on doors to see who would allow me to to host Services um and they weren't there and so we had to learn and we had to do it on our own so what I want to do is I want to come alongside Church Planters and also churches that have plateaued maybe they don't have access to to resources and structures and systems and what we've done is we have a group of pastors all over the country we come next to you as coaches mentors uh we have accountability Partners we have also uh have partners that we work with that help churches with stuff like church management software how to get their finances in order when we wanted to get a loan we had no idea how to do so so we had to go to an accountant to help us how to get your 501c3 in place your tax exemption those are things that we want to come alongside Pastors in those areas and we're so grateful because uh there's a re there's research that's been done that often pastors that are not of the minority culture we do a lot with less yeah and so what we want to do is we want to kind of even the playing field we want to make sure that our pastors also have the opportunity to do do what they are called to do and Thrive not just survive that's and so that's important for us at core and we're super excited about what God is doing in a short time we've already connected with many Ministries and many pastors that felt exactly like I felt and we've come alongside them and we're seeing God do a great work in their lives so Pastor Eli how can someone watching right now a pastor that has a vision or has plateaued or who's exhausted or who's just frustrated or who feels alone who who doesn't have other leaders to work with how can they get in touch with you absolutely uh first and foremost you can go to our website which is the core leadership academy.org yeah this is what we've noticed a lot of people feel isolated because they don't know where to go that's right and some of them don't even have access to educational programs so the first thing we wanted to do is we wanted to equip and Empower our pastors so we started a school it's an online school fully online where pastors and leaders lay workers can go adult Learners as a whole can go and get their biblical foundation so important throughout that time we have an amazing staff of people uh these are volunteer teachers that have come aboard and I'm talking about PhD students and teachers professors doctors uh literally Advocates of of adult learning uh they are teaching our people uh anything from hermeneutics how to interpret the Bible Old Testament New Testament emotionally healthy uh spirituality discipleship evangelism and also tics the art of preaching uh just a great great curriculum that the Lord allowed us to do now when we first started this let's be very transparent it was just to equip our local church but pastors began to hear about what we were doing they started sending people to us at a lowcost option yeah see I I don't know if you've gone back to school how expensive it is ridiculous and so we didn't want people to to to go back to school and have to pay a high price so we do it at a lowcost option very convenient it's just an opportunity for us to give back to the community and allow people to start where we weren't able to start um and so feel free to go on there connect with us it'll it'll be a brief um questionnaire uh to see what you're looking for and we have partners that will come alongside you to help you through that process um I didn't have this opportunity when I was growing up yeah uh going to college was not something that was really promoted within my family context um and so when I was able to go back to school I said I have to make this available to others that's right so what can we do to create the systems and programs to allow anyone that wants to get a higher education to come on board and that's what the go what God has birthed in our spirit for this season and we're super excited about it we've had pastors from Utah pastors from uh uh Chicago Indiana all coming on board on this and into our small church here in zephra Hills but God has been faithful to us well I appreciate I appreciate that you've been willing to take this on CU first of all the words has a study to show our s approved rightly dividing the word and you know Paul told Timothy pass on these truths that I've told you to other faithful Witnesses who then in turn will pass them on well sometimes people don't witness or they don't pass truths on because they don't know if they're theologically correct or sound I was raised in the matriarch of our family was a lifelong learner you know up until uh almost her 100th birthday she was learning and and so I sat at her feet and learned that learning is a lifelong process absolutely and you know God restores the things that maybe we didn't get from our family of origin we get in the body of Christ ab and it's so fun jumping into the word of God and there's always something fresh there's always something new you can't say oh well I already went to Seminary I already got this degree no keep learning keep going keep growing a leader never stop stops growing and never stops learning and uh you know I I wanted to set the stage or the standard to be higher in my household so I was the first college graduate in my immediate family um but now I have my my wife has gone back to school my my brother-in-law is back in school now my niece is going to college right now and so we're setting the stage and we're raising the level of expectation uh I firmly believe in education I think it's important for us to uh to equip our people one of the things that notice about this generation that's coming up or not necessarily this generation but our context is that many people are moving towards Trends yeah or they get excited about a two-minute reel we cannot minimize the word of God to a two-minute re you're right we have to get back into God's word if you want to if we want to make a difference in our context God's word see when we pray we speak to God but it's his word that speaks to us that's right and so we want to bring people back to the Bible that's important for us well and you know we can't you you nailed we can't do this cultural Christianity we have to do Kingdom Christianity and and you know Jesus was a rabbi he knew the Torah forward and backward he quoted it constantly and faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing but we've got to be in the word and we need teachers we need people are in the fivefold Ministries that will pour into us no matter where we are and you know Pastor Eli just because this is a show that we're showing during the Christmas season I just encourage you if you're watching people in your life don't need another Yankee Candle they do not need another picture frame and they do not need another Panera Bread gift card what they need is an education go online invest in yourself invest in the people you love tell the your family everyone go on to this website and make a donation for my ongoing biblical education so that I can preach sound Doctrine and that I can do the works of the gospel because we are going to be held accountable for it absolutely absolutely I think this is vital to our Christian Health yeah we need people that are not after Trends yes people after God's presence Hallelujah and we find that through God's word and so I'm super excited about it I know that God is doing a great thing in our people's lives uh pastors are talking about it people are talking about it and we're elevating the room so we have people that have never thought they had Ministry are now preaching the gospel on on a Pulpit and we're super excited about that so uh we're just so grateful thank you for this opportunity for allowing us to speak about it so uh just just we we pray that the Lord uh sees how we Steward it and says that we've been faithful with it amen well listen the third Great Awakening is here there's a billion Soul Harvest and we are going to need laborers amen so Pastor Eli we could talk forever you're fascinating and what you're doing is so needed and essential but I just want you to pray there's some people watching absolutely are hurting you know the holidays may be a tough time for them and just um you have such an amazing pastor's heart so would you just pray absolutely I I just want to share if if you're in this season and you feel alone I want you to know that God is with you uh don't hold back from running to him he's he's not afraid of what we're going through so if you can close your eyes father thank you thank you for allowing us this moment uh to be together to be together to talk about the wonderful things that you are doing within our context but father we know that there are people that are watching right now and they're struggling uh because holidays are a tough time maybe they've lost a loved one maybe they're going through some uh physical uh ailment father God but you are faithful father God so I pray that in the midst of buying presents that we don't forget your presence father God and so we ask of you father God to comfort those that are struggling be with them and allow us the opportunity to be your hands and feet within a hurting community in Jesus name we pray amen amen praise the Lord Pastor next time have to bring your wife ab and we'll chitchat she's a she's a Powerhouse too yes and listen I encourage you to go to cor leadership academy.org right yeah and then what is it it's my new life.org yeah that's our church website absolutely feel free to come by if you know anyone in Zer for Hills or Pasco County send them over our way they're going to find a welcoming uh family yeah and you do English and Spanish absolutely so we we just started a bilingual service so have an English service at 9:00 a.m. on Sundays and at 11 11:00 a.m. we do a bilingual service both English and Spanish a great time yeah so important so important listen it's a good time to be alive you are not an accident the lord loves you and there's no better time listen you might be away from the Lord you might be frustrated you might be disillusioned you might be disappointed but as my husband says you may be you can take a 100 steps away from the Lord but he's only one step back and he's calling you to come home he has a place at the table for you he has your name on a place guard he's madly in love with you and he just wants you to come to his Loving Arms he's not here to condemn you or shame you he's here to love you and welcome you and invite you into the kingdom he has a destiny he has a future and he has a hope and there's no better time to say Jesus Come into my heart I make you the Lord of my life I repent for everything that I've done that has been contrary to your word Holy Spirit fill me I'm a follower of you and from here on I am living for you in jesus' name it's that simple if you prayed that prayer you're going to heaven get involved with a great church like Pastor Eli and we look forward to seeing you next time on come home my name is Jen m [Music]