By David Winfrey

Sacramento—Sal Fernandez loves to play “connect the dots.”

Not the kid’s game to draw pictures. Sal connects dots to plant churches.

“You need at least six things in place for a new start,” said Fernandez, who has helped plant congregations in California, Utah, Colorado and Nevada. Those six things, he said, are the place, the people, the sponsor, the planter, the partners and the resources.

“I’m always excited like a little kid when the dots start connecting,” said Fernandez, who serves today as a CSBC church starting strategist in Sacramento and surrounding counties.

“I realize that a new work is going to be birthed and people are going to come to know the Lord,” he said. “Sometimes those dots are connected real quick. Sometimes it takes six months; sometimes it takes a year for those dots to connect.”

Fernandez notes that the connections of those dots often occurs miraculously.

“What’s happening in church planting can only be described as a God thing,” he said. “It’s always exciting. There’s never a dull moment in what we’re doing.”

Like the time he visited Ione (an hour southeast of Sacramento) with Wayne Stacks, director of missions for Mother Lode Baptist Association. The town had no Southern Baptist congregation, Hispanic or Anglo. But that didn’t stop Fernandez and Stacks from walking into Cornerstone Community Church to see who they might talk to.

“The first person we meet is the pastor, Brother Tony. We tell him what we want to do,” Fernandez recalled. “And he gets a little bit emotional. He says ‘That’s what we’ve been praying to do.’”

As they continued talking, Brothere Tony offered to let the association use the church building to host a Hispanic church start.

“Within an hour’s time, we have a partner; we have a place,” Fernandez said. “That’s what’s happening, and the Lord is opening the door.”

Fernandez has served two years in the Sacramento area. Before that, he served in Central California. He has helped plant so many congregations that he has lost count. “Since I’ve been here in California, it’s been 28 up to now, not counting the six that are in process.”

He said he looks for three things in every church starter he recruits: a changed life as a result of their relationship with God, a clear calling to church starting and a passion to start churches. “There has to be something burning there.”

He traces his own passion for church starting to his spiritual conversion as a teenager in Arizona. “I’m a product of a new church plant. It’s where I came to know the Lord,” Fernandez said. “I see the passion in the new church start. They reach out to find people that I don’t find in the established church.

“Every time I start a church, I see myself. I see another Sal being saved. I see another Maria , my wife, being saved, and it just keeps me excited.”

Because California Southern Baptists pray for and give to the California Mission Offering Fernandez is helping start new Hispanic congregations to demonstrate “Love With Action.”

To view a short video of Sal, click here. Click here to view the video in Spanish.