Tag Archives: Hispanic ministry

Hispanic ministry: facing the facts, facing the future

1 Reply

abandonedHere are a few facts:

  • Most small towns in Texas are shrinking. Many of the young people leave. They aren’t replaced. If the town isn’t close to a larger metropolitan area, it’s probably in decline. (The revitalization of the oil and gas business is changing some of that, but only in certain areas)
  • Churches in small towns across Texas are also dying out. They are getting older. They are getting smaller.
  • Latino populations across Texas are on the rise, even in small towns.

And, for churches of Christ, many of these facts hold true for congregations in larger cities as well.

It seems to me that many churches face three choices:

  1. Stay as they are and face extinction.
  2. Help “those people” start a church across town, knowing that they will carry on when the current church is gone.
  3. Make the church welcoming to Latinos, even those that don’t speak English.
photo from MorgueFile.com

Evangelism and nationalism

8 Replies

There are some things that would seem to be so obviously wrong that I hate to give them any credibility by addressing them. At the same time, there’s always a danger that the uncontested falsehood will be taken for truth.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that someone had commented on a post I wrote a while back on bilingual ministry. This person expressed concern about the existence of a plot to latinize the United States. (Some extremists call it “La Reconquista”—the reconquest). The implication was that by offering worship in Spanish, we are making it easier for those who scheme to transform this nation.

First off, I know that there are such extremists. I’ve seen them on television. I also know there are white supremacists, anarchists, separationists, etc. The person who wrote urged me to search the Internet; I know that the lunatic fringe is well represented on the Internet. That doesn’t keep them from being the fringe.

Secondly, I have yet to meet anyone in the church with such views. I’m not saying that there aren’t any people like that; the body of Christ is made up of human beings, and you can find just about anything you are looking for. But the typical Hispanic in the United States has no more interest in “latinizing” the U.S. than the average person here has in seeing the United States expand its territory. There are nationalists and tribalists among all groups.

Thirdly, if the people we are reaching out to have such nefarious goals, won’t converting them to Christ help? Especially if we can teach them what so many here in the U.S. seem to miss, the fact that our primary allegiance is to the Kingdom of Heaven and not a nation of this earth. Once they get a grasp on what it means to be a citizen of heaven, any dreams of political coercion of others will fall by the wayside.

All of that fails to mention the biggest and most obvious point: the outreach of the Kingdom of God should never be limited by the interests of a kingdom of this world, neither those of the United States nor any other country.

The magic formula for having a successful Hispanic ministry

1 Reply

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.