Making Disciples That Light Up the World

ON JULY 5, 2024, Pastor Jeremy Barahona walked onto an arena stage in Kansas City on the final day of Challenge 2024—the EFCA’s biennial youth conference—along with his wife (Angelica) and their daughter (Junia). After spending a week among 3,500 EFCA students and youth leaders—sharing music, filming videos, participating in the Gatherings and leading Equipping Labs—Jeremy and Angelica were about to learn how much the Challenge offering had raised for their church plant, The Light West Palm Beach (EFCA). 

After a brief drumroll from the crowd, a number flashed on the screen: $30,000—enough to cover the remainder of The Light WPB’s annual budget.  

“We want to see disciples making disciples,” Jeremy said. “We want to see Bible studies and community groups continue to be multiplied. And ultimately, we want to see churches planting churches. Because that’s what happened with us, right? 

“It just starts with one person.” 

*** 

IN FEBRUARY 2023—before they officially launched—The Light WPB hosted a baptism in the Latin Quarter of West Palm Beach, Florida. More than 50 people from the community sat on folding chairs in a local park as a local teen—and member of The Light’s church planting team—was baptized by Pastor Jeremy and Angelica. 

That girl’s name was Beberlin González.  

“[Beberlin] brought all her friends and people connected to her family,” Jeremy said. “It was crazy. It ended up being this baptism ceremony and worship preview service.” 

Seven months later, on September 24, 2023, The Light WPB officially launched—Beberlin and her family all in attendance—with one common mission: “to make disciples of Jesus that light up the world.” 

*** 

IN MAY 2022, Beberlin asked God for a sign. She was at the end of her rope, depressed and lost. She wanted a church to call home, a community to help her grow—so, she prayed. Later that week, Beberlin saw a video from Pastor Jeremy and Angelica on her mom’s Facebook account, talking about a church they were planting in WPB: The Light.

To Beberlin, it was a sign from God—but she still had her doubts. 

That same week, Jeremy and The Light's pastoral resident, Mario, showed up in Beberlin’s neighborhood to promote that same Bible study. The next week, Beberlin brought her entire family

“I joke around with Beberlin,” Jeremy said. “I tell her, ‘Girl, you are planting this church. I’m just facilitating it.’” 

*** 

IN AUGUST 2021, Jeremy and Angelica arrived in the southside of West Palm Beach, essentially alone. After sensing a call from God in 2018 to return to his hometown to plant a church, Jeremy and the team at The Brook Church (EFCA) in Chicago had spent the last three years preparing for this move—praying, training, building a core team. Except, of the five families who’d committed to join the church plant, only one person made the trip south.  

“I remember one night, I just began to cry,” Jeremy said. “I was like, ‘We’re alone. I don’t even know what we’re doing here now.’ Nobody came with us. Everything I’d been trained to do, that I thought I was equipped to do, completely flopped.” 

His plans falling flat, Jeremy sensed another call from God, through Scripture: 

You’ve got to dig into the mud. Before you can plant this church, you've got to get your hands dirty and really get to know some people in the community. Then watch me work from there. 

Inspired by this new vision, Jeremy and the team did anything and everything to build connections in their neighborhood: job fairs, street evangelism, Bible studies, grill-outs. Albeit imperfect (i.e., burning hotdogs and burgers), it was a ministry fueled by genuine love for their community.  

“At first, my strategy was, ‘I need to recruit other solid believers in order to start this church,’” Jeremy said, “That just didn’t happen. Our ministry was that of presence. We were just trying to be the light of Christ in the regular rhythms of our community.”