Eddy Alemán is a pastor, a church planter, and a nurturer of leaders. He’s also the General Synod Council’s candidate for general secretary, a job with responsibilities that include casting vision for the denomination and overseeing implementation of its mission.
Eddy Alemán is a pastor, a church planter, and a nurturer of leaders. He’s also the General Synod Council’s candidate for general secretary, a job with responsibilities that include casting vision for the denomination and overseeing implementation of its mission. A search team unanimously selected Alemán out of 19 candidates for the position. General Synod Council interviewed Alemán in March and will present him to General Synod in June for final approval.
In 1987, five months before turning 17, Eddy Alemán fled the civil war in his home country of Nicaragua and moved to Canada as a refugee. He started attending church and soon became a Christian.
“I don’t have a Christian background; my background was outside the church,” he says. That forever impressed on him the importance of evangelism, a value that has shaped much of his life and ministry.
When he was 21, Alemán joined an RCA church with his wife, Daysi, and their two small children. The church was Iglesia Reformada La Senda, a Hispanic church plant in Toronto. Alemán’s experience at La Senda led him to plant several churches himself, first in Canada, and then, after earning a master of divinity degree from Western Theological Seminary, in Central California. There, he established a ministry training center for Hispanic leaders, and they planted seven churches together. He also earned a master of arts degree in New Testament from Fresno Pacific University Biblical Seminary.
In 2009, he was called to Emmanuel Reformed Church in Paramount, California, as pastor of Hispanic ministries and church planting. Over the course of five years, the Hispanic congregation grew from 80 people to more than 900 people connected with the church through 11 church plants in Los Angeles and Orange County.
Alemán joined RCA staff in 2014 as director of strategic leadership development and coordinator of Hispanic ministries. In this role, he has overseen the leadership priority of Transformed & Transforming, the RCA’s 15-year ministry plan. He’s worked with pastors and churches to identify leaders, help those leaders grow, and develop systems that make leadership development a regular part of ministry. As coordinator of Hispanic ministries, he has worked closely with the RCA’s 65 Hispanic churches and with the Council for Hispanic Ministries. Under his leadership, the council set a goal to plant 50 new churches in five years. Within the first year of that plan, 20 churches were already in the works.
Currently, Alemán is pursuing a Ph.D. in New Testament studies at University of Wales Trinity St. David.
“My prayer for the denomination is the same prayer of Jesus, John 17—to listen more carefully to the teachings of Jesus and engage in the work that we have been called to, to expand the kingdom of God in the world,” he says. “My prayer is that we will again take the mission of Jesus seriously.”
Eddy and Daysi Alemán will return to Nicaragua this fall on a trip to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They have three grown children, Eddy, David, and Rebecca, and three grandchildren, Matthew, Aiden, and Camila.
Still curious about Eddy Alemán? Read a full profile online: www.rca.org/eddy.
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