Tag Archives: bilingual church

What Latinos can learn from Anglos

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One and TwoThis week I’ve been discussing some of what I’ll be sharing at the Summer Celebration at David Lipscomb University in Nashville. I’ll be speaking on the Spanish track on July 1 and 2, talking about “One Body, Two Languages.” Specifically, I’ll be talking about what Latinos and Anglos can learn from one another. (Be sure and read this post to know how I’m using those terms)

In the second class, I’m going to talk about what Latinos can learn from Anglos. There will be some of the obvious things, like punctuality. I’ll also talk about involvement in church and participation in church leadership. Most Latin countries have a strong influence from the Catholic church. Historically, they have not focused on participative church structures. In other words, you mainly go and watch. You aren’t even typically expected to give; these churches receive money from taxes and other sources. The idea of stepping up and being an integral part of a congregation is new to many Hispanics.

The other big point will be about language. It can be a delicate topic, but I’m going to remind them that the future of the church in the States will be written in English. The future of the Hispanic churches in the States will be written in English. Some research suggests that 96% of Hispanics born in the U.S. are functional in English. A large percentage use in English in the home. Many don’t speak Spanish. Some 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics don’t even understand Spanish.

With continued immigration, there will be a need for churches to provide services in Spanish. But the future of the church in the States will be in English. It’s not the job of the church to preserve a heritage, to help keep a language alive. The job of the church is to reach out, reach up and reach in, in whatever language that needs to be done.

Bilingual church vs. bilingual ministry

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futureWhat’s the difference between a bilingual church and a church with a bilingual ministry? Basically it comes down to integration. Many churches have a bilingual ministry that is one of many ministries that they do; a bilingual church has a bilingual ministry that is part of every ministry they do. Benevolence, missions, youth… every aspect of the church includes the minority culture members (Latinos, in the scenarios that I’ve been discussing).

When a church decides to become bilingual, they plan for the day when every ministry in their church will be bilingual. It’s easy to say, “Hispanics are less than 10% of this church; we’ll wait until we have more Hispanic members.” Problem is, it’s hard to get more Hispanic members when they’re being treated as a small subset within a larger whole. The church needs to think and plan as if the ethnic mix were 50-50. That doesn’t mean that all meetings have to be held in Spanish or that every committee must include a Hispanic. What it means is that every group, committee, ministry within the church has to be thinking about how it will operate when the church is fully bilingual. You can’t wait until you get there to lay the groundwork.

Too often congregations have the Hispanic group meet in the basement “until they get more members.” Or they wait to make announcements available in Spanish or print bulletins in Spanish “when the demand is greater.” As long as Latinos are made to feel a secondary group within the congregation, they will be a secondary group within the congregation.

It’s a lot like the old “act as if” technique I learned in school, where you act the way you want to be, not the way you are. To be happier, you act happier. To come to like someone more, you treat them as if you liked them. Etc. To become a bilingual congregation, churches need to act like bilingual congregations.