Dr. María Teresa Montilla is executive director of The Great Commission Theological Institute, a private non-profit educational entity founded in 1972. The Institute focuses on promoting academic and spiritual development and activating ministries to fulfill God’s purpose in our lives. It carries out its mission by offering Bible studies in English and Spanish, face-to-face and online, as well as workshops, seminars and divinity degree programs.
María Teresa is an educator, author, and social entrepreneur who fulfills the Institute’s mission with her decades of experience teaching in person and online, and disseminating information through radio, television, the Internet, newspaper columns, forums, conferences, workshops and seminars.
She is the author of three books, The Origin of My Family: Indigenous, Spanish, and Africans, an account of the author’s family lineage narrated along with the history of the Caribbean island, the Taino-Arawak Indians called Ayi-ti, which means land. mountainous, and Quisqueya, which means mother of all lands; Latina and Evangelical in the United States, an analysis of how the church and Latino culture form an ‘effective alliance’ of oppression against women; and Lobas de Verdad (She-Wolf), an analysis of the similarities between a wolf and an emotionally healthy woman (unpublished). She is the co-author of two books and film documentaries and accompanying visual exhibits:
Dominicans of New Jersey: A Decade of Achievement, An Account of Dominican Migration to New Jersey, Its Causes and Achievements; and Los Panfleteros de Santiago, the story of a rebel youth movement during the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
Dr. Montilla’s curriculum development experience includes creating courses and authoring teaching manuals on behavioral science in crisis intervention, family counseling, sexual abuse, and the grief process.
She and her husband Néstor Montilla, Ph.D. formulated and developed the course curriculum of the Gran Comisión Theological Institute, including the creation of courses such as Introduction to the Bible, Hermeneutics, the Pentateuch, the Old and the New Testaments, History of Christianity, The Gospels, Chaplaincy, Homiletics, Poetic Books of the Bible, Book of Hebrews, Biblical Geography, Biblical Evidence, Principles of Biblical Research, and among others, the Book of Revelation.
Maria Teresa’s professional profile includes an established 28-year career in administration and supervision within the New Jersey Judiciary. Her civic involvement spans over thirty years and includes community organizing, education, and service coordination. Her extensive training and teaching experience spans the areas of family relationships, social empowerment, civic responsibility, diversity, and multiculturalism.
She received a BA in Psychology from Thomas Edison College in Trenton, NJ; she and two Master’s degrees, one in Public Administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and another in Christian Counseling from New Covenant International University from which she also earned a Doctorate in Theology.