Speaker Bios

Rev. Jorge Acevedo is the Lead Pastor at Grace Church, a multi-site, United Methodist congregation in Southwest Florida (Cape Coral, Fort Myers Shores and North Fort Myers). This church has grown in its vision of interacting with its local community. Attendance has grown from 400 to over 2,600 in the past 13 years, largely due to intentionally-developed missional strategies of outreach and service. Grace Church is recognized as having one of the largest and most effective recovery ministries with over 800 people involved in weekly recovery ministries. In 2003, Grace Church planted a second campus by adopting a declining United Methodist Church. Today this campus has more than 375 people in attendance. In 2007, Grace Church purchased a former grocery store and opened Grace Community Center, a holistic ministry center and home to the third worshipping community of Grace Church in November 2008. Jorge is an MDiv graduate of Asbury Seminary and an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church.

Dr. Narry Santos has served as a pastor of Greenhills Christian Fellowship (GCF) for 17 years, 13 of which were in Manila and 4 in Toronto. In the past 4 years, the GCF-Toronto church has become the hub of a new, rapidly expanding church-planting movement that has established 6 satellites congregations across Canada. Under his leadership these 6 have bonded and are aligned to the GCF Canada mission and vision, which includes adopting “a missional, metropolitan, and multicultural mandate.” Rev. Santos is an ordained pastor with the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec yet continues in transnational relationship with his home church, GCF in the Philippines. Narry has written 5 books, contributed many articles to academic journals, and teaches and writes for the global church helping it to grow into its new identity. Dr. Santos lectures as adjunct professor of New Testament in seminaries in Asia, and recently taught a new course Diaspora Missiology at Tyndale Seminary in Toronto.