Pastor Lopez was born in October 26, 1970 in Mexico City. He is the second son of Gilberto and Blanca Lopez. He finished his BA in Accounting and a Masters Degree in Marketing. For a short time, he worked for the Mexican Government in taxes. He then began his own businesses around Mexico City. He owned one store and a couple of pizza shops, as well as a couple of taxicabs. After losing his father and realizing the Call of the Lord on his life to become a pastor, he came to America to study. He was accepted into Concordia Seminary in January of 2000, where he was able to begin preparations to fulfill the call he felt on his life. Once at Concordia, one of his classes was a vicarage for four years. In his third year of vicarage, he was sent to Peace Lutheran Church in Pico Rivera to start a Hispanic ministry from scratch. As he was praying for help, the Lord sent a woman named Socorro, which in Spanish means “help” and she introduced him to many of her contacts from being a hairdresser for many years. Through this contact more people began to come to Bible studies, and Pastor Lopez was encouraged.
In summer 2004 He finished his master degree in Theology and was called to serve the New Church in the City of Pico Rivera in LA county.
In 2005, Pastor Lopez met and married Elizabeth Lopez. She was born in Wisconsin, had been a missionary in Japan for four years, and had just completed her masters in teaching. Elizabeth being gifted by the Lord in language is able to speak Spanish and Japanese. Together, Pastor Lopez and Elizabeth continued to reach out to the community, using music and drama. In 2009, Pastor Lopez was elected circuit counselor for his circuit and became the first Hispanic minister in the Pacific Southwest District to earn this honor of serving his fellow pastors. In 2010, Grace Lutheran of Gridley and Bethlehem Lutheran of Colusa called Pastor Lopez to serve as a dual perish minister.
Blanca Baron also lives with the Lopez’s since the birth of their daughter, Hannah. Blanca, who had been widowed, and had been president of the women’s league in the Church of God, which she quit in order to join the Lopez family in Pico Rivera in 2006. She was very instrumental in starting a women’s ministry in the Hispanic side of the church. She also began to study deacon classes in Spanish at Peace. She has now completed 2 years of Deaconess training, and just needs one class to complete her Deaconess’ studies in order to become certified by the LCMS.
In July 2010 the Lopez family move to Northern California accepting the call from two churches –Gridley and Colusa- and serving faithfully since then.
