News and Views

One of the Rev. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón’s spiritual gifts is curiosity.

“I’m sort of an explorer, always looking to find the connections and what’s next,” he said. He hopes this sense of discovery will serve him well in his new ministry as the Frederick District superintendent.

Valentín-Castañón traces his love of discovery back to when he was a boy growing up in Puerto Rico. It has accompanied him in his ministry at Trinity UMC in Frederick, where he currently serves, at the Monrovia Charge in the Central Maryland District, at churches in New York and New Jersey, and in his work at the General Board of Church and Society and later at the General Commission on Religion and Race.

Bishop LaTrelle Easterling appointed Valentín-Castañón as superintendent of the Frederick District, a position he will start on July 1.

“Rev. Dr. Eliezer Valentín-Castañón grounds his life and ministry in his own profound relationship with God through Jesus Christ. His worldview is mediated through that lens. That firm foundation will enable him to lead well through the liminal times ahead. He is a scholar, an advocate for justice and a deep listener,” the bishop said.

Bishop Easterling knows the Cabinet will be blessed by his presence.

“He knows the Frederick District intimately, which will enable him to hit the ground running. Likewise, the deep partnerships he has already established will be an asset in ecumenical and community collaborations,” the bishop said. In addition, “he has broad connectional experience, which will be an asset to the holistic work of the Cabinet. I look forward to welcoming him to our servant leadership team.”

Valentín-Castañón’s faith journey began in his homeland in Puerto Rico. When he was 14, he gave his life to Christ and, he said, “immediately wanted to serve God with my life from that moment on.” At 18, he was ordained as a pastor at an independent Pentecostal fundamentalist church and his gifts as a preacher were noted.

It was through the Bible that Valentín-Castañón connected with his faith.

“I was a very poor student, he said. “I wasn’t committed to school,” but “the Bible changed things.”

This is the book he read again and again. He claims that it was through the reading of the Bible that he really learned to read. The Bible became central to who he was and is today. “It gave me all these different stories of the work of God in the world. I felt God revealing God-self to me,” he said.

In 1984, after college, he went to Boston and, in 1985, to New York. In New York, he joined Fordham Road United Methodist Church Latino Ministry, one of the New York Annual Conference Churches in the South Bronx. He began preaching and people nudged him toward seminary. His love of the Bible has remained central to his journey. Then, he developed a passion for the writings of John Wesley, which he still holds to this day. These writings deeply affected Valentín-Castañón’s soul, as did the work of Samuel Silva-Gotay: “Pensamiento cristiano revolucionario de América Latina y el Caribe.”

His journey has allowed him to merge his knowledge of liberation theology with his earliest church foundations in the holiness movement which created a compelling Wesleyan vision of the world.

“When you open yourself to God and God’s leading, then anything is possible,” Valentín-Castañón said. “This is what I discovered many times. When you’re pastoring a church, you learn when it is time to convey the message that ‘yes, things may seem difficult and challenging, but that doesn’t mean they’re not possible.’ … If we trust God, we will see the hand of God at work.”

From serving his first church in 1990, through today, Valentín-Castañón believes a faithful church is a church of the neighborhood. Congregations need to be active in their communities and shaping people’s lives and helping neighborhoods to flourish.

At Trinity UMC, where he has served since 2013, Valentín-Castañón has watched as Frederick has grown in its cultural diversity. Today, he said, in some area schools, 80 languages are spoken.

“Diversity expands our understanding of who we are as a human race,” he said. He is looking forward to “taking advantage of this emerging reality and making it part of the wealth and blessing of the churches in the district.”

Caring for the people of the church fills Valentín-Castañón’s time. He has to prompt himself to take time off. But the passion that rivals his commitment to ministry is his family – his wife Magda and his grown sons Daniel and Eduardo.

As he begins to transition into his new ministry as superintendent, Valentín-Castañón has been thinking about the open heart, hands and doors of the church.

“I want to live that in every possible way. I hope I can be an instrument in the hands of God in everything I do in this new ministry,” he said.

When he thinks of the UMC’s moto: Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors., he is reminded of the words of the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.… Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

“We claim to be the body of Christ,” Valentín-Castañón said. “But the body of Christ doesn’t just sit down in the pews; the body of Christ goes out to change the world with the Good News of God’s Kingdom. I want to be a collaborator of God in everything I do.”