In the state of Nebraska, there are over 300,000 Spanish-speaking residents, but only two Nazarene churches offer a Spanish-language service. Francisco Torres, who pastors the Beatrice First Church of the Nazarene, hopes to remedy that situation.

On 7 January 2021, Torres was installed as lead pastor of Beatrice First. Shortly after, he started looking into the area's demographics and realized how underserved the Spanish-speaking population was.

"This has to change," Torres said.

Beatrice is now home to Nebraska's second Spanish-speaking service at a Church of the Nazarene. Torres, known as "Pastor Frank" to his congregation, preaches for both the Spanish and English services, which are also live streamed. The Spanish live stream reaches 90-100 viewers weekly.

This is Torres’ first lead pastor role. The 22-year-old graduated from Nazarene Bible College in 2022. He first felt a call to preach the gospel at 12, received his local license at 15, and became district licensed at 19.

His mother didn't agree with his career path. At every turn, she questioned whether or not being a pastor was the right thing.

"You're not going to be a pastor," Torres recalled her saying to him. "I'm not going to be here forever. I'm going to die sometime, and I don't want to know that you'll just live off whatever the church can give you."

As the time to enroll in college approached, Torres began searching for careers that would allow him to be a bi-vocational minister, but he kept coming back to the pastorate. In the meantime, his mother began to dive deeper into the Word.

Through reading the Scriptures, she began to understand her son's calling and felt her own call to preach the gospel. Currently, she is working through the Course of Study to obtain her district license.

In 2021, Torres and his family moved to Bellevue, Nebraska, where he began serving at Heritage Hill Church of the Nazarene while completing his degree.

One night, after a call from his district superintendent, Torres was asked to preach at Beatrice First on pulpit supply. Beatrice hadn't had an official pastor for over a year. If Torres hadn't accepted the position, the church would have closed for good.

Francisco's mom, Alicia, serves on the staff with him. Their desire to reach the Spanish-speaking community with the gospel and message of holiness continues to grow. They hope to open a satellite location in Lincoln, home to 25,000 Spanish-speakers.

"We're excited about planting churches and reaching that community [that is] unaddressed," Francisco said. "Nebraska seems to be one of those states people don't care much about, and that just really calls out to me."