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At 24, Claudia Karola Santos Serrano is already deciding the future of her church in Puerto Rico. Since around age 7, she has quietly observed the needs of fellow congregants at Iglesia Luterana Bethel in Dorado. Recognizing her calm leadership and initiative, her pastor turned to her when the church’s youth leader stepped away.
Santos Serrano’s new title as youth leader gave her a fresh vantage point for viewing a congregation she had been immersed in for years. That new perspective also forced her to recognize some hard truths. “The youth weren’t youth anymore … including me,” she said.
Seeing the aging congregation and dwindling youth population as an opportunity, Santos Serrano got to work reframing Bethel’s young adult ministry around real-life connections and activities that she knew her neighbors enjoy. Movie and game nights, along with outdoor gatherings, were promoted through friends of friends. Every contact she made became an entry point for church newcomers. She also promoted activities beyond regular worship participants. The result was an unapologetic space of acceptance for those who had stepped away from attending services, no questions asked.
Santos Serrano makes a point of welcoming everyone who enters the church or attends youth ministry gatherings. She knows how significant a quick hug and warm smile can be for someone craving that sense of belonging or fearing rejection after years away. As a representative of the congregation, her friendly disposition sets the tone, proving a first step toward creating a social and stable environment for every friend, neighbor or stranger.
“It’s about the community you grow in,” she said. “You can leave for weeks and come back, and people receive you like you were never gone.”
Serving others
Despite her title, much of Santos Serrano’s ministry happens in the small, behind-the-scenes moments that keep worship moving.
On any given Sunday, she can be found quietly stationed behind a laptop, advancing slides for a speaker or singer during services that often stretch more than two hours. She is careful to keep the clicking in rhythm with hymns, prayers and readings—a task that requires focus, timing and a sense of humor when things don’t go according to plan.
With sometimes hundreds of slides to click through, even the briefest distraction can throw her off. She laughs recalling a time when singing from memory moved her to close her eyes and disconnect from her slide-clicking duty entirely. By the time she glanced back at the glowing screen, the lyrics pictured were words she sang several verses back. She recovered quickly, just like when the power goes down and she is responsible for getting the congregation’s cue cards back on track. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s essential, especially with many elderly attendees streaming services from home.
Slide management, like so many other services that Santos Serrano provides her congregation, is done quietly, faithfully and reliably for the sake of serving and grounding those in need.
“It’s about the community you grow in. You can leave for weeks and come back, and people receive you like you were never gone.”
This style of care is also reflected in Bethel’s wider ministry and extends to Santos Serrano’s participation in the ELCA’s Gather Network, a growing movement that connects young adults across cities, regions and contexts.
Santos Serrano also proudly champions Bethel’s community-based mental health initiative known as Integrate. Thanks to church leadership, the program operates out of Bethel and partners with psychology students and licensed supervisors from a local college to offer accessible counseling services to anyone in the community. “It’s open to everyone, not just the church,” Santos Serrano said.
Clients can receive care for as little as $5 per session or whatever they are able to give. Graduate-level students gain supervised clinical experience, while participants receive support in a familiar, trusted space, removing barriers that often keep people from seeking help.
That commitment to care extends into other areas of congregational life as well, including art therapy, yoga and creative workshops. Each program reinforces the church’s role as a place for healing, not just worship, and furthers its commitment to meeting the community’s needs.
That same spirit of service also guided Bethel’s response during a time of crisis. In 2017, when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Bethel’s building remained miraculously intact, making it a hub for surrounding neighbors and congregants who had lost so much. The church responded swiftly to the devastation, opening its doors to those in need of shelter, providing crucial cooling spaces and storing critical medications for people. Hurricane relief efforts such as providing immediate care and food to locals were only further strengthened through the church’s connection with the ELCA’s Ministries of Diverse Cultures and Communities team, specifically Hector Carrasquillo, program director for Latino Ministries.
For Santos Serrano, these moments of demonstrated faith through partnered action mean the most. She understands how church can become a routine habit. Time passes, people age and sometimes life is too busy to consider the deeper meaning or alternative to what is already built into their schedule. She respects the foundation that traditional, routine practices can provide but emphasizes the importance of making church a place where people choose to go and where the community can grow.
Today, whether she’s leading a young adult gathering, coordinating community programs or quietly keeping worship on track from her laptop, that same commitment to community care guides her work. While many congregations struggle to engage younger generations, Santos Serrano’s solution is simple but effective: trust young people enough to let them lead, welcome the strangers and evolve to meet the needs of the community you seek to serve.
