Apostle Sal Sabino and his wife Kenia are Senior Pastors of the Heavenly Vision Christian Center, a fast growing church in New York City. Heavenly Vision also has extension churches in Long Island, NY & New England. Heavenly Vision Christian Center in Bronx, New York, is a miracle. It was founded in 1990 by Sal Sabino and had only eight members. Today the independent Pentecostal church needs five services to accommodate its 1,200 members. Sabino pastors the congregation with his wife, Kenia, and a staff of 12. The church, located in a former supermarket, will move this year to a new $5 million building that can accommodate 3,000 worshipers. By faith Sabino is believing God for 12,000 members.
The Apostles Sabino have also founded “The S.E.A.,” an international evangelistic association to take the Gospel to the world and help the needy.
Sabino himself is another miracle. He emigrated from the Dominican Republic in 1970. While serving 4-1/2 years in prison for drug dealing, he accepted Jesus as his Savior in his jail cell in 1985. After devouring the Bible for two weeks, he felt the glory of God flooding his cell one morning before dawn. He says God challenged him to preach. He has been called “One of New York’s most beloved pastors” by Univision’s (a National Hispanic Television station) morning show “Despierta America.” He has been called “Daring Pastor” by Telemundo’s “Al Rojo Vivo.” Recently, he has appeared on TBN & PBS interviews and documentaries in which his work with gangs has been celebrated. His work has also been reported in major newspapers in New York and Washington, D.C., and other parts of the world. “The Rev. Sal Sabino, a former drug dealer who has served three prison sentences, is waging a campaign to convert gang members, drug dealers, youth and the homeless to his church, which has grown from 120 to 1,100 in just eight years” –The Washington Post, Sept. 11, 2000.
“From then on I’ve not taken one step back,” Sabino says. “I’ve been serving the Lord.”
After his release from prison, he started street-preaching, then moved to a Baptist church that had some space available. “We mainly grew out of cell groups and street evangelism,” he says.
Songs have been written about the different faces of this man’s life and testimony: “Sabino, Rome Quijadas” – by Ramon Rodriguez and Santiago Ceron in 1984 while still in jail. “Sabino” by Mario Marrero and Alex Castro in 2006 was a top seller in many Christian charts. A motion picture is in the works, using his life changing story book: “Two Ways, a Washington Heights Drug dealer Turns around” by Ebed Press, and Vida/Zondervan in Spanish “Dos caminos.”
Sabino’s church now has 300 home groups of six to 12 people in each that meet in apartments and houses in Bronx and Manhattan. “The cell-group ministry brings the church to the people,” he says. “We are taking Jesus to the people.”
Máximo Guzmán, 26, a staff member of the church, became a Christian in 1998 when a young woman invited him to a home-church meeting. As the leader of a 200-member street gang, he sold drugs and fought with knives and guns. Friends question how he changed so radically. “It wasn’t me, man,” he tells them. “It was Jesus. He is mighty. He’s my Lord and Savior.”
Sabino describes a poignant picture that he believes contrasts the Anglo and Hispanic churches in the United States.
“I see the English-speaking church as a man with a big head but with little legs,” he says. The big head means theology and education, and little legs symbolize a lack of evangelism, he explains.
“I see the Hispanic church as a man with a little head and long legs,” he adds, saying that the Spanish church is short on theology and education but long on evangelism.
Sabino concludes: “We want a church that looks like a normal man.”
Apostles Sal and Kenia Sabino envision a metropolitan church totally restored and saturated with the power of the Holy Spirit. They see the church as a conquering army, taking the city by using its three mayor weapons of warfare: Intercession, Worship & Evangelism.
