Dr. David A. Sobrepeña
General Superintendent/President
As the PGCAG surges forward in fulfilling the great commission for the Lord, leading the charge at the helm is General Superintendent Rev. Dr. Dave Sobrepeña. It was back in 1988 at the aftermath of the people power revolution where Pastor Dave left a career path in business and finance in Dallas, Texas and took up the mantle that his grandfather and father before him held. The mantle of answering God’s call in leading people to the Lord. A call that would bring him back to his country, the Philippines.
Along with his wife, Lydia, Pastor Dave planted a seed in the old Paramount Theater that would eventually grow into one of the biggest churches in Metro Manila, Word of Hope Christian Family Church. To this day, he still leads Word of Hope as Senior Pastor which is one of the largest churches in the Philippines located in Metro Manila. Under his watch and with the Lord as his guide, Word of Hope grew and currently running more than 7,500 Life Groups (Cell Groups) within Metro Manila and was able to establish and maintains several institutions, namely, Hope General Hospital, Hope Christian Academy, Hope Leadership Institute, Paradise Prayer Garden and a microfinance enterprise called HOPE, Inc.
Pastor Dave is Co-Chairman for Billion Soul Network, a movement that aims to lead 1 Billion people to Christ and to plant 5 million churches around the world. Along with this, he has also served in the past as Chairman of the Board of PCEC (Philippine Council of the Evangelical Churches) and as Member of the Board of APTS, a premier theological seminary in Asia. He also served the Philippine Bible Society as one of its board members.
Pastor Dave is also the National Director for EQUIP Philippines and was the Head Coordinator for EQUIP Asia Pacific from 1999 to 2015. EQUIP was an organization that provides Christian leadership training worldwide and in 2012. In fact, he was inducted into the EQUIP Leadership Hall of Fame for his service. This was an award of the highest of honors which was handed to selected Christian leaders from around the world. His EQUIP team trained over 400,00 Christian leaders in numerous Asian countries including the Philippines.
For many years now, Pastor Dave is serving as General Superintendent and Corporate President of the Philippines General Council of the Assemblies of God (PGCAG). His leadership proved invaluable most especially when the 2011 PGCAG crisis occurred. Difficult and disappointing as it may have been – but in the subsequent leadership meetings, he always instill among the national leadership not to forget the very reason of our being – “making the main thing the main thing”. That the current crisis is just a temporary setback and we should never allow the enemy to keep us away from our mission in this world even in the midst of crisis. He not only talked about it but modeled it by doing evangelistic meetings – island evangelism with the Gospel Boat, inland evangelism with the Gospel Bus – without regard of the size of the crowd as long as the gospel is preached. He even went to challenge every individual minister in every district to do the same. With the other key leaders – he travels by air, by land by sea conducting regional and district ministers’ meetings – to encourage the latter to remain strong regardless of the challenges, making sure that the PGCAG stands firm so it can accomplish its mission of establishing churches and relentless in bringing the good news of salvation not just within the country but even overseas.
