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It took almost 30 years but Teo Cisneros has returned to the school that educated him and the place he credits as where he gave his life to Christ and found his spiritual calling.

After spending 25 years in the pulpit of Templo Jerusalem Baptist Church, Cisneros has taken the position of vice president for institutional development of the Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio.

“The Lord has brought me back to the place I started walking with Him,” Cisneros said. “I feel there was still a future in Victoria, but there are times when God calls us to different and new things. God called me to something new, and I needed to be obedient.”

Cisneros’ path to Victoria began on a December weekend in 1983. At the time, two churches were in need of a pastor for service. One, close to San Antonio, the other, Templo in Victoria.

Cisneros and a friend were students at Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio at the time a professor asked them for help. They just needed to pick a church.

Cisneros’ friend chimed in first and picked the church that involved the least travel. Cisneros had to travel to Victoria where he didn’t want to go because of his lack of knowledge of English at the time.

Cisneros served that weekend and found himself called back again when the church’s pastor left.

“I said ‘I will go there just while I finish school. And after I graduate I will go somewhere else and pastor, maybe where I don’t have to learn the language’,” Cisneros recalled.

It took Cisneros a long time to to finally go somewhere else.

“I thought I was there for a temporary basis,” he said. “I never realize I would be there for 25 years.”

Cisneros’ work now will be to raise money for the university. In the four weeks he has been in San Antonio, Cisneros has been still preaching and traveling to other places representing the school.”

Much of what he will do entails cultivating friendships, and interacting with people from all over, Cisneros said. He said he believes that his past experience working on the search committee for an executive director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas and other service positions have helped get him ready for the job. Cisneros has also been a trustee for the last 15 years and chaired the board of trustees this year.

“As I look back I think the Lord was preparing me for this position all this time,” Cisneros said.

The announcement of Cisneros’ departure was shocking for Ricky Garcia, who served as Cisneros’ assistant and is now the interim pastor at Templo.

“He was a father figure to everyone. The pastorship there was his life’s work, he devoted his entire time to ministering to the church members and those who weren’t church members,” Garcia said.

One thing Garcia will always remember about Cisneros is the instrumental part the man played in helping Garcia deal with the loss of his mother to breast cancer.

“It was one of the toughest things I have gone through. Pastor Teo really ministered to me and my family and he just helped me get through that and that probably is one of the things I am most grateful to him for throughout the years,” Garcia said.

Cisneros did that for everyone, he added.

To lose Cisneros is a great deal, but Garcia said he understands it is God’s will.

“He is doing the right thing and it’s a great move for him and the kingdom of God,” he said.

It will not be easy to fill the shoes left by Cisneros, Garcia said.

“Twenty-five years in ministry you can’t replace that kind of leadership,” he said. “So many families have a solid foundation because of the time he put in. Templo has always been a friendly, family oriented place. I think it got that from his leadership and the kind of person he was.”

Cisneros found it hard to leave the friends he made and his children who have grown up and still reside in Victoria, but was given support from all of them, he said.

The best legacy of Cisneros for Templo is for the church to flourish even more after his departure, he said.

It was a Spanish speaking church, then became a bilingual church and after 10 years, has basically became an English speaking Hispanic church.

Now it is an English-speaking church that has established a ministry that is able to reach all cultures, coming a long way from being a very small congregation sponsored by Northside Baptist Church, Cisneros said.

There is some unfinished work at Templo, Cisneros said. About four years ago he had a vision of the church based on the idea of the Great Commission of Christ, found in the book of Matthew 28:18-20.

Inspired by Jesus’ command to “go,” Cisneros worked to foster a ministry that would go to the people, baptize and connect them to the body and still continue to teach them.

“It’s not that we were not doing the three points, the problem is we weren’t doing all three at the same time,” Cisneros said. “This great commission is intended for us to do all three things at the same time.”

He is confident Garcia and his team who worked with him will continue this vision.

Ida De Los Santos echoes Cisneros’ confidence.

“Even though Theo is leaving, his legacy is staying,” she said. “We are going to continue to follow his teaching, how he reached out to the community and every parishioner.”

Thinking of him leaving brings tears to De Los Santos’ eyes. He was her pastor for three years and instrumental in helping her through some difficult times in her personal life.

“It’s going to be very hard for us, but we have to hold on to the faith that it is in God’s will and we will continue,” she said.

Bj Lewis is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6535 or bjlewis@vicad.com or comment on this story at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.