the leadership school...
Dear Pastor:
Are you ready to inspire, challenge, and revitalize your lay leaders with a dynamic training event designed to strengthen your congregation’s leadership capacity? If your answer is “Absolutely!”, let me introduce you to my leadership training and development program: The Leadership School: Practical Tools for Highly Effective Lay Leaders.
The Leadership School consists of four intensive, interdependent workshops that I consider essential for leadership development:
• Leadership: Imagining Missional Congregations
• Leadership: Inspiring Transformational Leaders
• Leadership: Cultivating Enduring Marriages
• Leadership: Building Financial Excellence
Why these four topics?
Because after more than 30 years in pastoral ministry and training hundreds of leaders in diverse contexts, I have come to a foundational conclusion: The future of the Church largely depends on lay (and clergy) leaders who deeply understand the relationship between the Church, Leadership, Marriage, and Finances. When these areas are healthy, leadership thrives. When they are neglected, ministry weakens.
Each workshop provides...
✔ Immediate application to each leader’s life and ministry,
✔ A solid biblical and theological foundation,
✔ Practical, ready-to-use tools,
✔ A Certificate of Recognition upon completion of all four workshops.
Program format...
The typical program includes four sessions delivered either over two Saturdays (morning and afternoon) or over four Saturdays (morning or afternoon). However, we can always explore other formats and options based on what works best for your context.
What are the four core workshops?
Leadership: Imagining Missional Congregations
This workshop is designed to help lay leaders recognize and cultivate the profile of a highly missional, transformative, and effective congregation in the 21st century. We focus on rediscovering the Missio Dei and, in doing so, reclaiming the Church’s mission in today’s context. We also explore how faith communities can become spaces of hope within their specific settings, responding to the challenges—and opportunities—of our postmodern world. Participants will develop practical, biblically grounded strategies to live out the Great Commission, following the model of the Triune God in our redemption.
Leadership: Inspiring Transformational Leaders
This workshop centers on developing healthy leadership models, styles, and capacities based on the example of Jesus of Nazareth. Here, I combine more than 30 years of pastoral experience—both congregational and military—with leading resources in leadership studies. The core premise is simple: no one is born a “great leader.” Rather, great leaders are formed over time as they intentionally cultivate transformational leadership qualities, empowered by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
Leadership: Cultivating Enduring Marriages
This workshop helps lay leaders discover a transformative model of marriage grounded in biblical mutuality and healthy emotional connection. It includes practical strategies for conflict resolution and developing one’s love language, among other topics. In this immersive experience, I share 46 years of marriage, integrating those lived experiences with best practices and insights from trusted resources on building lasting marriages.
Leadership: Building Financial Excellence
This workshop explores a variety of resources, practices, and tools to promote financial excellence from both a biblical and practical perspective.
Topics include:
• Managing finances the way Jesus taught
• Strengthening and improving credit
• Investing in real estate without needing to be wealthy
• Addressing and overcoming debt
• Breaking free from financial burdens that hinder the well-being of leaders and their families
Let’s connect and plan a transformational event!
Click the link below to email me, start the conversation, and get your questions answered. Remember: investing in your leaders is investing in the future of your church. It would be my honor to partner with you in my mission to “equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (NIV).
who is luis?
Luis is a retired pastor with a deep passion for church lay leadership training and development.
He graduated from the University of Massachusetts (Lowell, MA) with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and from Eden Theological Seminary (St. Louis, MO) with a Master of Divinity. Luis has additional advanced training in interim ministry, strategic planning, and executive coaching. He is currently a second year student in the Doctor of Ministry program in Creative Leadership at Central Seminary (Kansas City, KS).
After graduating from seminary, Luis served simultaneously for over 30 years in two ministry settings. The first setting included the development of a new Hispanic mission in St. Louis, MO, followed by eight interim ministries in two denominations: the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). His second setting was as a Navy Chaplain (both active and reserve) in a variety of commands on land, at sea, and abroad. In 2020, he retired with the rank of Navy Captain (06) after 25 years as a military chaplain. His ministry experience also included teaching stints as a homiletics/preaching instructor for several years in the former Latino/Latina Studies Program at Asbury Theological Seminary (Orlando).
Luis is an ordained United Church of Christ minister and he and his wife (Dr. Zaida Maldonado) worship at a Spanish-speaking Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregation in Orlando. His early Christian roots reside in the Pentecostal tradition and his faith connections are multidenominational. He now continues his passion for ministry by leading leadership training and development workshops through his ministry, Evangel Strategies. When able, Luis also provides pulpit supply/preaching services in a wide variety of Christian denominations.
He loves traveling (currently 48 countries), investing in real estate, and spending time with the most important people in his life. His favorite titles are "husband," "father," and "buedo" (grandfather).