I have 14 years of pastoral ministry experience in the Philippines before migrating to New Zealand in 2011.
I am married to Jewel, and the Lord blessed us with a daughter, Jadyn.
What adds more to my pastoral ministry experience is that my parents, Malvar and Nenita Castillon, were pastors of the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches.
I grew up in a church environment, observing how my father and mother worked and learning the dynamics of pastoral ministry.
After finishing my Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at Central Philippine University in 1989, I trained in process documentation research and worked in this area for six years. I covered process documentation work in national irrigation, local government, and rural and urban poor development.
I served the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches as a Board of Trustees member for two terms, from 1990 to 1992 and then from 1997 to 1999.
In 1996, I responded to God’s calling to become a pastor. I worked with Ajuy Baptist Church while finishing my Bachelor of Theology. I helped establish the church’s school ministry project.
After four years of studying and working, I finished my Bachelor of Theology in 2001 at Central Philippine University. I started my Master of Divinity in 2008, and I only lacked three subjects to take when our visa arrived, and we had to move to New Zealand in 2011.
I became the Resident Pastor of the New Testament Baptist Church in Iloilo City in 2002. My urban-poor development experiences in my previous jobs enabled me to minister to the informal settlers around the old Iloilo Airport, across the highway from the church.
In 2005, I worked with Central Philippine University (CPU), a Baptist university American Baptist Missionaries founded. While working with CPU, I helped start the Creekside Baptist Church in 2006.
At CPU, I started as an Assistant to the President for General Services and was appointed the President’s Executive Secretary for three years. I became the Director of the Communications Office next.
In 2011, we migrated to New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland and joined Glenfield Baptist Church in North Shore. Pursuing our resident visa, we moved down to Timaru in 2012. We became New Zealand citizens in 2018.
We joined Wilson Street Baptist Church when we moved to Timaru.
In 2013, with the support of the senior minister and a couple of members, I pioneered the Multicultural Response Ministry.
I pursued ministry work in a bi-vocational capacity. While doing multicultural response ministry, I started as an independent contractor for Waugh Infrastructure Management, and in 2019, the company employed me.
I realised the need for a pastoral ministry toolkit, so I started writing the Ministry Appreciation and Participation Toolkit (MAP Toolkit) in 2017.
In June 2021, Gleniti Baptist Church adopted the Multicultural Response Ministry and appointed me as coordinator part-time.
In June 2022, in addition to my task, I accepted the challenge to be the pastor of Oamaru Baptist Church. The pastoral position at OBC enabled me to use the MAP Toolkit to help revive the church.
SOURCE: Jonan’s LinkedIn
