History Makers: Sugel Michelén

On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, special guest Pastor Sugel Michelén joins Dr. Stephen Nichols to share how the Lord is awakening His people in Latin America.

Stephen Nichols (SN): We're here at the Ligonier National Conference, and last week we had Sugel Michelén with us and we were talking about his books that he would take with him on a deserted island. Well, we are back with him again, and it's good to have him with us.

Sugel Michelén (SM): Thank you. Again, it’s a privilege for me to be here.

SN: Church history is not just simply the past, but church history is being made now. We are leaving a legacy that if the Lord should tarry and the church continue, generations after us will look back on our time, and what we are doing now will be filling the books of church history in the centuries to come. Let me just ask you to give us a sense of what God is doing in the Dominican Republic and in Latin America that if Christ tarries, we'll see in the church history books.

SM: I had the opportunity to have a session yesterday here at the Ligonier conference talking about this topic, and it is obvious for me that God is doing something great in Latin America. I remember back when I was converted forty-one years ago—at least in my country—I never before had met a Christian in my life. I don't know if was because in the circle that I was in, probably, there was not any Christians. But the point is that now you can go everywhere in the Dominican Republic and you will find Christians. There are good churches that are growing and preaching the Reformed doctrines and that's weird; that's crazy.

SN: It's crazy and we love it at the same time.

SM: Yes, of course. I have had the opportunity to travel across Latin America and I have seen this in many countries in Latin America. I was in Argentina one week ago and we have a conference with John Piper. John Piper was preaching the gospel, and we had 1,300 people attending to this conference. A Reformed conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina—that's incredible. You go to Colombia and you see the same, you go to Cuba, that is happening in many countries in Latin America. We have great expectation of what the Lord is doing in our region.

SN: You all in the Dominican Republic there in Santo Domingo, you have a conference yourselves each year. Can and tell us a little bit about that?

SM: We are not the church that hosts the Por Su Causa conference, but is hosted by a church that is very close to us and good friends like Pastor Miguel Núñez. We always participate in this conference, we move our people to attend this conference. The first time that they did Por Su Causa in 2010, we had an attendance of seven thousand people in that conference.

SN: They are from beyond the Dominican Republic, they are from other places in Latin America.

SM: Even beyond Dominican Republic, from other places, from Latin America and the United States because you have many Spanish-speaking people here. They have been doing this conference all those years since 2010, and the attendance has been the same thanks to the Lord.

SN: You go from not really having any Christians around you forty-one years ago to seeing these very exciting things happen and good solid literature being written and translated. We see resources that really are unprecedented that have been made available to this region. In some senses, what we might be seeing is the beginnings of a Reformation.

SM: Probably, yes, because we have never in our history had a Reformation because of the impact of the Catholicism in our countries. Now we are seeing a new thing the Lord is doing.

SN: Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Thank you for your time and your ministry there in the Dominican Republic.

SM: Thank you.