With Victoria Riollano
Pastor Joseph Riollano
I grew up going to church all the time. I’ve been to countless bible studies, prayer meetings, and Sunday services. I had a lot of fun doing it too. I went to Catholic and private Christian School all my life. I grew up knowing who Jesus is and the importance of Him in my life. When I was 15 years old, I accepted Jesus into my life as my Lord and Savior during a Chapel Service. After that, my life didn’t really change much. I had a better understanding of who Jesus was but there wasn’t much of a change. Now I wasn’t that bad of a kid, but there wasn’t much of a “miraculous” change.
After getting married and having my first child things started to change. I realized the importance of right living after holding my daughter for the first time. After becoming a father, I realized how my heavenly Father truly loved me. I knew that all the love I had for my daughter didn’t compare to the love that Jesus had for me. At that time, I was involved in church, but after the realization of how much Jesus loved me hit me, I had to tell more people about it. I started telling everyone about Jesus and what He could do for their life. I started getting more involved in church and really asking the Lord what He wanted me to do with my life. Really, I was wanting to know what my mission was on this earth. Since then, I’ve increased my conversations with people to now going Facebook live sharing the gospel.
I’ve been called to church planting since I was 5 years old. When I was 5 years old, the Lord spoke to me in a dream. He told me that I was going to start a church and that my whole family would attend. Of course, at that age I really didn’t know what all that meant, but I knew it was something that the Lord spoke to me. After I got saved, I started serving in church in many different areas. The common place that I served was on the Usher team. When I was about 24 years old, I served as a Youth Minister with my wife. At that point in my life, I remembered the dream that I had at 5 years old and really started to go into prayer about that. I led many of the teens to Christ, as well as other people in my community. The fire started to burn. As I moved from state to state with the military, I’ve served in every church in multiple areas. The most common position was in leading the Helps ministry which consisted of the Ushers, Greeters, Hospitality, Prayer and VIP teams. In this position I was responsible for all the volunteers of the church.
In 2016, I helped launch Relentless church in Springfield, VA. My wife and I lead or helped to lead the Helps ministry, Social Media, Worship, and Administration teams. That was a great experience because I saw many things about ministry that I had never seen before. I am thankful for the experience. Currently, I pastor Enlighten Church in Stafford, Va.
Overall, I have a passion for winning the lost. My goal is that every person I encounter experience the love of God. From serving in homeless ministry to street evangelism and preaching, the message of God's love is always at the forefront of all that I do.
It's an honor to serve alongside my wife as we minister throughout the D.C. Metro and Atlanta and more. I look forward to speaking at your next event.