Episode 4 | August 18, 2025
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado—Olympian and CEO of Compassion International—shares his journey of faith, identity, and leadership. From growing up across continents to leading the Willow Creek Association and serving global churches through Compassion, Mellado reflects on belonging, diversity, and what it means to be known and loved. His story challenges listeners to rethink church, embrace identity, and rediscover the credibility of the gospel today.
Ep. 4 | Olympian Leadership, Heritage, and Identity
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"You can only be loved to the extent that you are known."
“You can only be loved to the extent that you are known.”
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado’s story stretches across borders, identities, and vocations. Born in El Salvador to adventurous parents, raised across continents, and educated in American schools, Jimmy longed for belonging—even if it meant leaving Santiago behind. An Olympic decathlete and later president of the Willow Creek Association, Mellado found himself at the center of the American church, but haunted by the quiet whisper: “That’s not you. Why are you running away from who I created you to be?” In this conversation with Nikki Toyama-Szeto, Mellado reflects on the journey of embracing his full name, heritage, and calling. He recounts powerful stories of instability turned to faith, of finding home in Jesus, of rethinking church, and of serving as CEO of Compassion International. Ultimately, his testimony reveals a profound truth: you can only be loved to the extent that you are known.
You can only be loved to the extent that you are known.
“You can only be loved to the extent that you are known.”
“Moving that much is usually not good for a kid. But my life was incredibly stable, not because we were in the same place, but because we followed the same savior in all the places and that was Jesus.”
“I wanted to be white. I wanted to be Caucasian. I wanted to be Jimmy, not Santiago. Call me Jimmy.”
“That’s not you. At least not fully you. Why are you running away from who I created you to be?”
“I went for an athletic experience. I came home with a calling to serve the church.”
“We wanna extend the love of Jesus to everyone, but you can only be loved to the extent that you are known.”
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado is President and CEO of Compassion International, a global child development organization serving over two million children living in poverty. A former Olympic decathlete representing El Salvador at the 1988 Seoul Games, he previously served as president of the Willow Creek Association, helping it grow from a network of 800 churches to over 7,000 worldwide. Mellado is passionate about holistic discipleship, church partnerships, and empowering the global body of Christ.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto
Nikki Toyama-Szeto is the host of Credible Witness and Executive Director of Christians for Social Action. She writes and speaks on leadership, justice, and faith in public life.
Production Credits
Credible Witness is brought to you by the Rethinking Church Initiative. Hosted by Nikki Toyama-Szeto. Produced by Mark Labberton, Sarey Martin Concepción, and Evan Rosa
“I wanted to be white. I wanted to be Caucasian. I wanted to be Jimmy, not Santiago. Call me Jimmy. And two things hit me. One was that little boy that was always on the outside wanting to be in the white American system finally made it. He’s not even seen as Hispanic anymore. He’s seen as white American, Caucasian. He’s on the in now. He managed to throw his heritage away. And the second thought was more Holy Spirit haunting, I think. And that was this: And it came in the form of a whisper. And it was just a small, quiet phrase. And that’s not you. At least not fully you. Why are you running away from who I created you to be?”
“I went for an athletic experience. I came home with a calling to serve the church. I remember one of the pastors there, pastor of the world’s largest church, Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho, went to the Olympic Village and held a prayer meeting for any athlete that wanted to be prayed over. And after competing, I went to his church and was absolutely moved at a very deep level. Sitting there with 25,000 Koreans in the same room, and then hearing the story of revival that started in North Korea in 1905, I felt like I was watching Acts 2 come alive in my time. And I just felt this move on the inside: oh, if I could be a part of serving the church and being a part of a Jesus movement that could bring transformation to this world, I want to be a part of that. I want to give my life to that.”
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Credible witness is brought to you by the Rethinking Church Initiative,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: My parents were born on the Mexico USA border, a Mexican in culture, and both of them were adventuresome spirits. My mother grew up in more of a poverty setting. Only had one, toy, her whole adolescent, life, one little toy doll.
my father was, a son of a,a banker and so he was more middle class, but they lived in that same, um, Ali, Mexico right on the USA border. And,both of them wanted to see the world.
and in 64 years of marriage, they’re both still alive. If you can believe this. They moved 41 times. before I celebrated my first birthday, I’d already been to six countries,
eight different schools before graduating high school.
26 different homes and apartments and condos and whatever throughout mostly the developing world.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: your name and where are you from? For some of us, these are easy questions and we don’t let them leave a surface level banter. Hi, I’m Nikki and I’m from Chicago. But what if we gave them more space? What if we let the questions breathe for Jimmy Mellado? These questions are filled with a glorious complexity.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Wherever we went, it was American schools. Now thing is in those American schools, I never felt like I was considered American. If I was in Nicaragua, they thought I was Nicaragua. If I was in Bolivia, they thought I was bivian. If I was in Panama, they thought I was Panamanian because of my Hispanic heritage and,was even darker as a young kid.
I always felt like I was on the outside coming in. And when you’re also the new kid on the block all the time, you’re new, you’re on the outside, you wanna be accepted.
I didn’t wanna be known as Hispanic in the American schools. I wanted to be white. I wanted to be Caucasian. I wanted to be Jimmy, not Santiago. Call me Jimmy.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: As we look at our names, what do they say about our relationships and the places where we are from? What does your family call you? Who named you?
I don’t think I realized that you really were sort of this citizen of the world,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: In fact, my most complicated question that I often get is like, where are you from? I honestly don’t know how to answer that because like, well
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: you say, where am I not
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Yeah, exactly. A little bit over there. A little bit of this, a little
bit of that.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Jimmy’s itinerant family experiences really pushed him to think beyond houses and cities and schools and churches for the meaning of home.
For him. Home is spiritual, home is in God.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Uh, there in the jungles of El Salvador when I was born.
no doctor, just natural birth. all throughout my life though, because of their faith in Jesus, that was what led us to be a part of church in every one of those settings. Uh, my mom tells me I was in church within the week of being born. And, we would often do family church. And I often say my family was my first church because in between all these moves, it was my family that provided, really a consistent connection with Jesus and. Moving that much is usually not good for a kid. It’s a lot of instability. but my life was incredibly stable, not because we were in the same place, but because we followed the same savior in all the places and that was Jesus.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: When it comes to names, we go deeper still. Jimmy, as he’s commonly known and called,
Was born Santiago,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: and we were talking about how we didn’t think the church was reflecting the diversity of its community.
and then he said, we have no diversity among our leadership.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Oh wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And I thought, well, that’s interesting.
I’m the president of the Willow Creek Association
and I’m in the circle and they’re saying, we have no diversity in our leadership. , and I slowly raised my hand and I said, now just making sure, I mean, y’all know my real name is not Jimmy, that it’s Santiago Heriberto Mellado, and that I’m Hispanic and that I grew up outside the United States.
I mean, y’all know that, right? Again, I’ve been there 15 years. Everybody laughed. And then the person next to me truly, truly, truly not wanting to hurt me, truly not wanting to hurt me, actually trying to say, you I’m accepted, leaned over, put their arm on me, and said, oh, but you don’t count.
And two things hit me. One was that little boy that was always on the outside wanting to be in the white American system, finally made it. He finally made it on the inside. He’s not even seen as Hispanic anymore. He’s seen as white American, Caucasian. He’s on the in now. He managed to throw his heritage away and the second thought was more Holy Spirit haunting, I think.
And that was this.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Hmm.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And it came in the form of a whisper. And it was just a small, quiet phrase. And that’s not you. At least not fully you. Why are you running away from who I created you to be?
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: His full name. Tells a fuller story, A story of intense political turmoil when global politics impacts a family’s daily life. A story of perseverance and athletic achievement that leads to the Olympics. A story of coming to accept and embrace your identity, and throughout all the twists and turns, a story of faithfulness, redemption, and hope.
I’m Nikki Toyama-Szeto, and this is Credible Witness, a collection of stories and wisdom from faithful people, wrestling with and bearing witness to the credibility of Christian life today. Each episode is an invitation to listen generously and courageously to one person navigating social tension and moral complexity.
Negotiating doubts, struggles and fears, overcoming obstacles, and pursuing justice and living out the convictions of their faith. And every voice reminds us that the church is called to be a credible witness to Christ, a living reality of hope, justice, truth and love.
Lots of people say that they are a citizen of the world, but for Santiago, Jimmy Mellado, it might be the most appropriate description from his work at the Willow Creek Association to his current role at Compassionate International.
Santiago knows church like few others do. He’s worked with churches in churches. He’s studied churches and their strategies, but his own personal leadership journey is a journey that took him from the margins to the very center of the American church.
From there, he took a journey back to the very things that marginalized him, and in doing so, he found the unique places where these perceived weaknesses became the very connection point that God had for him, for his work.
Now,
the very things that he tried to overcome, they ended up becoming the bridge for the ministry and the communities in which he finds himself today.
Santiago, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Nikki, a real blessing. Been looking forward to this.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Santiago. Jimmy Mellado is a pastor and a business leader. he’s an accomplished Olympic decathlete. He spent 20 years as the president of the Willow Creek Association as it grew from a network of 800 churches to over 7,000 churches worldwide. And is currently the CEO of Compassionate International, an organization dedicated to the long-term development of children living in poverty around the world
I know that a lot of folks know you in many different ways. But the folks who are closest to you, your family, your closest friends, how would they describe you
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: I think people would say that I care about trying to make a difference with my life. I think that’s been a fair,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Hmm.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: uh,
thread throughout my life, wanting to make a difference, wanting to achieve that part would also be.a through line, athletic inclined, someone that very much cares about the church and faith and Jesus. I think, foremost they would say, I think, this person cares about, what Jesus is doing in this world and wanting to join him in that work.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: and your grandchildren, how would they describe you?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Oh my goodness. Yeah, no, my, I got four grandkids and uh, they call me Tito. And Tito is a diminutive of ATO or grandfather. It’s kinda like papa grandfather. This is ATO in Spanish, and my grandfather was called Tito. My father was called Tito. And so now I’m called Tito. So they all know me as Tito. Simple to say, easy to pronounce.
And uh, it’s all for my grandkids. That’s who I am to them.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: I love that. I love that.
Santiago was born in El Salvador, but throughout his childhood, his family relocated many times. Also living in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Columbia growing up or whenever you first encountered the church, how would you describe that church?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Well, I. I was born in El Salvador. Uh, my parents were born on the Mexico USA border, a Mexican in culture, and both of them were adventuresome spirits. My mother grew up in more of a poverty setting. I was taught as a little girl how to keep a dirt floor clean. only had one, toy, her whole adolescent, uh, life, one little toy doll.
not very many pictures of her. ’cause the poor don’t take pictures of themselves. It’s not something that they do. Um, my father was, um, a son of a,a banker and so he was more middle class, but they lived in that same, um, Ali, Mexico right on the USA border. And,both of them wanted to see the world.
My mother would go into town and she loved looking at the labels of the products in the store to see where it was made. Dreaming someday. I’d love to go there. Whether it was made in Brazil or made in Germany, or made in Japan, whatever she dreamed of going there. And,uh, my father had similar adventuresome spirit.
And so when he graduated high school, he heard of this thing called the GI Bill. And since he was born on the USA side of the border, he had American citizenship and immediately then joined the army. But he didn’t count on the Korean War starting, soon thereafter. So he got shipped to Korea and was there during the, that whole conflict there.
Served about four years in the military. Then got out through the GI Bill, did get his engineering degree, came home, married my mom, and in 64 years of marriage, they’re both still alive. If you can believe this. They moved 41 times. So before I celebrated my first birthday, I’d already been to six countries,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: eight different schools before graduating high school.
26 different homes and apartments and condos and whatever throughout mostly the developing world. Uh, my dad is an engineer, was building electrical distribution lines, powerhouses, dams. and in fact I was born in El Alor when he was building a powerhouse, a tunnel hydroelectric unit, there in the jungles of El Salvador when I was born.
no doctor, just natural birth. and so all throughout my life though, because of their faith in Jesus, that was.what led us to be a part of church in every one of those settings. Uh, my mom tells me I was in church within the week of being born. And, we would often do family church. And I often say my family was my first church because in between all these moves, it was my family that provided, really a consistent connection with Jesus and. Moving that much is usually not good for a kid. It’s a lot of instability. but my life was incredibly stable, not because we were in the same place, but because we followed the same savior in all the places and that was Jesus. And so Jesus was just a normal part of my family experience and, uh, had the privilege of seeing the church in a bunch of different settings and cultures and ethnicities.
And it was just a very rich situation. And because of my mom’s, growing up in poverty, she always had us involved in the life of the poor,Uh, I remember one time in Nicaragua, we actually went to church in one of the toughest, poorest neighborhoods of Manawa. because it was poor and that was a connection we had.
And so we went to church there and it was, that was normal to me. I didn’t think it was dangerous or hazardous. It was just. Normal, to be able to, uh, be a part of a faith community that was loving and being the hands and feet of Jesus in a super tangible way. and in many ways, I look at that background as really preparation and training for what I’m doing now at Compassion because we do all our ministry in partnership with indigenous local churches in some of the poorest parts of the world.
bringing hope and being that tangible expression of Jesus Christ to the most needy within every one of those church neighborhoods.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: I don’t think I realized that you really were sort of this citizen of the world,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: In fact, my most complicated question that I often get is like, where are you from? I honestly don’t know how to answer that because like, well
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: you say, where am I not
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Yeah, exactly. A little bit over there. A little bit of this, a little bit of that.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: is,
Is there a place that you most identify in terms of, was there a particular home or country or context that you sort of feel like, oh, that feels actually a little resonant?
or are you kind of like a part of everything?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: You know, I mean, I definitely feel like there’s a part of me,that, that is in the Philippines or Colombia or Bolivia or Nicaragua in the different countries. But I would say probably Panama would be a country that was very formative to me because of the church that we went to and the age that I was at, right in that late elementary, middle school zone.
and I had some real key discipleship. investment in my life and right as I was going into seventh grade, which was middle school in that, area, that’s when I began to read my Bible daily and my mother had been encouraging me to do that, and I just kind of didn’t. But I was about to attend a school that had 3000 students, a junior high school.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And I was just quite afraid actually. And, I, I thought maybe I ought to start reading my Bible. Maybe that’ll help. So I, I started reading daily and my mom goes through the Bible every year. She’s probably been through it over 50 times. I’ve just consistently been in the word since then on a daily basis.
it’s just been a normal discipline in my life that my mother taught me, who was a significant, played a significant role with my dad in discipling me. But those were very formative years, that really set the foundation for, engagement and walking and experiencing God, that really remains to this day.
You know, some, you know, 40, 45 years later.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: What is it do you think that you were scared of in that moment that sort of pushed you into this practice that ended up being so fruitful?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Well, the previous year, this particular school had 26 bomb scares. So there was a physical, sense of, wow, could there be a bomb in this school?and so that was something that, that hit me. Also, my brother,got beat up, he was in ninth grade at the time, and he,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Oh
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: got in a fight and these guys beat him up.
And I remember him coming home and he is all bruised,
and I thought, man, if that, and the bomb scares, I was like, what am I walking into? So, I mean, it was really those two things that led me to be a little insecure.
When you go to junior high, now you’re going to a whole bunch of different classes, thousands of students, you know, who are you, you’re gonna get lost in the crowd. And so all those things combined led to that sense of insecurity. And, because of the example of my mom and dad, if you’re in need, if you’re insecure.
Well, you go to Jesus, that’s where you’ll find solution to all the needs that you have in life and that, you know, I came to Christ very early in age because it was a very normal, natural thing that was modeled by my parents and my older brother and older sister. So it was very natural at about six years of age for me to just say, yeah, I’d like to be in relationship with Jesus and see him as the forgiver and leader of my life too.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Yeah. Yeah. Um, what is it that you think your mother and your father wanted you to understand about God?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: I would say number one, his sovereignty. That God is the source of life. He is life. He’s the inventor of love. He’s the inventor of relationship, of connection. He is in the midst of a lot of bad things happening. He is still sovereign overall and, miraculously involved in bringing the full kingdom of heaven reality into our lives here on earth.
And where we lived was often in tough places. we lived through coups in the, in, you know, Bolivia, earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, lived through the coup, the sanda, coup in Nicaragua years ago.you know, had our house broken into and stolen and things like that. I mean, we had thieves like in my room.
Glad I didn’t wake up when they were in my room, stealing stuff in my room, and I just slept through it all. so a lot of bad things, tough things, hard things happening. And in the midst of that difficulty, my parents always modeled Jesus’ the way Jesus is. The hope, uh, the kingdom of heaven come to Earth is in fact, the movement that God is inviting us to play a part in, and wanting more of what’s going on up there to happen down here.
Thy kingdom come, th thy will be done. Down here, like it is up there. So they lived that
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: The vision of thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Fuels the imagination here. To really understand these words that so many Christians pray every day throughout the world. It seems to capture a part of what it means to rethink church. It follows the kind of rethinking that Jesus represents
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: .
But in the midst of. Everything and anything that we would go through. My parents always went to Jesus
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: and relied on him, in the midst of challenges, difficulty. and so I learned to live that simply because that was modeled to me. So when I felt a little insecure, it was quite natural for me to go to Jesus, go to the Bible and really renew my faith and own it.
I mean, I accepted Christ as a 6-year-old, but you know, you’re six years old. and when I was confronted with what were, for me challenges, then I knew where to go. And, you know, he’s been faithful, then and has continued to be faithful throughout my life.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Wow. I mean, I think, just your parents’ sort of testimony of the sovereignty of God. it was a robust testimony. It was born from some pretty intense circumstances and yet to still say God is sovereign is a pretty remarkable, holding onto the God’s character.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Even when bad things happen to us.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: I was so curious about Santiago’s early life, his connection to Central America in . Panama and Nicaragua getting uprooted to move to the Philippines and throughout all of his moves on un rootedness, unable to identify with a particular country or place.
And as he said, it was Christ that provided the structure of home for Santiago and his family.
But I think all of us know that takes some working out. Santiago’s early life was marked by events that anyone would find traumatic
during the stint when Santiago and his family lived in Panama, A now notorious dictator filled a vacuum of power there.
Manuel Noriega was a one-time spy for the us. A known drug Lord, an authoritarian and unlawful ruler who was somehow able to operate both as a nemesis and an ally of the United States.
He Tyrannized Panama from 1983 to 1989., and Santiago this tyranny went beyond the system. It came literally too close to
home.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: In so many of the places where we moved, because my father was bringing,electrical systems, power, water, to places that didn’t have it. They were really developing situations. And in the developing world, what’s very consistent with all of them is that, they’re unstable.
The governments are unstable, sometimes because of the oppression, society is unstable. and so we would, you know, I lived through multiple.coups, earthquakes, hurricanes, cyclones, our house being robbed. I remember in Panama when Manu Noriega was the head of the secret police in Panama, he incarcerated my dad for three days. Is that right? explanation. To this day, we still don’t know why
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Really?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: we actually, The family was getting on a plane and we were all leaving the country going from Panama to Costa Rica for a little bit of vacation time,
but as a plane was about to take off, it revved the engines back down and then taxii back to the terminal. And when they got to the terminal, the door opened up and young soldiers with guns, rifles in their arms came onto the plane quite forcefully, yelling my father’s name, and we’re all stunned.
And my father raised in hand his hand and said, I’m right here. And,and in Spanish basically said, you are not allowed to leave the country. you have to come with us right now if the family wants to go find, but you cannot leave the country. And well, why? I said, no, you cannot leave the country.
Get off the plane. So he gets off the plane and my mom says, well, we’re not going anywhere without him, so you, let’s get up. We’re all going. So we all got out and then they put him in the Secret Service Jail in Torrio, in downtown Panama and was there for three days with no explanation. and still to this day, we don’t know why he did that.
But we were scared. I mean, as kids, I was about sixth grade and, your dad is going into a jail, a Secret Service jail, where some people, you go into that black hole, you don’t come out. And so we were frightened. We didn’t know why everyone was afraid to help my mom because they were like, this is Manuel Noriega and he’s head of the secret police.
and if he’s arresting this guy, he must have something really bad. We don’t wanna have anything to do with this guy or this family. So my mom was alone trying to figure out how to get my dad out. And then he was incarcerated on a Friday. On a Monday. We were going every day to the jail, trying to get his release.
On Monday she went, she was alone. and she was standing there talking to folks, trying to still get his release. A car pulls up, a man gets out, walks straight up to my mom and says, are you? And she says, yes. And he says, your husband will be out in a few minutes. And he was. And they got in the car and left.
And that man that came up to my mom was actually Manuel Noriega himself.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: we do not know why all that happened. but it was, one of the few times I remember seeing my dad weeping, crying as he gave his testimony in church, uh, a couple weeks later about how God had used that experience, kinda like a Jonah type experience to really help him do work in his own walk with Jesus.
that was the kind of unrest that. I experienced from time to time growing up and was one of the reasons why I wanted to leave that world that didn’t seem to get its act together.
I wanted to go to the United States where that country seemed perfect to me, and when we would visit the United States, we’d visit my grandparents in Tijuana, Mexico and they’d take us across the border and we would go to wonderful things like, San Diego Zoo and to, uh, the sea world and Disneyland. Oh my goodness.
Disneyland to a little kid growing up in, in places that I grew up in, that place seemed perfect. The highway seemed perfect. The, you know, the, and then take us to places called malls. I mean, like, wow, like malls had everything any kid would ever want. And so, you know, we’d load up this baggage and take as much as we could back, home.
And, uh, so you could understand as a little kid, I wanted to leave that world. And I wanted to come to the United States and be successful here because it seemed to matter more in the United States to be successful. And this country seemed to have their act together. And I wanted to be successful there, except that country didn’t seem to want me.
So I had to change who I was to be accepted in that country,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Among the many ways that Santiago has inhabited the world as a global citizen. He had an amazing chance to compete as a decathlete in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea.
He described how this Olympic experience shaped his perspective and career. Importantly, it wasn’t just the athletic competition that he found inspiring. It was the developing church and the profound way that God was moving in Korea
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: well, I really gotta take you back to my original calling, which happened in 1988, and my calling as the Lord began to impress it upon me of what do I want your life to be about? you know,
I had the privilege of going to the Olympics that was back in Seoul of 1988, representing the country of my birth El Salvador in the decathlon, and I went for an amazing athletic experience, really an.
Experience of a lifetime. I’ve been training for 16 years leading up to it, and it really was a dream come true to walk into that stadium, opening day ceremonies and all of that. And it was unbelievable. It truly was. But the Olympics was almost the side thing that got me to soul. I came home with a calling to serve the church because of what happened during the
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Is that right?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: that had nothing really to do with the competition.
I remember, one of the pastors there, pastor of the world’s largest church, uh, the Buku full Gospel church inin Seoul. Dr. Paul Yogi Cho went to the Olympic Village and he held a prayer meeting for any athlete that wanted to be prayed over. And I’m five eight a hundred sixty five pounds.
I’m giving up four inches and 30 pounds to the average decathlete. I thought I need all the prayer I can get, so. I went to the, I went to the, uh, prayer meeting, and there wasn’t a lot of people. I mean, it’s 5,000 athletes in the Olympic Village. Maybe there was a hundred people there. and so the pastor there prayed over us and then he invited us to his church. And so, after competing, went to this church with my wife. And was absolutely moved at a very deep level. sitting there with 25,000 Koreans in the same room.
after the service, they invited us to a seminar that told us about the revival that took place, starting actually in North Korea in like 19 0 4, 19 0 5 is where the revival started in North
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Is that right?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: then as the church grew, the Korean War happened. Many of them migrated to the south, but a remnant remained to this day in North Korea. There’s still a remnant church there. I’ve heard some of the audio of church services in North Korea that are of course done in secret. But then the church went to the south, and right after the war, a prayer movement started.
That continues to this day, praying and asking God to visit their land, that the Holy Spirit would come and bring healing. and as they were describing in that seminar, everything that was happening in the,in the fifties, in the sixties, It. It felt like I was watching Acts two come alive.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Oh wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: early church coming alive. But in my time, you know, we wished, oh, wouldn’t it have been something to be a part of the early church? Well, it felt like it was happening again, in this setting. And I couldn’t write notes fast enough. I remember my hand aching ’cause I was writing as much as I could, everything that they were saying.
And I just felt this move on the inside, oh, if I could be a part of serving the church and being a part of a Jesus movement that could bring transformation to this world, I wanna be a part of that. I wanna give my life to being a part of that. Now, I didn’t know how, but I very clearly sensed that I wanted to be a part of this Jesus movement of helping his kingdom come here on earth like it is up there
so I went for an athletic experience. I came home with a calling to serve the church, and that calling has been consistent since then.
But four months after the Olympics, I was invited to a church conference. a A church in the suburbs of Chicago called Willow Creek Community Church. Was hosting a conference and my pastor, invited me to go with him, my wife and I, with volunteer youth directors in the, in, in a small church that we were attending.
And I saw a similar kind of, uh, movement of the church connecting the love of Jesus to people that were far from God. I just saw a similar kind of sacrificial spirit in that community, that I saw in soul.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: What was it that you think captured your imagination so much?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: It was transformation,when you could see what the power of Christ could do in one life, in one church, in one neighborhood, that led to. A transformation for the whole country. like that’s the great commandment, great commission. I mean, that’s thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth like it is in heaven.
Starting one life at a time when church, at a time when neighborhood, one country at a time, you know, throughout the whole world. It’s not the only place the movement of Jesus is happening. It’s happening all, all around the world. But I got to have a front row seat to it there. And it was just an amazing thing to see the power of the gospel come alive to bring that abundant life in Jesus into reality on a scale that I’ve not seen before, concentrated in, in one area.
I wanna, Serve Jesus. I wanna, I want my life to matter and to make a difference around those things that most make a difference. And I think the movement of Jesus is probably the most difference making thing to be a part of. And so that’s why, like, I wanna be a part of that.
Wherever that’s going on, I wanna be a part of that.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Do you remember how many churches or how many contact points the Willow Creek Association maybe had in that at its peak?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Yeah, we just started with about a couple hundred churches that first year and, grew to about 13,000 churches all across the world, in, you know, my goodness, over 60 countries. And the reach of it was, ended up being over a hundred countries, where we were serving church leaders and continues to this day through the Global Leadership Summit, is the primary expression of that ministry, really all around the world.
Uh, and they’ll engage. My sense is this year probably a quarter million leaders, all around the world in, over a thousand different locations of, engaging in helping and serving leaders to lead where they are and give their best to Christ on behalf of the church.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Yeah. That’s fantastic. Do you have a sense as to how many church congregations there might have been around that time when. Low Creek is connecting with about 13,000.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: 13,000 churches, the average, and our churches, where most of the churches were, in the United States in particular, and in Europe, plateaued or declining. about three quarters of our churches were, were increasing, and they werefour or five times the average. So the average in the United States in terms of size of church at the time, still to this day, is about 70 or 80 people.
and the average of the Willow Creek Association was closer to 500 people, and three quarters of them were growing. And the thing that they had in common was that they had this pioneering spirit,this pioneering spirit to take a risk, to do something new,to reach out to people in ways that make the always relevant message of Jesus Christ.
Connecting and relevant to them. And sometimes we, in church life, we create systems and sometimes those systems, at times create an irrelevant cover around the always relevant message of Jesus Christ. And so, because these human systems are human created, well, they can be changed by us too. and so as people change, the ways we connect to them, you would think would change as well.
But change is hard for the church to even, take robes off a choir or, you know, or take add drums or. I mean, we just have a hard time changing the forms of church when really the forms are secondary. The essence is what’s primary connecting to the love of Jesus. And when you look at the church over the last 2000 years, it always makes adjustments from generation to generation to generation,as the human part of it always catches up to the Jesus part of it, which the Bible says the gates of hell would never prevail against.
And so I think for the church to allow the always relevant message of Jesus Christ to help, people get connected to that and have it be more bottom shelf to them to be able to access it and experience it, uh, that requires changing the human side of it, not the God side of it, but changing the human side of it.
’cause when we don’t, we put this irrelevant facade around the always relevant message of Christ.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Lots of people have different opinions about Willow Creek and wherever it is that you’re starting from. With respect to its work as a movement, as a network of churches as a cultural phenomenon and for all the challenges it’s encountered externally and internally. Santiago is unique in his ability to express a core value, perhaps the core value of the Willow Creek Church movement that was so influential, And that was to remove all the fringe, all the stuff of church that kept people out of church and focused on one thing, one person, Jesus.,
for Santiago and for Willow Creek.
It’s almost as if everything else was negotiable and what he brought to the organization was a renewed sense of strategic focus. This creates a framework that rethought church at the end of the 20th century as an extension of what is commonly known as the Jesus movement.
In his words, the vision was to create a safe place for dangerous questions. And for my part, I don’t know anyone with questions more dangerous than Jesus. the folks that we were attracting in the association at the time were leaders that were. Leading pioneering churches, or they were pioneering leaders in churches that they wanted to help, uh, bring some change to,and what do you think were the needs or the hungers that were making that, call for change?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Well, one obvious one would be when the churches get emptied out. I mean, when people stop coming,when, when, when churches move to irrelevance and you’re like, I’m giving my life to this, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting with anybody. that’s not why I came into. To ministry and step into this calling to serve people.
So, you know, when people were not attending church or being put off by church or wounded by the church, wanted to create a safe place for people to ask dangerous questions and that it was okay for that. and wanted to help people understand that Jesus and his message is amazingly relevant to every need you have in your life, and provide every opportunity to you in life to experience it and have full abundant life.
And so to have church be tied to the essence of the Jesus movement was the goal.
I mean, we really believe this stuff that, that the kingdom of heaven come to earth. That there’s nothing more important in life than that. Jesus loves us. He has a wonderful plan for every human. None of us are an accident. and to be able to bring hope to the hopeless, to bring, ministry and love to the despairing and to the hurting, this is the church when it’s working right.
And one of the things that we learned about some of the best practices of church in, in that time, there were really five best practices that we saw for the churches that were most alive in most connecting. these were the five things real quickly. One is they embedded the Bible and everything in the church.
I mean, the scripture in the Bible was very central to their life. And number two, they transferred ownership. I don’t go to church. I’m a part of the church. We are the church. It’s not a building, it’s not something I go to. It’s a faith community. It’s a community. It’s a new community in Christ. So the transfer of ownership from the clergy owns church to, no, we are the church.
So transfer of ownership, Uh, Number three, they had some sense of a strategy, some kind of a movement of moving people in evangelistic journey, coming to Christ and then discipling in Christ afterwards. There was some sense of strategy. Wasn’t the same strategy, but they had some notion of this is how we wanna help people come to Christ and grow in Christ.
And then there was also a critical mass of servant oriented Jesus following leaders, that there were leaders that were modeling authentically what they were preaching. So that was the fourth thing. And then the last was, uh, one that it continues to impact my work Today, is that they pastor the community
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: that whatever the needs were in the community, the ministries of the church mirrored them.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: So whatever the needs were in that neighborhood, the ministries of the church reflected it.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: So if there was food issues and there were. Food, ministries to serve if homelessness was there, well then they helped provide shelters if addictions or emotional issues were there.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: The ministries of the church reflected that, and it didn’t matter if it was an urban church or wealthy
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: The church, the ministries of the church always mirrored the needs in that neighborhood that the church existed in. And the Church’s Extension ministries reflected wanting to be a part of ministering to the needs all around the world as well.
Wow. Yeah. Do,do you think at the moment, did you all consider or think of it as we are rethinking church,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Oh yeah, absolutely. No doubt
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: and what is it that you were trying to rethink?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: in many ways help people get connected to the essence of the Jesus movement at the deepest, deepest level personally. Then with that faith community. when you do that, sometimes it’s threatening to some of the human forms of religion.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Ah, Uhhuh.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: mean, JesusJesus himself challenged the human forms of religion and was threatening to them. Ultimately, it led to people wanting to put him on a cross and did so anytime you walk in the Jesus movement at the deepest level it, it will always be threatening to the human created parts that we put around church and the human forms of religion.
It always challenges them, and that will always be the case. You look at all the revivals, all the renewal of movements, they always seem to challenge the human made forms of religion that we put around the essence of the Jesus way, like that’s happening to this day.whether we have, cultural norms that create forms that we put around the church and start leading it astray.
but again, because of the promise that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the church, the Jesus movement will continue on and on and on,uh, even when the human forms get fluffed off from one generation to the next.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: As you pause today and you think about the questions you all were engaging with, the things you were questioning and wrestling with some of the impact and the fruitfulness of it.
Do you have any reflections now about that particular moment? Some of the things that you’re like, that was rich and other things you’re like, ah, we needed to learn this and that came in time, but it came at a different time. Any, I guess, thoughts or reflections about that moment of rethinking church?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: I think one of the ahas that thousands of leaders had when they came to some of our events and conferences was that was they would use this phrase, they would say, wow, these last few days I felt like I got ambushed by the spirit.
I just felt like I got ambushed by the spirit and I had to repent about
This sense of not prioritizing ministry to people far from God. Not thinking through how the purpose of the church to equip the church to reach out to those in need. Every kind of need, spiritual need, emotionally physical need, whatever the need might be, the gospel of Jesus Christ is to bring, is to bring salvation to that all forms of need.
And so leaders would come and they would say, I want to go back to that first love. And so people planted churches, thousands of churches got planted and other, you know, thousands of other churches got, you know, transformed as they started to realize that they were prioritizing the folks already in the church way more than reaching out to those outside the church.
And yet the church is. Commission is in fact to reach outside the walls of the church, and to love and serve and connect Jesus to them. So I think there was a,a reconnection of sacrificially serving. Those that were far from God to help them come to Christ.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: I asked Santiago to connect his story a bit more to his current work for Compassion International. It’s an organization that serves some of the most vulnerable people in our community, children that are born into deep poverty and severe circumstances.
The work of this organization moves through local churches all over the world to do the work of mutual healing, horizontal healing, not from the top down, but in a spirit of humility and servant leadership that recognizes Christ in the neighbor
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: this is the, core. The core of the core of compassion. Everything flows out of this. These three things. and really the preeminent one is, the first one is we’re Christ centered. Like everything we do is because of Jesus Christ and being a part of the Jesus movement.
He’s just calling us to do that in some of the economically impoverished communities of the world. So Christ centered and then. At that point, we’re church driven. So we thought, and our mission statement is to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. That’s right. In our mission statement. And so we thought, if we’re gonna do it in his name, then let’s do it in his way.
What is Jesus’ way? Well, it’s discipleship, it’s holistic. Kingdom of heaven, discipleship. and so our second one is church driven and we’re child focused. So it’s holistic discipleship of children in economic poverty. And if that’s the case, that’s why we’re church driven, because who did Jesus in charge with, discipleship?
Well, it’s the church. So that’s why our strategy, it wasn’t a human invention. It was just trying to join God in his movement in the Bible, to do ministry in his name, in his way, discipleship, through his church that he charged with discipleship, reaching out to the world, the great commandment, the great commission.
And so we exist. Though people know us as a sponsorship organization, a child sponsorship organization, what we really are, that’s just something we do. It’s not what we are. What we really are is a church equipping ministry
Mm-hmm.that is trying to bring the love of Jesus in a tangible way, bring holistic discipleship to children living in economic extreme poverty all around the world.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Yeah, and I think it gives you a particular viewpoint into the church in multiple global settings. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is that you are seeing in and through the church? What is it that God is doing that gives you great hope?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: goes back to that transformation. I mean, Jesus, his movement. Through the church, the gates of hell won’t prevail against it. And it seems to me at times that when the church goes through the deepest oppression, that it tends to come become more alive. And so I just got back from Malawi and you got 80% of that country living on less than three 20 a day and there’s 35,000 evangelical churches to partner with.
And I went to some of the most rural regions there in Malawi, and I got to see local pastors loving. Their congregations, sacrificially, and congregations coming together with the exuberance and the joy in their singing and their worship and the teaching and loving on the children that are living in even greater levels of poverty.
And they’re bringing them to the church and their giving them hope and they’re giving them love, these children that are in poverty, that feel like they’re invisible, that they don’t matter, and now they’re being told they do matter. That there is love in this world. The author of it is God. and God wants to love them and walk with them in life and give them a future and a hope.
And it, to me was very much what I experienced throughout my early childhood and, adolescence that no matter where we went, we found the church. and we saw that the church flourishing in all these different settings and here it is in some of the most rural, poor regions of Malawi and the church is alive and vibrant and doing well.
and I’ll never forget what my mom told me when I came to Compassion, and again, she grew up in, in poverty. She said, be careful what you export to these churches that don’t have big bank accounts.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Mm. Yes. Yeah.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: they’re economically poor, that they’re not rich in other ways that the well-resourced church is poor in.
And I found that to be the case. They may not have a lot of money, but I have seen a level of vibrancy, a level of sacrifice that perhaps the church in the west has lost some of that. And the reality is that it’s not the wealthy church helping the poor church in the global south. It’s the church in the west and the church in the global south coming together in partnership to heal each other. ‘ cause we each have strengths and gifts that the other needs. And when we come together, that’s when we help heal each other in Christ together.
So I see it really as more horizontal than it is top down.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Yeah. To take that and to kind of even push it a little bit more, I think there’s almost an existential question about church. What do you think that healing conversation of the North American Church, with the global church, do you think that, what do you think is the word that God might have for usin that conversation?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: I think the word is humility. I think the word is humility because we tend to think because we have big bank accounts and big budgets and large structures and buildings and all that and freedoms to do church in, in most of our countries, that we know how it’s done.we’re going to help fix them.
We’re, we’re, we’re gonna bring solution to them. And we don’t realize we need solution, we need salvation. we have lost some things. And,and that’s how discipleship works. I mean, when you think you’re discipling someone else, guess who’s being discipled? You are.there’s a humility that Jesus is calling us, that he modeled,that he modeled of putting a towel over his arm and washing his disciples feet and drying them that he’s calling us to put that same towel over our arm and to serve our neighbor and love them as ourselves.
all of our neighbors, the economically poor neighbor, the well-resourced neighbor, all in between. It’s whoever the neighbor is that God is placing before you to love that neighbor as yourself. and I think that, that posture of Jesus led humility
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: is what will allow us to understand. We bring all sorts of biases into our world, and to let those biases put ’em on the side and just connect in the name of Jesus without expectation, without biases, without prejudging, without categorizing folks into groups and labels, but to just love, just loveand to do that in, in humility.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: I,boy, I wish that was more prevalent in the church
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Yeah. Oh, that’s powerful.
Throughout all these years of moving from country to country, Jimmy was a global citizen in so many ways, competing in the Olympics, a beautiful and dignifying expression of commonality among all humanity, all the way to Harvard and to leading a global organization. He seemed to belong everywhere, all things to all people.
But Jimmy began to realize he had left himself behind little by little, small choices over many years. His name, his heritage, Jimmy was missing Santiago.
And this came to him in a moment of clarity. One day when a still small voice welled up within him,
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: When I moved all those times growing up, my parents always. Sent us to American schools, wherever we were, so that we could learn English. Spanish was my first language, and so they wanted us to learn English.
In the Philippines, they sent us to Clark Air Force Base to English kindergarten. And in Bolivia we went to Gulf Oil American School, oil company to go to that school. And when we were in Panama, they paid to have us go to the Department of Defense, schools in the canal zone.
So wherever we went, it was American schools. Now thing is in those American schools, I never felt like I was considered American. If I was in Nicaragua, they thought I was Nicaragua. If I was in Bolivia, they thought I was bivian. If I was in Panama, they thought I was Panamanian because of my Hispanic heritage and,was even darker as a young kid.
I was, I always felt like I was on the outside coming in. And when you’re also the new kid on the block all the time, you, you’re new, you’re on the outside, you wanna be accepted. And I remember going into that, junior high in, the United States Canal Zone down there.
I remember walking into that school and thinking this thought very vividly. There is a system
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: and it wasn’t built for me,
Oh, wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: but for me What an awareness. Yeah.
gonna have to understand that system and beat them at their own game. I mean, I feel a little embarrassed that I felt and thought that, but that was a very real thought to me.
That, that there’s a system here. It wasn’t built for me and I’m gonna have to learn to operate in it, or I won’t be able to be noticed or achieved. And I think some of my athletic achievement and academic achievement was wanting to be noticed. and there’s studies now that in and books written on third culture kids where you’re not in the culture of your passport and you’re not in the culture of your parents’ passport.
And sir, I was not only a third culture kid, I think I was a dozen culture kid.
And we talked about the amazing good things that came outta that. But there’s also a dark side. And the dark side is that when you’re always on the outside looking in, you learn to people please, you learn to manage your image.
You, you, you want to overachieve in ways that might be dysfunctional. Driven by not a desire for just naturally doing good, but a desire to wanna be noticed. And so some of that was in me, for sure. And so, I’ll never forget what the president of the Olympic Committee said to me after the 1988 Olympics when I was leaving in Alor and coming to the United States.
He pulled me aside and he said, Jimmy, any young person that has the means to leave El Salvador does. And they never come back. They go to the United States, they go to Europe. They go to Canada. And then he put his finger in my face and he said, don’t forget us, come back. But I’m afraid for few years, I did wanna leave that world behind. When I was growing up, I didn’t wanna be known as Hispanic in the American schools. I wanted to be white. I wanted to be Caucasian. I wanted to be Jimmy, not Santiago. Call me Jimmy.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Mm-hmm. They do the roll call at the beginning of every year and they’d get to the middle and they’d have a little pause and I’d go, oh, they’re stuck on my name.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: They don’t know how to pronounce it. And I just raise my name. You know, just call me Jimmy. I’m good.I don’t, I don’t need to be Santiago, I’m Jimmy. And, uh, so I’ve been called Jimmy in American settings, my whole life. And so, even when I applied to Harvard, I didn’t even know where Harvard was when I started the application process. ‘ cause I wasn’t applying to a place I, or a school, perhaps I was applying to the concept of what I thought the United States valued. I was applying to what the United States said was successful. That’s why I chose Harvard was not an accident. But I didn’t really know that those were some of my motivations till I looked back on it.
So then I, you know, I get accepted, you know, I go to Willow Creek and I’d been there about 15 years and we were in a meeting and we had read the book Divided by Faith,
Oh, yes. and we were talking about how we didn’t think the church was reflecting the diversity of its community. And Willow Creek was about 2% diversity at the time, and the community was closer to a third diversity of Hispanic and Asian communities really growing in some African American community as well.
And the church was not reflecting it. And so, we were in a meeting and,and someone said, you know, we don’t have diversity in our congregation. We don’t have diversity in our vocalists and our staff. and and then he said, we have no diversity among our leadership.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Oh wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And I thought, well, that’s interesting.
I’m the president of the Willow Creek Association
and I’m in the circle and they’re saying, we have no diversity in our leadership. And,and I was just struck by that, and I slowly raised my hand and I said, now just making sure, I mean, y’all know my real name is not Jimmy, that it’s Santiago Heriberto Mellado, and that I’m Hispanic and that I grew up outside the United States.
I mean, y’all know that, right? Again, I’ve been there 15 years. Everybody laughed. And then the person next to me truly not wanting to hurt me, truly not wanting to hurt me, actually trying to say, you know, I’m accepted, leaned over, put their arm on me, and said, oh, but you don’t count.
And two things hit me. One was that little boy that was always on the outside wanting to be in the white American system, finally made it. He finally made it on the inside. He’s not even seen as Hispanic anymore. He’s seen as white American, Caucasian. He’s on the in now. He managed to throw his heritage away and the second thought was more Holy Spirit haunting, I think.
And that was this.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Hmm.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And it came in the form of a whisper. And it was just a small, quiet phrase. And that’s not you. At least not fully you. Why are you running away from who I created you to be? Why do they not even know your mom’s background
and your heritage growing up in all these countries? They just know the Harvard part That was very convicting to me because I always saw my Hispanic heritage as something that was lesser than
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: that I wanted to be better than.
And I began to really go down a path of embracing all of who God created me to be, not just the American part. There was a part that was that, but the Hispanic part that’s a part of that, and my upbringing as part of that, and my parents’ heritage as a part of that, and to be more fully known for all of who I was.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And so I helped Willow Creek at the time start their Spanish service called Casa de. It’s still vibrant and growing today. I served on the elder board there, in the Spanish ministry up until the time I came to Compassion. And Willow Creek is close to about over 30% diversity now inside this church, which is incredible that a church would go from 2% diversity to over a third, uh, diverse.
That is a huge transformation that’s been taking place over the decades there as they become more connecting and relevant to the community that’s in their neighborhood. And that’s why we started partnering with Compassion. The Willow Creek Association started partnering with compassion and Compassion, helped extend the Global Summit to many of the countries it was serving in, to serve and equip the leaders that were in each of these countries.
So that’s how I began to be known in the compassion circles. I’m serving the church. I’m starting to extend it around the world. and so why would I leave? And then I had, you know, a couple, a few friends of mine almost do kind of an intervention with me and this couple pulled me aside and said, Jimmy, there are hard decisions in life. This isn’t one of them. Look at your life. God has prepared you to help build a bridge between the church of your youth and the church of your adulthood. God built you and trained you and prepared you to be this global citizen, to help the church of your youth and the church of your adulthood to build a bigger bridge between the two.
And they mirrored to me that, and it was their coaching, their mirroring to me that helped me, make the very difficult decision to leave a ministry I loved to come and lead compassion as a church equipping ministry, building that bigger bridge between these two worlds on behalf of children that are living in extreme poverty.
and to go back to some of the neighborhoods that I lived in as a kid.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Unbelievable. Wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And to see compassion churches there, serving little kids that are running the same streets that I ran in when I was a little kid.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Mm. It’s hard for me to describe the blessing, the congruency that is in the depth of my soul.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Well,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Wow. Uh, you had a childhoodas big as the communities that compassion is a part of, and it’s like, it’s what an extraordinary thing. You’re not just from the one, you’re from the many.what is it like for you to walk into rooms as Santiago?
So if you know me as Jimmy, you’ll see that I’m still, I’m that guy. I’m still that guy. But, but you also know that to know me fully is to know I’m Santiago too.
Mm-hmm. I’m Santiago. And I’m Jimmy.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: And, to know me is to know my name and to know the fullness of my life, and background. Um,you know, is really what I value. And so I’m no longer embarrassed by Santiago.I put it out there for folks just to know, uh, that’s who I am,
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Santiago, can you tell us a little bit about how it is you think about names and the significance of a name and maybe specifically what it might mean for a church to live into its name?
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Names are profound things. They really are.that moment when I got to be known more fully as Santiago, a Hispanic, not just an American. Was profound for me to tell ’em, Hey, I’m not just Jimmy, I’m Santiago. Inside of compassion. Uh, we have a, you know, thing we call a neighbor promise. And that neighbor promise is to be known, loved, and connected.
What we want to be the effect of every participant child, every pastor we work with, every interaction that we have with us, between the workforce, neighbors, we call all those we serve neighbors, is that we want that neighbor because of that interaction to in fact feel more known, loved, and connected. Now, here’s the thing about love.
We wanna extend the love of Jesus to everyone, but you can only be loved to the extent that you’re known
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Hmm. Oh
wow.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: are known fully. You know, your name has a lot to do with that. I’ll never forget a situation where there was a little kid in one of our centers and an artist, came to that center and, the little boy, shared his name with this artist.
And then all throughout the day, the little boy would come back to the artist and say, what’s my name? And the first time he forgot. And so he said the name again, so he would remember his name. And then the next time he said, what’s my name? He said, no, I remember your name now. And he said. Later on, what’s my name?
I still remember your name. Your name is Pablo, so I’m not gonna forget your name. There was something that happened in the soul of the child to know that someone knew his name and so there was a song that that that helped inspire in that artist. The name of the song is, he Knows My Name.
And there’s something that we have found inside Compassion’s ministry through the connecting of a sponsor with a child that when that child in a poverty setting gets a letter that has their name on it, it tells them they’re not invisible. That there is someone on the other side of the world that knows their name and that maybe that could mean that there’s a God in this universe that knows their name and if they’re known, that means they can be loved.
And if they can be loved, they can be connected with. And so that’s why, you know when we connect a child with a sponsor, we want that child to know, we know your name, we see you. You are real. You’re not invisible. And you can make a difference in this life and in this world with this precious gift that Lord has given you in your name and who you are.
So names are profoundly powerful. They were, to me, they helped create a doorway and a pathway for me to get in touch with the person that gave me that name and my mom. And
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Hmm.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: my heritage, and it made me come back home to all of who I was. And instead of pushing that name aside, embracing that name fully, which allowed me to embrace God’s uniqueness in me fully are powerful.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Mm mm So powerful.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: Well, when you think about, the church, especially the early church names are powerful, in the church as well. So it was in the early church that they started to be called Christians, and it was almost in a pejorative way actually. Oh, those Christians, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re like Christ.
They’re like, that Jesus guy. You know, they’re loving unconditionally. They’re, they’re accepting people unconditionally. They’re, they’re leaving their biases aside and loving, and loving, and loving, oh, those Christians,you know, but for that name, little Christs. Little Christs for that, to be the description of the people, the church.
A beautiful thing. And then you look at what’s behind the name of church. The church has been defined as the body of Christ. So in effect, we are Christ to the world. We are those little Christlike Jesus followers to the world collectively. We are Jesus. We are the body of Christ. And knowing that we are a part of the body of Christ, that’s what’s behind the name, that we can be reminded of to live out, that we can be connected with who we are.
And if we live out and behave out of who we are, in fact, the body of Christ, little Jesus is wherever we go. That is the kingdom of heaven prevailing around the world. That’s our name and that’s what’s behind our name as the church.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Well, Santiago, thank you so much for sharing your life and your story. We know a bit more about God because of what it is that you shared. So thank you for your generosity, your time and your heart. We really appreciate it.
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: uh, with those words, Nikki. I take those words deeply into my soul and I’m grateful for the investment of this time. If it would help someone step in and to come home to they fully are and be encouraged to do that, that in and of itself is a gift. It’s a gift to me for this time.
And it’ll be a gift to those that step into the fullness of who God created them to be, because that is what we need in the church, for all of us to live into that beautiful, unique potential that is each person. maybe. So. Thank you so much.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: I We wanna extend the love of Jesus to everyone, but you can only be loved to the extent
Santiago “Jimmy” Mellado: that you’re known You can only be loved to the extent that you are known. Wow. It is such a powerful statement because we all desire to be loved, and for many of us, the concept of being truly and fully known comes with so much fear.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Is the church a place where we can be known and loved? A place to communicate to each other that we are not invisible, that we can bring our full selves? it was all that stuff that Jimmy chose to cut out, to edit, to leave behind, in order to get in that room. All that stuff was actually the gift that God had for Santiago, for his ministry, for his organization, and for the global church.
That was the very bridge that took him back to these places and communities.
But I’m struck by the ways that Santiago Heriberto Mellado, AKA, Jimmy challenges us to rethink home as much more than a place that it’s grounded in a family, grounded in a heritage, grounded in Jesus.
his work in the global movement, the phenomenon and complications of Willow Creek, calls us to reconsider the tired disputes of a fragmented and fractious church to focus on Jesus, the center of it all.
And his reclaiming of his name reminds us to remember who we are and whose we are, where we came from, and what we are called to
Nikki Toyama-Szeto: Credible witness is brought to you by the Rethinking Church Initiative, produced and edited by Mark Labberton, Sarey Martin Concepcion, and Evan Rosa. And I’m your host, Nikki Toyama-Szeto. Thanks to Fuller Seminary, Christians for Social Action and Brenda Salter McNeil for sharing her book title with our podcast.
Special thanks to all of our conversation partners in the Rethinking Church Initiative and Network, both public and private and above all, thank you for your own courageous listening and your own credible witness to the gospel. For more information, visit crediblewitness.us.