PUEBLO, Colo. – For Arod Javier, the first-time pastor replanting Living Faith, church growth is not his first priority. Making disciples who make disciples is. If that happens, the Filipino immigrant believes, the congregation will grow in God’s way and in God’s time. That conviction is shaping more than Sunday mornings. In addition to replanting the former New Faith Christian Fellowship, Javier has helped start five house churches and/or prayer meetings. About 30 people attend Living Faith’s Sunday worship services, while roughly a total of 60 participate during the week in those home gatherings.
“The goal is for people to experience Jesus in His fulness,” Javier told Baptist Press. “We’re following the early church example. They engaged people with the Gospel. They made disciples. They raised up leaders and sent them back into the city. Then churches were planted.”
Living Faith’s mission, Javier said, is to make disciples of all nations. Its vision is “to create a movement of disciple-making disciples – not just converts – who do their part in fulfilling the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 through the Great Commandment of Mark 12:28-34,” said Javier, a North American Mission Board-endorsed church replanter.
Many of the “developing disciples” in the house churches are not Baptist. Most come from Catholic backgrounds, and for some, attending a non-Catholic church carries a stigma. Gathering in a home to study the Bible, however, feels more approachable.
“Their faith is under-formed and unaccompanied,” Javier said. “Their only [spiritual] feeding is mostly from the priest, but they want to learn what the Bible says. They want to be helped in their faith. And of course, be prayed for as well.”
Javier said that growing faith is showing up in generosity as well. Although Sunday morning attendance has changed little since the replant’s first service in January 2025, giving has increased 50 percent on an annualized basis. The church has continued to allocate 10 percent for missions through the Cooperative Program and 10 percent for Royal Gorge Baptist Association.
Living Faith also added support this year for three missionaries serving in the Philippines.
“We are a church that is missions-oriented locally and globally,” Javier said. “Our mission is to make disciples of all nations. That’s what we’re commanded to do by God. He is very clear about this in Matthew 28:19-20.”
Paying it forward
For Javier, the church’s generosity is rooted in gratitude. Living Faith has received significant help from its association and state convention. The year-and-a-half-old congregation was given its building, an adjacent parsonage and funds for long-deferred maintenance and renovations.
“Living Faith wants to give resources to missions because we have been helped,” Javier said. “It’s fitting for other ministries to get that same type of help from us. With the Cooperative Program we are reaching out globally, and with RGBA [Royal Gorge Baptist Association] we are helping locally.
“This association has helped us tremendously in pursuing our mission to make disciples of all nations. I know they help other churches too. We want to be a part of RGBA’s mission: helping other churches start and thrive, particularly during the initial planting stages. And we want to be part of what Southern Baptists are doing throughout the world, sharing the Gospel – and then discipling them – with people who haven’t yet heard of the One True God who loves them.”
Living Faith currently gives about 30 percent of its budget to missions, and Javier expects that commitment to keep growing.
“As these people continue to grow in their faith, they are learning they can trust God with their lives and with their finances too,” the pastor said.
“Pastor Arod is doing an amazing job of multiplying small groups and reaching the greater Pueblo community,” Nate Templin told Baptist Press. He is regional director of Royal Gorge Baptist Association and Arkansas Valley Baptist Association, as well as one of the pastors at Steel City Fellowship in Pueblo, a replant of Belmont Baptist Church. “Arod Javier is a highly capable, relational pastor who loves the people well.”
Learning to “give by grace,” however, comes later in the discipleship process. Javier and his mentor, Jerico de Veyra, Colorado Baptists’ ethnic specialist, use a five-part discipleship growth plan, along with introductory sessions that present the Gospel to unbelievers through the “3 Circles” evangelistic tool.
The stages go from learning the basics of the Gospel through discipling others and being sent on mission.
This year, Javier said, the church’s priority is discipleship. Next year, Living Faith plans to expand local ministry opportunities and take another mission trip to the Philippines.
Transformation through surrender
The Philippines is where Javier’s own walk with the Lord began. In 1986, while he was a student at the University of the Philippines, his sister introduced him to the Gospel. Within two years, he was leading youth and college ministries at a church, even as his professional responsibilities grew in his work as a government analyst.
Javier, his wife Glorie and their son, Jedd, now 23 and beginning in worship ministry, moved to Colorado in 1995. For more than 20 years, Javier helped establish and lead house churches in Denver for a Filipino American church. During that season, he met de Veyra and Colorado Baptists. He also entered commercial real estate to support his family.
Glorie’s death in 2023 became “a profound personal and spiritual turning point,” Javier said. A year later, he left a successful 27-year career in commercial real estate to pursue full-time pastoral ministry, a calling he had sensed since his conversion.
“I’ve come to understand that transformation requires surrender, and I’m committed to embracing this journey with unrelenting passion and devotion,” Javier wrote as part of the assessment process for NAMB. “I’ve come to terms with the fact that this journey also necessitated the challenging surrender of my wife’s death to cancer as part of my journey to fulfill my ministry purpose. This fusion of purpose and calling drives my continued journey.”
Today, Javier leads Living Faith with a focus on disciple-making, spiritual renewal and missional engagement, drawing on the theological foundations he developed through his Master of Arts in Missional Theology degree from PTS College in the Philippines, where online he is working on a Doctor of Ministry degree.
“I left behind an established network and a thriving career in Denver, but am excited to be in Pueblo, pursuing a higher calling, fostering hope and renewal,” Javier said. “This was set in motion 40 years ago when in 1986 I gave my life to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
