Fort Smith Central Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church

A Brief History of Fort Smith, Arkansas

Fort Smith Spanish Church Organized in 1998

A Fort Smith Spanish group began meeting in the Fort Smith church. An evangelism campaign was held in April and May 1998, with thirty-two new members joining the group. They asked the conference to organize them as a church and in June 1998, it was voted for that to take place (Minutes, 1998).

Small Groups Yield sixty new members

Eddie Canales presents the gospel at an evangelistic series sponsored by the Fort Smith Spanish church. *Photo courtesy of the Southwestern Union Record.*

In the summer of 2000, under the direction of Pastor Jose del Aguila, and lay director, Jose T. Urquilla, members of the Fort Smith Spanish church divided into small groups for an outreach initiative. Each small group was encouraged to invite their friends and neighbors to study the Bible with them. A special set of lessons for small groups was used for the studies. At the completion of the lessons, a graduation was held when the small group leaders and several assistants were awarded certificates of accomplishment. The next step was to invite the interests to an evangelistic series held in October 2000, by Eddie Canales, Arkansas-Louisiana Conference secretary and Hispanic coordinator. The series ended with twenty-four baptisms. An additional group was baptized later, bringing the total number of new converts to sixty (Shanez, 2000).

Church Dedication in 2013

Rodney Dyke and Eduardo Sanchez burn the mortgage.

On Sabbath, April 6, 2013, the Fort Smith Spanish church was dedicated debt-free and their mortgage was burned at a special ceremony (Newsletter, 2013).

Fort Smith Central Spanish Church

In March 2018, the name of the Fort Smith Spanish church was changed to Fort Smith Central Spanish SDA Church (Alcorn, 2018).

Fort Smith Central Spanish Church on Willow Street in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Citations

(1998, Jun. 18). Executive Committee Minutes. Shreveport, LA: Arkansas-Louisiana Conference of SDA.

(2013, Jun. 1). Newsletter, Arkansas-Louisiana Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, p. 3.

Alcorn, Frances. (2018, Mar. 14). Ft Smith Central Spanish SDA Church. Retrieved from eadventist.net.

Sanchez, Eduardo. (2000, Dec. 1). Southwestern Union Record, p. 11.