Juan Carlos Ortiz

Juan Carlos Ortiz was born in 1934, in Argentina, in a family that was not strongly religious. He grew up in Buenos Aires, and he was a sensitive and thoughtful young man. In his youth, he was a student of engineering. He came to Christ in his teens through the preaching of a group of Pentecostal evangelists who had come to his neighborhood. He gave up his plan to be an engineer and trained for the ministry in the Pentecostal church. He soon became a pastor.

In 1960, he took up the pastorate of a small church in Buenos Aires, which became known as the Hebron Church. He served there for many years. In the early years, the church was a typical Pentecostal congregation of a few hundred. He was a gifted preacher, and the church grew. In the 1960s, he went through a deep change. He became dissatisfied with the superficial Christianity that he saw. He observed that many converts did not grow and that the church was full of people who were saved but not disciples. He wanted to see a church where believers were trained to live by the teaching of Jesus.

He began a new program of discipleship in his church, based on the idea that each believer should be accountable to a leader and to a group. He called for total commitment. He asked people to make a covenant with Christ and with each other. The church underwent a dramatic transformation. It grew to a congregation of several thousand people, and he was invited to speak across Latin America and abroad.

His book Disciple, published in English in 1975, was a challenge to the church. In it he argued that the church had reduced the gospel to a call to receive forgiveness and had neglected the call to follow. He told stories of the cost of discipleship in his own church. He also wrote Call to Discipleship and The Cry of Christ. His style was humorous and direct, and he had an ability to say hard things in a way that made people laugh and then listen. He was a favorite speaker at conferences in North America in the 1970s and 1980s.

He moved to the United States in the late 1970s and served in a number of positions. He was a part of the discipleship movement, which was a part of the charismatic renewal and which grew rapidly in the 1970s. This movement was criticized for authoritarianism and the abuse of the idea of spiritual covering. Ortiz was aware of the dangers. He later admitted that some of the excesses had done damage, and that discipleship must be rooted in love and freedom. He gave a corrective voice.

What can be said with confidence is that he has been a major voice calling the church to take the teachings of Jesus seriously. His life shows how a pastor in Argentina, who was dissatisfied with a shallow faith, stirred a call to discipleship that reached the world.