Christian Sebastia and his daughter Sam Sebastia bring a Venezuelan perspective to Synod 2023.
The Sebastias moved to Katy, Texas, in 2015, fleeing the collapsing economy of their home country, Venezuela. Christian is a Grammy-award winning music producer who also pastors two churches in Classis Rocky Mountain. He and his family have been working with Resonate Global Mission to plant a third church.
Sam, 20, helps with her dad’s church-planting efforts, filling whatever role is needed on Sunday mornings. She is a student at Houston Community College studying film. While a young adult representative at Synod 2023, she worked on synod’s Committee 8, that looked at matters of discipline and expressions of confessional difficulty, “trying to find agreement and explain and defend our faith,” as Sam put it.
Their experience in Venezuela taught the Sebastia family the importance of maintaining good moral laws that govern the people well, Christian said.
The father-daughter duo have shared a synod microphone twice already. With his daughter by his side to translate if needed, Christian cautioned that the CRC should avoid the liberation theology that undid his home country, and he urged the CRC to move ahead without delaying the implications of the CRC’s human sexuality report.
Synod 2023 is meeting June 9-15 at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich. Find daily coverage from The Banner news team at thebanner.org/synod. Visit crcna.org/synod for the synod schedule, webcast, recordings, photos, committee reports, and liveblog. Synod is the annual general assembly of the Christian Reformed Church.
About the Author
Roxanne VanFarowe is a freelance writer who claims both Canadian and American citizenship and grew up in the Christian Reformed Church. She is a member of Blacknall Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina.
