• Ernesto  Sanchez

    Ernesto Sanchez

    Rev. Ernesto Sanchez joined our church community as pastor in July, 2010. Ernesto Sanchez was born in Brooklyn New York on a Mother’s Day, May 12, 1971. His parents moved there from Puerto Rico. He has a sister Marisol, a year older. The Sanchez family moved a lot as Rev. Sanchez recalls, so he got used to traveling at a very early age. Rev. Sanchez also lived in Newark, New Jersey and San Francisco before moving to Puerto Rico in 1982 where he remained until 2005 before returning to the Big Apple. As a young man coming from a very poor family, Rev. Sanchez had many struggles and challenges to face. During his childhood and younger years in spite of everything, he was always known to be a big dreamer. At the age of 17 he started to become very musically inclined and learned to play various instruments. Music was his passion, but little did he know that that was not God’s entire plan for his life. Pastor Sanchez comes from a long line of Pastors in his family, eight to be exact. Because of this he never really thought of being called into ministry as his calling for he thought that eight was enough! Rev. Sanchez was very shy so even the thought of being in public was not in his particular list of favorite things to do. The truth is that God was really calling him to follow and it took some time to accept this call but eventually he surrendered his life along with all his dreams, talents and gifts, trusting that God knew what he was doing. Rev. Sanchez started his life in the ministry as a music minister at his local church. In 1998 he started his process for candidacy for the pastoral ministry and studied in the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico where he graduated with his Master’s degree. He started his pastor ministry in Puerto Rico where he ministered in Palo Seco, Maunabo for five years before coming to serve in the New York Annual Conference in 2005. Since then, Rev. Sanchez has served many churches in Long Island East/West District (Franklin Square, Hauppauge, Central Islip, Jamaica Queens) Rev. Sanchez has also served in many other capacities giving workshops for churches in the area of worship and spirituality, praise and worship. He is also a NCD coach of the NYAC. One thing pastor Sanchez is very proud of is being an eternal Social Worker. This was in fact his first professional job. He holds a BA in Social work. At the present time Rev. Sanchez is a Doctoral Candidate at Drew University and is expected to graduate in May 2012 (D.Min Worship, Preaching & Spirituality). He and his wife Ivette, have a 16 year old daughter Jelixa, and 12 year old son Abdiel. Rev. Sanchez is still a big dreamer and a man who has a great love for God and family and the people he serves. He gives his whole heart in an effort to touch people’s lives with the hope and love God has to offer.