In 2013, Calvin Theological Seminary recognized a significant need for accredited, graduate-level, Reformed education for Spanish-speaking students. For the next 10 years, CTS professor of New Testament Mariano Avila, Ph.D., worked with more than 130 students across five cohorts. These men and women earned master’s degrees in family care, certificates in Hispanic/Latino ministry, and/or certificates in family care.
With Avila’s retirement in 2023, leaders at Calvin Seminary began praying and searching for a new leader for its Latino/a Ministry Program. They also wondered how they could bring this program to Spanish-speaking students outside of West Michigan and North America.
In 2023, God answered this prayer by bringing the search team to Gabriela Tijerina-Pike, Ph.D., who was subsequently appointed as the seminary’s director of Latino/a ministries. Tijerina-Pike is from Monterrey, Mexico, and has served Christ through writing, teaching, and leading in a variety of ministry organizations. This included work as a seminary professor, a missionary in Nicaragua, and the president of Seminario Todos Las Naciones in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Tijerina-Pike brings her passion for equipping young leaders to Calvin Seminary, where she guides students seeking a Maestría de Artes en formación de liderazgo (M.A. in leadership formation).
Since assuming leadership of the Latino/a Ministry Program, Tijerina-Pike has concentrated on providing a flexible format, contextualizing Reformed theology for diverse ministry contexts, and developing local and global partnerships.
The online master’s program allows students to maintain their current employment and ministries. Fernando Valenzuela Viale lives in Chile and is pleased to study online in a master’s program that promotes the integration of his learning on Christian leadership with his work as an ecosystem manager.
Tijerina-Pike supports students with virtual office hours and other online gatherings to foster engagement and enrich the students’ learning experience.
The program’s curriculum mirrors Calvin Seminary’s traditional degree programs with a focus on Reformed theology and confessions, but also helps students contextualize Reformed theology in their own ministries and vocations. Those currently enrolled in the program include leaders of multinational ecumenical organizations, accountants, engineers, church planters, and missionaries. Tijerina-Pike looks forward to opportunities to help Calvin Seminary develop partnerships that can equip church leaders around the globe through Reformed theology. She is developing workshops on academic writing to help students to write publishable papers or conference presentations, and she is partnering with Calvin University’s Hekman Library to provide Spanish-language resources. She also hopes to develop additional partnerships with Resonate Global Mission’s missionaries and partners across Latin America to train local ministry leaders in their contexts. That work has already begun in Nicaragua and Guatemala.
Calvin Seminary invites you to pray that God will bless and equip a new generation of pastors and ministry leaders, that the Latino/a Ministry Program will stay faithful to its Reformed identity while addressing contemporary ministry needs, and that God will bring new students from North America to the program.
About the Author
Leah Jolly, Calvin Theological Seminary
