Q&A with Pastor César

In 2007, Pastor César Castellanos answered questions about vision, priorities, films, books, and the G12 Europe Conference 2007.

Q: What have been the highlights of your year so far?

A: This has been an amazing year with so many highlights. We have held the best conferences ever around the world. In Bogota many new people have come into the church - almost 1,000,000 were contacted in the first three months of the year - and many have attended encounters. 37,000 people are currently on School of Leaders. We’re also putting on an event in the park once a month. We have had to hire the biggest park in Bogota which holds up to 200,000 people. We see 150,000 - 200,000 people coming to this one event every month. We have also miraculously acquired land this year for a new building.

Q: What is your vision for this year’s European conference?

A: The theme of this year’s conference is God’s Hand is Upon Me. I would like to help those attending the conference understand how to overcome and conquer in life and how to receive spiritual blessing.

Q: If you had one piece of advice for the European Pastors what would it be?

A: The key for ministry is that each pastor needs to have the same nature of Jesus and to move in the supernatural. This requires self-sufficiency to be sacrificed, and the humility to deny yourself and accept God’s will and guidance. If you want to see the things of God you need to be faithful to His message. Jesus said “I come in the name of my father” – so he gave us a clue here. If we come in our own name then we seek fame for ourselves. Every pastor must be faithful in glorifying the Lord.

Q: Any other advice?

A: Every pastor should own dogs! We bought two dogs earlier this year as a birthday present for my daughter Sara. We’ve called them Fuji and Niko Castellanos!

Q: Can you recommend a book which has inspired you recently?

A: 4th Dimensional Living in a 3-Dimensional World by Dr Yonggi-Cho. This is a fantastic book. I like the way Dr Cho explains complicated spiritual truths in an easy to understand way and uses practical examples.

Q: As a pastor with many responsibilities, how do you prioritise?

A: I make my family my priority.

Q: Why is family so important?

A: The success of a ministry is a reflection of your family. Many people do this back to front. The Lord said to me a long time ago that this should be the order of my priorities:

1) God
2) Family
3) Ministry
4) Secular work

So family comes before ministry. If my girls ask me for my help with something then I drop everything to give them my attention as they are my priority. Sara is a tremendous preacher. She doesn’t like people to read her notes before she preaches, but she asks me to read her notes. One day I had a meeting with the pastors and she asked me if I could read her notes for her. I got Johanna to stand in for me and excused myself from the meeting telling them something very important had come up. I want my girls to be marked positively.

My wife also is above all the leaders. I have to treat my wife as I treat the Holy Spirit. I cannot raise my voice to her, ignore her, be indifferent towards her, mistreat her with words, or not pay attention to her. I make every effort to make her feel like a queen. I go shopping with her, and she comes away with me on trips when she doesn’t have to because you reap what you sow.

Our disciples see how we are as a family and that we’re not faking it! We’re modelling family. As a result, all the kids of my disciples are involved in ministry as well. My priority is family, not ministry. If your family is a failure then what’s the point of doing ministry. No success can cover a broken family.

Q: Have you watched any good films recently?

A: Spiderman 3! It has a great message. You should watch it!