NHCLC Summit 2026: Marco Garcia Calls for 'Discipleship Revolution' at Hispanic Church Summit

"America needs to be discipled again."

That was the line that stopped the room. On Tuesday, October 20, inside the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., megachurch pastor Marco Garcia stood before the largest gathering of Hispanic Christian leaders in America and told them that good preaching is not enough, good music is not enough, and big crowds are not enough. What the Church actually needs, he said, is a discipleship revolution — believers who make believers, not just audiences who attend services.

The occasion was the 25th Anniversary Summit of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest Hispanic church association in the United States, led by Pastor Samuel Rodriguez. And Garcia was not the only headline from that stage. On the same day, the ADL — the Anti-Defamation League — announced an expanded partnership with Hispanic Christian leaders to fight antisemitism, including advocacy for Safe Worship legislation and a bilingual Sunday school curriculum. It was a summit with one foot in church renewal and one in public life.

Marco Garcia's Challenge: Preaching Is Not Enough

Garcia is the senior pastor of The Way World Outreach, a multicampus church spanning Arizona, California, and Kenya. His message was deliberately provocative. He told the gathered pastors that too many churches have confused the Great Commission with the great production — polished sermons, polished bands, polished buildings — while the actual assignment, making disciples, goes unassigned.

"We need to believe that America needs to be discipled again. That's how it will be great again," Garcia said. The phrasing did not go unnoticed: Spanish interpreters and attendees heard the echo of President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, deliberately or not. But Garcia's point was theological, not partisan — the Church's assignment "has not changed," he argued, and no amount of worship production can substitute for one Christian teaching another how to follow Jesus.

One Hispanic pastor at the summit put the problem plainly: "We don't have enough workers." It is a familiar lament — plenty of converts, too few disciplers. Garcia's answer was to make disciple-making the culture of the church, not a program on the side.

"We need to believe that America needs to be discipled again. That's how it will be great again." — Pastor Marco Garcia, NHCLC 25th Anniversary Summit

25 Years of the NHCLC: Samuel Rodriguez's Quarter Century

The summit was also a birthday party. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez founded the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference in 1995, and for 31 years — 25 as the NHCLC — he has led the coalition through a quarter-century of growth, advocacy, and cultural influence. The organization now represents tens of thousands of churches, making it the largest Hispanic church association in America and one of the most influential Christian bodies in the country.

Rodriguez has spent those years insisting that Hispanic evangelicals are not a niche but a movement — a force in American church life that bridges cultures, languages, and political divides. The Museum of the Bible setting was fitting: a summit celebrating a movement that has moved from the margins to the center of American Christianity.

There is a reason Hispanic church growth keeps drawing national attention. While many mainline congregations shrink, Hispanic evangelical churches have grown steadily, fueled by immigration, high birth rates, and a culture where faith runs deep. The NHCLC's 25th anniversary was not just a look back. It was a statement that the future of the American Church may well be Hispanic.

ADL and Hispanic Church Leaders Join Forces Against Antisemitism

The second headline from the summit stage was interfaith in nature. ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt announced an expanded partnership between the ADL and Hispanic Christian leaders to combat antisemitism — including joint advocacy for Safe Worship legislation and the development of a bilingual Sunday school curriculum teaching Christians about Jewish history and the roots of antisemitism.

"Pastor Sam, we met as strangers, and today I think of you like a brother," Greenblatt told Rodriguez on stage. The partnership is a notable development: Hispanic evangelicals and Jewish organizations finding common cause at a moment when antisemitism has surged worldwide. The Safe Worship angle is practical — churches and synagogues alike have faced threats, and shared advocacy for security funding and legislation benefits both.

The bilingual curriculum is the more unusual piece. A Sunday school resource that teaches Hispanic Christian children about Judaism and antisemitism from their own church pews could, over time, shape how an entire generation of Hispanic evangelicals relates to the Jewish people. That is the kind of quiet, long-term work that rarely makes headlines but changes cultures.

Why This Summit Matters Beyond Washington

It is easy to file a summit like this one under "religious leaders meet, nothing changes." But three things about the NHCLC's 25th anniversary suggest otherwise. First, the discipleship challenge from Garcia names a real and widely acknowledged crisis: American churches are good at gathering crowds and weak at forming believers. Research consistently shows that church attendance is a thin predictor of spiritual maturity. Garcia said out loud what many pastors whisper privately.

Second, the ADL partnership signals where Hispanic evangelicalism is headed — toward institutional partnership, public advocacy, and cultural influence. The NHCLC is not content to be a Spanish-language sideshow. It wants a seat at the tables where religious-freedom policy is made.

Third, the timing matters. The summit landed in the same season when churches across America are wrestling with how to reach a generation that is spiritual but allergic to institutions. Hispanic churches, with their family-centered, community-rooted faith, may have answers the broader Church needs to hear.

The Discipleship Revolution Test

The real question is what happens after the summit lights dim. Discipleship revolutions are announced at conferences every year, and most of them die in the parking lot. The difference this time, Garcia's supporters would say, is that the NHCLC has the infrastructure to actually move the needle — tens of thousands of chuches, a generation of bilingual pastors, and a culture where faith is woven into family life.

Whether "America needs to be discipled again" becomes a movement or a sound bite depends on pastors like the ones in that room on October 20. They heard the challenge. The test is whether they go home and change anything — whether the small groups multiply, whether the sermons get shorter and the mentoring gets longer, whether the Church stops measuring itself by Sunday attendance and starts measuring by transformed lives.

Twenty-five years from now, at the NHCLC's 50th anniversary, someone will look back at this summit and either celebrate the revolution or wonder what went wrong. The speeches are over. The revolution, if it comes, starts in living rooms, coffee shops, and church classrooms this week. Watch the Hispanic church — it may be writing the next chapter of American Christianity right now.

Read about another moment of church renewal in "Full-Fat Faith": UK Church Leaders Gather as Gen Z Fuels Five Years of Church Growth, and about Christians gathering in massive numbers in 80,000 Christians Pack AT&T Stadium for Night of Prayer: Is America Waking Up?. For church leaders facing pressure at home, see UK Church Fights Street Preaching Ban as 27,000 Sign Petition.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.