Former ISM Student Details Manipulative Control From Head Pastor

Updated with further information about Rodriguez‘s pastoral sponsor

A third Ignite School of Ministry (ISM) student has publicly opposed Ignite Life Center (ILC).  

ILC is a district-affiliated church with the Florida Multicultural District (FMD) of the Assemblies of God (AG).  

Three people from the church have been arrested for committing sex crimes against underaged children: (1) convicted child molester Gabriel Hemenez; (2) head pastor Mark Vega’s son, alleged rapist Christian Vargas; and (3) former associate pastor Jose Cruz’s son, alleged statutory rapist Noel Cruz.

A Gainesville Police Department Supplemental Report shows Jose Cruz and Mark Vega tried to cover up reports of sexual misconduct committed by their sons. 

Three ILC survivors are suing ILC and FMD for allegedly covering up the sexual abuses Hemenez committed against them.

Jewel Rodriguez began attending ISM in 2018 when she was 17 years old after being picked out of a crowd by former FMD District Youth Director Edgar Rivera at an FMD Youth Conference in Orlando. 

Rodriguez was told that she would have a pastoral relationship with Rivera and that he would give her a full scholarship to attend ISM. She ended up not hearing from Rivera again and only had the first semester covered. Rodriguez said the staff expected her to get a job and put up a “cash app code” to help her “keep going.”  

Rivera wasn’t contacted and he cannot be held accountable because he is dead. GnvInfo sends condolences to the family.

Rodriguez said she hadn’t interacted with Vega much while at ISM. “When you're at Ignite, everyone has someone—a pastor under Mark—who’s supposed to be your mentor and guide you. Esther [Ombeon] was that person for me.”

Rodriguez described Vega controlling the marriages and familial connections of his pastors. "With [Nicole and Adolfo Gomez] and all the couples in leadership that were chosen under Mark, there was this feeling of wondering if they fell in love first and got together or if they got placed together. Not to speak ill of them; God bless them and their family, but it’s weird how Mark plays a hand in everything from their finances to what they post to what they say; it’s scary….Esther once told me, 'You got to let your parents go and understand where God put you.' She said, 'God put me [at Ignite] for a reason and that they’re my family now.' Esther said, 'You can’t always rely on your blood family, and that if I left, I was stepping out on God’s will.'"

Rodriguez said alleged rapist Vargas would attend one of ILC’s programs for younger kids despite being older than the intended age range. “He was a member of I-Kids even though he was still older. He would go there: God protect those three girls, but they were young enough to be in I-Kids. Christian was old enough to understand the service, and there was no reason for him to be in I-Kids. They’d make him out to be the 'help.'”

Rodriguez said ILC would attempt to change people’s sexuality. “With some individuals who are gay, I feel they shouldn’t have handled it the way they handled it. What they did to this one girl was not okay. They forced her to change her clothing; they forced her to date [pastor] Nick Bruce. They forced her to give that testimony over and over and over again; trying to make her a mini Nicole Gomez…. Like how I said earlier, all the leaders get given certain groups of kids, but Nicole Gomez was only given the kids battling sexual sin when it came to homosexuality. She was counseling Gabe and at least one more guy and two girls…. I don’t even think Nicole Gomez even has her own voice in her head anymore. That internal voice she has sounds like Mark Vega. Her voice in her head is Mark Vega’s. There’s never a disagreement. She’d walk through a dark tunnel if Mark’s voice was on the other side.”

In a deleted sermon from July that Vega held at the Outside Church in Fort Pierce, he told Gomez to come on stage and "detonate.”

Gomez took the mic and said, “Every devil that came against me to try and convince me of my sexuality, of my sexual identity; was defeated on the cross. When God said, ‘It is finished.’ When Jesus said, ‘I am done,’ I have taken LGBTQ, I have taken transgenderism on the cross and defeated it by the power of His Grace. By the power of His blood, now I walk in victory. Now I walk in peace. Now I walk in power. Now I walk in authority, and I rejoice.” 

Rodriguez said Vega and ILC’s biblical teachings are false. “Here’s the thing about Ignite. When you truly start to read the Word, when you truly start to follow the Lord and live righteously, you’re going to notice the inconsistency in what they’re showing you…. If people take a moment to step back and truly read the Word and pray. Don’t just read and look where he’s telling you; look yourself, and truly ask God for discernment in your heart.”

Rodriguez described ILC as caring more about appearances than actions. “There was one girl who was pregnant, and they immediately wanted to kick her out. I asked them what the difference is between her sin and our sin, except that hers is gonna be able to be shown on her stomach. She didn’t even know she was pregnant, and it happened before she got to Ignite, but what’s the difference? What’s the difference between one woman’s belly and the next person’s porn addiction. Pastor Mark didn’t say anything except that he’d consider allowing her to stay; she was gone the next day, supposedly by her choice…. There were a lot of people like that who left under similar circumstances. There was one girl who they were very close with; she needed to take pills for medication, and they’d scold her because a student was battling a pill addiction. Like she was sick and needed medicine, but they wanted to deny that.”

Rodriguez spent one semester at ILC before deciding to leave. “I remember the last thing Esther told me was that me leaving that school was me stepping away from God’s will. It scared me so much that when my son was born with some problems, I thought it was also a form of punishment. At that moment I thought I was wrong and reached out to them and asked to pray for my son. I thought I needed Mark Vega to pray for him, but I was so wrong because my son fought that fight all on his own. My son fought that fight because God is favorful, reliable, and merciful. My son is here and healthy because that was what God had for his plan, not because Mark Vega prayed for him. He didn’t come out with a heart defect because I left ISM. Those things don’t correlate, and leaving that school didn’t damn me. At first, leaving felt like a ticket to hell for a long time. I thought things were going wrong because I wasn’t there, and it took me a long time to break out of that mentality. I’m thankful to be free of it and be able to embark on my own journey with Christ.”

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