Tag Archives: Latinos

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.

What Anglos can learn from Latinos

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One and TwoThere are lots of things that I think the Latino culture in general has to offer to the mainline “Anglo” church. Things like a relaxed attitude toward time (do we REALLY have to apologize if the service is longer than one hour and fifteen minutes?), how to greet and acknowledge people, the value of family, etc.

Two of the biggest have been thrust on Hispanics here in the States, yet are major traits that the church as a whole needs. One is the ability to separate church and country. The Hispanic community has 14 different countries which have contributed significantly to its makeup, not counting the United States. There is a greater awareness that the church is larger than any one country.

The other major thing is the awareness of being strangers and aliens in this world. Not all Hispanics are aliens, yet there is a greater sensitivity to what that lifestyle really means. Some rebel against that feeling and that reality, just as some Christians seek to blend in rather than seeking to stand out. The church needs to be called back to the fact that we are all aliens, we are all foreigners, no matter what country we’re living in.

Those are the main things I see. Want to add to the list?

Anglos and Latinos

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One and TwoI mentioned on Monday the classes that I’m preparing for the Summer Celebration at David Lipscomb University. (we had a major storm on Monday night which kind of complicated my posting anything yesterday) I mentioned addressing what Anglos and Latinos have to offer one another in a congregation.

I do plan to address the inaccuracies of those terms and the folly it is to try and see those groups as two distinct sets of people. Some thoughts:

  • Anglo is a misnomer. It is used to differentiate from Hispanics, but the term really applies to people of Anglo-Saxon descent. As used, it’s applied to Germans, Italians, etc., even though they are hardly Anglos.
  • Latino is too wide a group to deal with. It includes people of all races and a wide range of cultural backgrounds. It often encompasses indigenous peoples who have nothing Latin about them.
  • These groups are fluid. That is, there are people of Hispanic descent who are completely out of place in a typically Hispanic church and feel quite at home in a predominantly “Anglo” congregation. And there are people like me who often feel more at home in a Hispanic group than one where most people look and sound like me.

Given those limitations, I still think the discussion has merit. Over the next couple of posts, I’ll spell out some of my ideas about what each of these nebulous groups has to offer to the other.

Partnership, not paternalism

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handshakeOne final thought for now on developing a bilingual church. There is a real danger of developing a host/guest mentality, where one group feels like it is a guest in the other’s church. In many situations, the minority group is less well off financially than the majority group. The natural tendency is for those with more to want to do any- and everything for their brothers. While this is a commendable attitude, it often fosters a situation of dependence.

The same thing often happens on the mission field, where missionaries from privileged nations like ours feel uncomfortable asking their brothers to share economic and physical burdens. We have so much, you have so little — let us take care of everything.

There are several problems with this. For one thing, a welfare state anywhere, especially in the church, is harmful. People need a sense of responsibility, the ability to take pride in supporting themselves. In addition, it’s important that people be given the chance to give. When we make them feel like their gift doesn’t matter, they see no point in giving. This cheats them out of a spiritual blessing.

At the Pepperdine lectures, one Hispanic brother told of the day when they informed the elders that they wanted to pay rent on the space they were using. In order to do so, they would keep their own offering separate. The elders balked at first, but finally agreed. This marked a turning point for that Hispanic congregation, as the brothers took responsibility for the work. The Hispanic group grew and matured at a much faster rate than it had before. They eventually moved to their own rented building. (Yes, I know that isn’t the bilingual model I’ve been talking about. I’m merely using the example to talk about partnership rather than paternalism)

Our brothers shouldn’t feel like guests in their own congregation. They shouldn’t feel like welfare recipients. They should feel that they are sharing in the partnership of the gospel.

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.