Category Archives: Bilingual

First steps toward becoming a bilingual congregation

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plansSo how would a non-Hispanic church move toward becoming bilingual? Some would argue that the first step is to hire someone from Latin America, set aside an unused room in the building and let them go to work. I’m not convinced.

The first step, I think, is for the congregation to make a conscious decision that they are willing to do what it takes to mix different languages and cultures. Some congregations, to be honest, aren’t willing to make that sacrifice. I think that many, however, are willing to do some things now to prepare for the future.

Next, the members need to become more aware of their Hispanic neighbors. Meet them, look for opportunities to form relationships, become aware of the make up of the Hispanic community where they live. Are they mainly immigrants? Is there a large concentration from a certain country? (We used to be able to assume they were mainly Mexicans here in Texas; that’s not always true today) Are you dealing with a Hispanic community mainly composed of long-term residents or have most of them moved to your area recently?

These questions help the congregation know if the outreach will be done primarily in English or in Spanish, if the community needs ESL classes and GED classes and citizenship courses, etc. It will also help, when it comes time to find someone to lead the outreach, determine the profile of the person you need. Bringing a preacher from Nicaragua may not be the best choice for a community made up of long-time U.S. residents. A Spaniard may not be the best for reaching a Puerto Rican community. Those sorts of things need to be considered.

Next week I’ll talk some about some of the decisions I think a congregation needs to make when moving toward being a multi-language, multi-culture body. For now, I’d like to hear some of your thoughts.

We’ve got to go bilingual…

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church buildingIt’s a firm conviction of mine that the only way churches in places like Texas will be able to really serve their communities in the future is for them to be bilingual. Not necessarily having bilingual services (I’ll talk about that in a minute), but being bilingual.

Why not just plant more Hispanic churches? That works well with an immigrant population, but over time Hispanic families want to be a part of “regular” society. Typically you have one generation that barely speaks English, their kids that are functionally bilingual, and the third generation that might understand some Spanish, but no longer speaks it. 60% of Hispanics in the United States were born in the U.S.; 60% of those consider English to be their primary language. Eventually, even Hispanic churches have to go bilingual, or they will lose their youth.

I’m convinced that Anglo churches need to be preparing themselves to go bilingual as well. That may mean holding a separate bilingual service. There is a church in Escondido that has “separate but equal” congregations of Hispanics and Anglos; they have separate auditoriums and say that the Hispanic auditorium is actually the nicer of the two. Or congregations can go the way that the Stockdale congregation has gone, being bilingual. [Another example is the Inland Valley congregation near Los Angeles which does EVERYTHING bilingually, including singing every song in two languages simultaneously]

In a future post, I’ll share my opinions about how we go about preparing ourselves to be bilingual.

The magic formula for having a successful Hispanic ministry

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cookiesHere are the three magic steps to having a successful Hispanic ministry…

[cricket, cricket]

OK, so there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to Hispanic ministry. If I only communicate one concept about Hispanic ministry, that’s the most important one I’ve got to share. I hear too many people say, “This worked where we are, it will work anywhere.”

We have to remember that Hispanic is an ethnicity. It’s not a nationality. It’s not a race. It’s not even a culture. It is a multiplicity of nationalities, races, and cultures. It’s even a mix of languages to some degree, for some Hispanics speak only Spanish, some speak only English and some are bilingual.

There are areas where most of the Hispanics are immigrants. There are other areas where it is the Anglos who are the newcomers, where Hispanic families were living before the United States came to them. There are places where most of the Hispanics are minimum-wage workers. There are others where Hispanics are leaders in the community. Some consider themselves outsiders, foreigners; others are fully integrated.

Because of this, the fact that one church in Georgia has had tremendous success with a Guatemalan preacher doing outreach to immigrants, doesn’t mean that same model would work in San Antonio. Where some churches have grown while doing services all in Spanish, others need to be bilingual, while others should be doing everything in English. [Dan Rodriguez from Pepperdine did studies of successful Hispanic evangelical churches; the fastest growing ones had English-only services.]

I’ve got thoughts, ideas and opinions to share about how churches can best serve a multicultural community. But the most important concept is: we must be flexible. We can’t use a cookie cutter approach.

Should we be preparing to be bilingual?

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Picture 2Yesterday I wrote about a successful bilingual church in Stockdale, Texas. As I look at the changing demographics in the United States, I can’t help but think that more and more churches are going to need to go that way. Many people agree to that in theory, but few congregations are doing anything to prepare for that.

Especially in the Southwest, Anglos are going to be in the minority soon. Maybe not this year nor next , but soon enough. So what will churches of Christ do? Content ourselves with primarily serving a minority population? Force Hispanics to adapt to our current way of doing things? Or is there something I’m not thinking of?

What, if anything, do you think our congregations should do to prepare for this cultural and linguistic shift in our communities?

Todo salió bien / It all worked out well

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bible1I did want to tell you about last Sunday, since I had requested that you be praying. Thanks to the prayers of many, the combined bilingual service with the whole church was a very edifying time. I’ve heard no negative comments (though I don’t know that anyone would have shared those with me).

We had a number of bilingual speakers participate: Lee Penya did the welcome, Gerardo Lara gave the announcements, Steve Austin led singing, Paul Roggendorff read scripture, Daniel García translated Gary McCaleb’s elder’s prayer (Gary isn’t bilingual, but regularly attends our bilingual service, so he’s part of the group), Ronnie Rama did the communion thoughts and Carlos Reyes led the closing prayer. I give that list only because each of those guys did a great job with using both languages. I’ve heard a lot of people try to work in two languages that did not do it well; each of those men did a great job.

Things did take longer doing everything in both languages. It was 10:50 when I got up to present the Bible lesson; the interim preacher we have right now nearly always ends the service right at 11:00. People didn’t seem too impatient, however. In fact, I was surprised at how responsive the audience was. Admittedly it’s been years since I’ve done anything on Sunday morning at University; the crowd was very lively, with lots of “amen”s during the sermon. The message seemed well received.

What I most wanted was for the ground to be laid for this to happen more often. Lots of people expressed the desire to see just that, so I’m hopeful that it will happen. We need to strengthen the ties between those that meet in the auditorium and those that meet in the chapel. We aren’t two congregations under one roof; we’re one congregation speaking two languages and meeting in two places.