DALLAS (BP)—The National Hispanic Baptist Network has elevated its executive director, Bruno Molina, from a part-time role to a new full-time role to oversee the organization’s diverse offering of support to Hispanic churches and leaders across the Southern Baptist Convention.
“I’m thrilled that, after two years of serving in this role on a part-time volunteer basis, I can focus full-time on reaching the Hispanic community and through them realizing our vision ‘that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God (1 Kings 8:60),’” Molina said.
Jesse Rincones, chairman of the network’s board of directors, said he is glad the network now has Molina serving as executive director on a full-time basis.
“He not only had the vision of what [the National Hispanic Baptist Network] can and will become, but his life-long service to Hispanic Baptists will serve him well as he serves Hispanic Baptists all across the United States,” said Rincones, who also is the executive director of the Convención Bautista Hispana de Texas and the pastor of Alliance Church in Lubbock.
“The work of the National Hispanic Baptist Network is needed now more than ever. The 3,400 Hispanic churches in the SBC need a network like this at the national level. It’s exciting to see how God is already working to bring unity, collaboration, and culturally contextualized resources and experiences that is so needed in our churches,” Rincones said.
Molina added: “I’m grateful to God for a grant from the Lilly Foundation, in collaboration with the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, that has made my full-time service possible, along with our communications coordinator, David Inestroza, Hispanic consultant for the Alabama Baptist Convention.”
Molina will oversee the network’s daily operations. This includes its 11 current ministry teams: prayer, evangelism, discipleship, missions mobilization, emerging leaders, revitalization, finance, education, women’s ministry, pastoral care and church planting.
He served bivocationally with the Navigators ministry, and for the last 16 years Molina has been the language and interfaith evangelism associate for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
In addition to being a former pastor, church planter and human resources manager, he is an adjunct professor of apologetics, theology and world religions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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He also teaches at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, taught at Louisiana Baptist University, the Baptist Seminary in Havana, Cuba, and Baptist Seminary in Nogales, Mexico.
Molina earned his bachelor’s degree from New York University in International Relations and Spanish, and both his Master of Arts in Theology and Ph.D. in World Christian Studies from Southwestern Seminary.
