Coming to you this morning as fellow
strugglers, as we try to figure out how can we
be more
effective in our work and not as anyone that
has all the answers or anything like that.
And I do, I would like to have a time at the
end of each session to dialogue together and
talk about some things.
But what I want to do first is I want to look
at the historical background, everything that
we do, of course, as a context.
And if we're not aware of our history, we will
basically make the same mistakes over
and over again.
And that's one of the things that we want to
avoid because we've seen enough of that.
But I'll be walking you through our early
efforts in the United States and in Mexico.
And I say Mexico because this particular work
is so, it's a symbiotic relationship, it's
so intertwined that we really wouldn't be able
to have one without the other.
The second session will focus on streams that
have influenced Hispanic spirituality to help
us better understand why are Hispanics this
particular way?
Why do they think this way in the area of religion?
And then in our third session, we'll try to
analyze factors that are hurting us and factors
that would help us and basically look at how
can we do a better job of this, knowing the
history, knowing what influences the
spirituality, Hispanic spirituality, how can we
more effectively
work in this area of ministry?
I'd like to issue a special challenge in the
spirit of love to the Abilene community simply
because it is in the context of Abilene that
this particular ministry began way back in 1919.
A brother by the name of Howard Shug was a
professor of foreign languages here at Abilene Christian.
He was a German gentleman that did not
particularly speak Spanish.
He had, I think, a vocabulary of about 300
words, but he got in the habit of going to
the Mexican barrio and reading the Bible to
particularly children, reading them Bible stories.
Eventually, the parents were attracted and he
was able to teach them.
And I believe it was in 1921 that he had his
first converts.
The University Church of Christ, in conjunction
with some other area congregations, built
the first building for our Spanish-speaking
brethren here in the United States.
But I want to read to you a short article.
Brother Shug was asked to address this issue of
Mexican outreach, Mexican mission in Texas.
And I do have a handout for you that you're
welcome to have a better copy of this.
I want to thank Bob Gomez for doing that for
us, making us some copies of some of these handouts.
But Brother Shug wanted to challenge the
brotherhood, and this is from Bowles' Word and
Work, May 1930.
And he mentions that there are probably about
half a million Mexicans in the U.S.
And he says, you know, we really have got to
work at reaching this huge segment of the
population, you know, half a million.
We're looking at, what, 30 million nowadays, probably.
But he tries, let me read this so that I, let's
see, he says, there are probably half
a million Mexicans on this side of the Rio
Grande and 16 and one half million on the
other side.
Can we shove the responsibility of their
salvation over on the Catholics and others who
use unscriptural
names and ways, or are we responsible for them?
And he calls the brotherhood to work and to
pray for the salvation of this group of people.
And he challenges the church to get behind this.
And let me confess something to you.
A few years ago, growing up myself in one of
these Spanish-speaking churches, that's
basically how I came to know the Lord.
When I was 16, 18, of course, full of myself
and whatnot, I looked at that work and I looked
at its history and I thought, you know, what a
horrible failure this ministry was.
And I came to ACU and I wanted to do,
basically, I was running away from some things.
A man by the name of George Rogendorff, when I
was about 24 or 25, started trying to recruit
me and say, you know, we really got to think
about getting you involved in Hispanic ministry.
I had several uncles who were involved in that
ministry and I saw, basically, their
life and their struggles and I said, you know,
believe me, I don't want anything to do with that.
I want the education that I'm getting so that
I, you know, will be, basically, building
a wall so that I won't have to deal with that,
you know, in my mind, that mess.
Eventually I felt convicted and went to Austin
to work in the Westover Hills Church in trying
to plant a variety of works.
And we did that in Central Texas for a few
years and that's how I came to know Mike and
work with Mike and Lockhart.
But Brother Suge mentions, and here's a
surprising thing, when I talk about all of that
and thinking
about this ministry as a failure, let me
mention to you that as early as 1928, when
there was
a little census taken of the Churches of
Christ, I don't know, I won't even ask you to guess,
there were 80 members, 80 Spanish-speaking
members of Churches of Christ in 1928, okay.
And again, I have handouts for you with that documentation.
But we had Churches in Sweetwater, of course,
Abilene was the first work.
We had Churches in Colorado City, Sinton, and
El Paso.
Those basically were the first places, the
first wave of Churches in 1928.
In 1930, the ranks swelled to about 250
members, and we're talking about not in Texas, we're
talking about the United States, okay.
250 members of the Iglesias de Cristo in the
United States.
Additional works began in South Texas, where
we're from, San Benito, Harlingen, Mercedes,
and some of these other communities.
I mentioned earlier, of course, Brother Suge's
work and this Abilene being the oldest work.
They built their building at North 2nd in
Cottonwood, and in 1965, that congregation
moved to 2174 Graham Street, some of us had
lunch there yesterday.
But I want to mention also one particular
individual that you might have heard of before.
He was an interesting young man because he
actually went to study at Bethany College
under Alexander Campbell.
His name was Jose Maria Jesus Carvajal.
He was born in San Antonio, and he enrolled at
Bethany College.
He excelled in his studies.
And in 1930, he came back to San Antonio with
the goal of getting the Bible in the hands
of his people, but he became involved in
politics primarily.
In 1835, he's elected to the Coahuila state legislature.
In 1839, he commands an American volunteer army
in an effort to found the Republic of
the Rio Grande.
In 1846, he commands a Mexican division, he
goes back and forth, opposing invasion by
the U.S.
He's eventually captured and imprisoned by the
U.S. Army.
In 1862, he joined Benito Juarez's Mexican
liberal army against the French, Maximilian.
He then retires to his ranch in the
southwestern part of, again, Hidalgo County,
where we're from.
In 1872, he moved to Soto La Marina,
Tamaulipas, and he dies there in 1874, that's
where he's buried.
The reason I want to mention him is because
there are so many times in history, there
are moments when, you know, if we could just
concentrate on what we're here to do, we could
do so much.
Here's an example of a young man who had the
admiration of Alexander Campbell for his bright
mind and his aptitude with the text, and yet he
gets involved in other matters and the
kingdom loses out.
I want to mention also early efforts in Mexico,
and again, simply because this ministry is
so intertwined with what happens in Texas, and
therefore in the U.S.
Also, before I do the section on Mexico, let me
mention that some of you are familiar with
the discussion lists that ACU hosts, Stone
Campbell and whatnot, and a couple years ago
there was a discussion going on, and I'm
usually a lurker, I just sort of, you know, I watch
what's going on, and every once in a while I
may say something, but not very often.
There's a discussion about this very subject,
and there was a young minister that was basically
trying to claim that the Iglesias de Cristo
have had nothing to do with the Churches of
Christ, that they came about somehow on their
own, that they, I guess, go back to Jerusalem.
I don't know how he figured this out, but this
argument broke out, and he was claiming,
you know, we owe you nothing, we don't have
anything to do with you, we're a totally independent
movement, and some of the folks that were
discussing this, of course, had been professors
of mine, and they knew I was on the list, and I
knew they knew I was on the list, so
I, you know, felt responsible to pop up and
say, you know, and say, well, no, brother,
so and so, you know, we really, our history
does go back, the Iglesias de Cristo are a
result of the mission work of the Churches of
Christ, and he got really upset, and, you
know, felt that, you know, I was siding with
the Anglos and all of this other stuff, and
what I'm telling you, the history is important,
because if we don't know our history, of course,
then we're doomed to repeat all kinds of
horrible mistakes.
In 1897, one of our first efforts to evangelize
in Mexico was headed up by C.M. Wilmoth.
We have a theological librarian here at ACU,
and these are some of his relatives, Craig Churchill.
They first came to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, later
to Tampico.
We don't have any record of any churches
established, because C.M. Wilmoth passed away
not too long
after having arrived in Tampico, but a brother
by the name of Pedro Rivas later on, now we're
jumping over to the 1940s, in 1958, Pedro Rivas
writes an article.
He's been asked to address how did the work in
Mexico get started, and Pedro Rivas was
the first man to go to Mexico and start
preaching in Torreon, establishing a school,
and he
writes an article where he mentions the fact
that he was encouraged by Brother John Wolfe.
John Wolfe did a lot of his work in the area of
El Paso, and went to Torreon to encourage
Brother Rivas to begin his work, but of course
not having any support, he was trying to provide
a living for his family by teaching in the
schools in Mexico, but eventually he decides
to begin preaching.
He establishes not only a church, but also a
preaching school, and the first preachers
in Mexico were trained there at that school.
This is in 19, began his preaching school in
1957, and the first, I'm sorry, in 1952,
and by 1957 he had trained 15 ministers that he
sent out into the field, and again I have
an article here basically that'll give you
those dates and facts.
He mentions the help of many churches in the U.S
., particularly the Central Church in Houston,
but it was from Torreon that the gospel spread
throughout Mexico.
I do want to mention some other early
preachers, Manuel Gutierrez preached in the
late 40s
in Ciudad Juarez, Matt Kirchville in El Paso in
Ciudad Juarez, John Wolfe in Matamoros
as far south as San Luis Potosi, we're looking
again at the early 1940s, Francisco Avila
preached in Durango, J.W. Treat worked mainly
in the states of Coahuila, Zacatecas and Durango
in the early 40s, Haven Miller in Coahuila,
Durango and Zacatecas, these are the Mexican
states, Victorino Najera in San Luis Potosi,
Agustin Arroyo in Durango and Zacatecas, Humberto
Figueroa in Monterrey, if I remember correctly
the Figueroas were related to Brother Rivas,
I think he married into that family, Ernesto
Reyes in northern Durango in the 50s, and
a sister by the name of Becky, I'm not sure if
I pronounced this right, Delota or Telota,
she traveled with Brother Treat and Brother
Miller in the 50s, she worked with the children
in Mexico, Harris Goodwin of course, founder of
Baxter Institute, originally in Mexico
City and later relocated to Tegucigalpa,
Honduras, he came in the 60s and also started a magazine
Lo Más Eterna, Santiago and Agustin Figueroa
worked in the states of Mexico in Morelos,
Jose Carrillo in Guadalajara, Manuel Arroyo in
Veracruz and Rodolfo Chavez in Veracruz
also, I want to thank Brother Arroyo for giving
me some of those names and dates, we have
a variety of preaching schools in Mexico, we
have two in Monterrey, we have one in Tijuana,
Instituto Bíblico Latinoamericano, Instituto De
Estudios Bíblicos in San Cristobal De
Las Casas in Chiapas, Instituto Bíblico in
Michoacán, Morelia, Escuela Bíblica en La
Huasteca, San Luis Potosí, I'm mentioning all
of this because I want you to see in a
minute we're going to try to compare and
contrast what we've done in Mexico and then
what we're
doing in the United States and I want to see, I
want to help you see the gap that exists.
Let me come back to the U.S. for a few minutes,
in 1958 there's a second issue of the Harvest
Field where Brother Kirchville estimates the
total number of Iglesias de Cristo members
at about 50 churches and 2,000 members. Now
remember in 1928 it was 80, 1930 250, 1948
500, now in 1958 2,000 members, about 50
congregations, we have about 33 full-time
ministers, we have
about 30 church buildings. In October of 1958
the elders of the church in McAllen where
Mike and I presently serve invite Brother
Wendell Scott to come to McAllen and to found,
to begin the first school in the United States
to train men for the task of ministry. That
enterprise, that project closed tragically in
1968, the school opened in 1961, I'm sorry
closed in 1966. I interviewed Brother Klein
Payton a few years ago because everyone that's
familiar with Hispanic ministry of course is
familiar with the work of Sunset, Sunset
School of Preaching. In 1962 Brother Klein
Payton opened what came to be known as Sunset
School of Preaching on the campus of Lubbock
Christian and I thought it was interesting,
I was not aware of this fact, in order to go
and to study for, to be trained for ministry
you had to be bilingual because instruction was
only in English. All along I thought it
was in Spanish. They did have Spanish
instructors but that was later on in the
history. They
trained most of our Spanish preachers, in fact
about 200 Spanish preachers and a couple
of years before they closed they did a survey
and found that 88% of the ministers that they
had trained were still in ministry serving the
church, particularly in the Southwest.
But the Spanish department at Sunset eventually
did close and what Brother Payton basically
told me was that the mainstream church is
basically tired of supporting their work that
the Spanish speaking brethren would not support
financially. In an August 1995 article the
Christian Chronicle estimated the present
membership of Iglesias de Cristo at about
10,000 with 215 churches nationwide. Of these,
141 are in Texas. Now you think about that,
215 total congregations, 141 of them are in
Texas. So if you're familiar with Hispanic
ministry and Spanish churches in Texas, you
basically have a pretty good idea of what's
happening. There are presently no sites
available where a Spanish speaking man can get
a bachelor's
degree in Bible, in Spanish, you know, Spanish
trained among churches of Christ and that
obviously was going to impact and will affect
how we do ministry. What kind of theological
background do these ministers have and what are
the implications for their leadership
capabilities and how far they're going to take
the church, the church that they work
with. I am aware of a tiny school of preaching
that is trying to get underway in Alton simply
because that's just a few miles from our church
building and every once in a while they ask
me to teach a class and they're struggling
because they're having a hard time attracting
full-time students. Brother Carol Robertson is
director of that school under the oversight
of McAllen North Congregation and I'm sure
there's some other places. I'm personally
not aware, not aware of them, but is anybody
here aware of any other training sites for
Spanish speaking men in the U.S.? In the U.S.,
no. Again, that. Pope Arkansas
just started. Okay. And again, just trying to,
you know, here we are, you know,
sitting in the lap of luxury and just trying to
get you to get a mental picture of where
we are presently. Now let me sort of
tongue-in-cheek back in, let's see, where is it?
In 1938,
a preacher in San Benito, Texas, and I think
his name will be familiar to most of us, J.D.
Tant, one of our early preachers.
Tongue-in-cheek basically mentions that he's
been in dialogue
with someone and he mentions basically our
problem in Hispanic ministry is that our Christian
colleges won't add bullfighting to their sports
curriculum. If we could do that, you know,
we could solve this thing. And I don't know
that it would be that simple, but I mention
that simply to say that even back then, again,
our brotherhood was trying to struggle, trying
to struggle with, you know, how do we do this
and what does this look like? Now let me ask
you, what do you know about the history of the
United States as it pertains to the Mexican
community? When we talk about Hispanic
ministry, obviously we're talking about much
more than
the Mexican community, but in our brotherhood,
we're basically talking about the Mexican
group because that's who comprises most of the
population in Texas. And again, most of
our churches are here in Texas. What's going on
in the 40s and 50s in Texas? Let me pitch
this. I didn't write it. I don't get a kickback
from it or anything. Chad Richardson, professor
of sociology at UT, University of Texas in Pan
American. Title of the book, Batos, Bolillos,
Pochos, and Pelados. The end tells you that
it's in English. You can read it, okay, but
the title, Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and
Pelados, subtitle, Class and Culture on the
South Texas
Border. This is, it's an excellent book to help
you understand class and culture of Mexican
community, but particularly of South Texas. He
tells, a lot of it is based on interviews.
Being a sociology professor, I took a graduate
sociology class a couple years ago there.
Again just to, as I struggled with this issue,
there were some things that, you know, looking
at the text, there's some things that I could
look at and focus just using
the text. There's some other things that I
couldn't get my mind around simply because
they had to do with sociological issues. So I
took a graduate course there in sociology
and some light started turning on for me, but
one story that he tells, he talks about,
he interviews a young man that, about my age,
and he talks about going to the movies. His
father and he and his siblings go to the movies
one Saturday and they go and they take their
seats in the section set aside for the Mexicans
and the father goes to get popcorn and whatnot
and as he comes back in the dark, he
inadvertently wanders off into the section
that's cordoned
off for the Anglo population. And he tells
about seeing his father being basically attacked,
viciously attacked by the populace there simply
because he mistakenly wandered off into the
wrong section. And he talks about that night
hearing his father cry for the first time,
not over the bruises and the scrapes that he
got, but just at the shame that his children
had to see that. And as you do Ministry in a
context where reality is shaped by your
experiences, what you see and what you
experience are a part of you and you can't get
rid of
that. And when you try to do ministry in a
context like that, the church needs to do
everything that we possibly can to try to
counteract not only those kind of prejudices
and whatnot, but also try to communicate to the
community in one way or another that we
genuinely love you, we genuinely want to serve
this community. I know when there's an elementary
school right across the street from our
building, and in McAllen and probably in other communities
they have what's called Partners in Excellence,
where the schools recruit businesses to help
them because sometimes the school budgets won't
allow them to do certain things, projects
and whatnot. And so we at Harvey Drive, we are
Partners in Excellence with Jackson Elementary
right across the street from us. I remember
when I first started going to campus and volunteering
to read to the children or different things,
they're going to be having their graduation
in our building because the cafeteria is so
small, parents can't see their kids graduating.
They graduate from kindergarten and they
graduate from fifth grade and whatnot. But as
we got
more and more involved with that school, the
first reaction that I got was, you are a minister
at that church? That was shocking to them. I'm
the first Hispanic that has ever served
in the staff of that church that wasn't working
with the Mexican community off here somewhere
across town or in the back room, but actually
at the Harvey Drive church. And that church
has been there for 80 years. I say that not to
condemn, but I'm trying to get you to understand
historically where we've been and how the
community looks at things. Because again,
it's hard to get rid of some things that are in
our memories. Now, just trying to provide
you with a snapshot of our early efforts. So
again, when we talk about unfinished business,
on the one hand, we can see that no, we haven't
been a failure. We've had some success. Because
to go from two or three early converts here in
Abilene to 10,000, that's to be commended.
That's commendable. And yet, we need to ask,
let me put it this way. How many Christians
do you think are in Abilene, Texas? How many
members of the Churches of Christ? Let me
rephrase that. How many members of the Churches
of Christ are in Abilene, Texas? Would it
be fair to say that close to 10,000? About nine.
But yet we have only 10,000 members
of Iglesias Y Cristo nationwide. And I'm taking
at face value the work done by the Christian
Chronicle. I'm comfortable with those figures.
On the one hand, it's wonderful that we have
10,000. On the other hand, I reflect on that
and I go, we have so far to go. And so historically,
as we've tried to do this, there's been
primarily one approach to Hispanic ministry. Basically,
everywhere you go, you see that one approach
repeated over and over and over again. And
in our next session, we're going to look at
influences that influence Hispanic spirituality.
In our third session, we're going to try to
take the first two sessions and try to come
to some conclusions and maybe make some
recommendations as to how we can do this
different and how
we can, but I do want to leave about 15, 20
minutes just to discuss because I make a lot
of leaps in my mind. I'm familiar with the
material and sometimes I just run through
things and I want to take some time to dialogue
because, again, that's, I think that will
be helpful. Let me ask first, do you have any
questions about just the history part
of this? There's some things that maybe weren't
clear to you. Let me give you these to pass
out while we're talking. Let me start this one
off in the back. Were most of you aware
of the history or is that news to you? How many
of you have works at home or are you
thinking of starting a work? Starting one.
Where are you from? Glen Rose. In the 70s.
What does that look like? Well, we had a
separate, we purchased a separate lot, a
building, and
dig up the ground. But the guys I was with were
like, I don't know, I'm not going to
to come to the elders to us and say, we have a
problem and we want you to address this.
And we said, wait, we're not over that kind of thing.
Remember, it's just over our own kind of thing.
You know, it's gone, in fact.
And we didn't give them, possibly, the help
they needed.
But also, though, we didn't understand what was
going on in those locations.
So, with Daryl's discouragement, well, we
brought them in.
And we made it on.
And they stayed in our corner with us through
communion and the worship.
All the songs were translated in Spanish for
them, which they cannot read English, and so forth.
And we have a dinner on Wednesday night, which
they come in with us also.
And so, we all have fellowship more than just
one contact a week or whatever. Right.
That has been the best thing that we've seen yet.
And so, we're all in one building now.
We're there five years through, one time a week.
And you've been doing that for how long?
We did, we brought them with us, I think, until
last year, 1999.
Maybe 1998, maybe, but maybe, but 1999.
So, a little over a year, maybe 15 months or so.
And that's working pretty well for you.
I think it really is.
Because, you know, one thing is the fellowships
we have.
We have more fellowships.
They have a monthly fellowship with Ann Arbor,
Herbert, and around.
So, they associate with the other
Hispanic-speaking people.
But they're with us now a lot.
And that has been better than the except for congregation.
And what we're doing now is getting ready to
ask them to appoint, not them,
we ask the congregation.
As our mission says, we don't have two
congregations here.
We don't have a Spanish congregation, an
English congregation.
We have one congregation, some speak Spanish,
some speak English.
That's what we're trying to bring forth.
But anyway, we're getting ready to ask for a deacon.
And primarily we want the Hispanic-speaking
brethren to put forth the men
that speak Spanish so we'll have
Hispanic-speaking deacons as well.
And eventually, hopefully, they'll train,
their men will become elders or should qualify
as elders.
Right, right.
Which congregation is that?
It's Dumas, Texas.
In Dumas, Texas.
First Street.
Yes, Sir.
My name is Pablo.
Tell me your name. Pablo.
Originally from El Salvador.
Let me just say again, in 1978, the elders of
the Mahatma Church asked me to start a Hispanic work.
And I was there until 1994.
That work has produced five deacons.
And I don't have an update, but probably an elder.
And this is basically what you are doing,
it's kind of hard to erase from the minds of
the people that there are two congregations.
One, we have the elders of the Mahatma Church
with our elders and all that.
And we used to do it once a week.
And at the same time, you might talk about
speaking in poems, but it wasn't allowed.
And it went very well.
But one factor the English-speaking
congregations needed to be aware of,
that many times we do not allow Hispanics to
really grow,
because we have this protective hand over them,
not letting the child take the first steps.
We don't want the child to fall.
So we want to give that child all the way and
all this advice.
But most of the time, let the child fall, and
let the child learn how to get up on his own.
I'd like to see more of that.
And speaking about numbers, I'd love to talk.
Talking about numbers, it is...
I can help.
It's embarrassing to think in terms of the
church, period, the church at large,
whether it be Hispanic, Corinthian, Chinese, or English-speaking.
But all what we can count for is the Bible Belt.
You move out of the Bible Belt, and the Church
of Christ is unknown in that foreign, far away,
far removed territory of the Northeast.
I come from New Jersey. I identify with your situation.
I am the first Hispanic preaching to an
English-speaking congregation in New Jersey.
We have 3,500 members in the whole state of New Jersey.
That's preacher's count. Do you know how that goes?
It's the same in Constitution.
Okay, now, one congregation here in Texas can
have that number.
So I would like to see more encouraging words
for people to go out and do work.
We are seeing, obviously, we have an interest
in doing missions.
There's a lot of mission teams that have gone
out from our universities and whatnot.
And as we look at our third section and
throughout, we want to encourage more and more,
obviously, a focus.
You mentioned the Bible Belt.
Our Spanish-speaking churches are all pretty
much in the Bible Belt, and yet, again, we look
at the numbers.
And so I want to encourage us to, and again,
we'll do more of this in the third section,
but I want to encourage us to look at some
other ways to do this.
The church where we're at, Harvey Drive and
McAllen, I was baptized when I was about 10
years old at that congregation.
At that time, they had a building on Gumwood
Street, and I think for like 46 years,
the Harvey Drive Church sponsored a ministry to
the Spanish-speaking community of McAllen,
at times across town and at times in another
section of our building.
But after 46 years, we evaluated that work.
Our elders at Harvey Drive were spending a lot
of time, about 85% of the time,
refereeing intramural disputes between the deacons.
They had deacons.
Our Spanish-speaking congregation had some
deacons, and the deacons and the ministers were
always at odds,
and so our elders were spending a lot of time
with that.
And there were some other things that came up,
and eventually it was necessary to,
you know, if you're going to be over here all
the time, then let's just bring you in here,
and we'll meet in another section of the
building, but still separate, you know,
separate preaching, separate communion table,
all of this.
And when I came to Harvey Drive, we started
dialoguing with the elders and talking about,
you know,
what are we communicating to the population of
our community?
You know, when we're saying, when we look at
the fact that you can no longer be told because
you're, you know,
pink, brown, purple, or whatever, you have to
go to X, Y, or Z school.
You know, that's against the law.
The government says you can't do that.
So, you know, basically what we have is the
most segregated hour in American society is
Sunday morning.
You know, at any other time, you know, we're
working together and there's problems, but we
make it work.
We go to school together, we, you know, go to
the same jobs and whatnot, and we function.
But for whatever reason, the church has been
very, very slow because we all have our preferences
and we all have our comfort zones and all of that.
But we started dialoguing and talking about,
you know, what if,
what if we could present to the South Texas
community with all its history and everything,
what if we could present them with a community
of believers that can overcome their differences
and worship together and come, you know, before
the Lord's table together as one.
And so we started looking and planning and
brought in our staff member that worked with
our Spanish-speaking congregation.
We asked him, the elders asked him to go.
So, you know, we want to keep you on staff.
We're going to be changing some things.
We want to keep you on staff and we want you to
talk to the rest of us without aid of a translator.
And so we're going to ask you to learn English.
And one of the characteristics of our
Spanish-speaking preachers, of course,
is that a large majority of them are
monolingual Spanish speakers
because, you know, they've come from, you know,
whether it's Mexico or some other Latin
American country.
And you can live in South Texas and never learn
English, you know, like you can in a lot of
large cities
that have a section of the community where you
can just get lost down there, you know, and not
have to learn English.
We were asking our minister on staff, you know,
for the sake of our plans and for the sake of
the church
and so we can be a better witness and then you
can really be a part of our team.
We want you to learn English.
We're going to give you time to do that.
You know, we have schools down there that do
that for business folks.
And we started laying the groundwork.
We, myself and the elders, went to visit with
our Spanish-speaking members and talked to them
and looked at the Book of Acts and, you know,
tried to walk up with some things.
But would you believe that no sooner had we
announced what our intentions were,
we lost a large section of our Spanish-speaking brethren
and we lost some of our English-speaking folk
as well.
But we had determined that after 46 years of
work and effort and whatnot
and having a little group of 35 members, we
thought, you know, there's got to be a better way.
And so, you know, and looking at some of the
dysfunctionality that we're having to deal with,
we said, you know, we may not have all the
answers, but after 45, 46 years,
maybe it's worth looking at another model, at
another option.
And so we're basically doing the same thing.
We have a class that we provide for
Spanish-speaking adults, those who prefer Spanish,
and we have some folk, you know, that are Anglo
folk that basically they want to identify
or they want to encourage, and they come and
they're part of that class.
You know, that had never happened before.
We worship together.
You know, there are no longer two tables in
different parts of the building,
but we have one Lord's Supper, and there's some
theological implications to that, you know. Yes?
One thing that we tried, we tried different things.
We can tell you a lot about failure.
We should, you know, perhaps sometimes speak on
that with more authority.
But we, as Abel said in the past, at least in
our context, the Spanish brethren,
brothers and sisters, were all kind of shelled
off to the Annex and, you know,
the backroom kind of situation, and observing a
separate Lord's Supper.
We said, well, that's theologically awash.
So we, you know, we all came together, suffered
backlash for that,
and then on Sunday nights, we said, well, you
know, so often what's been communicated
to the Hispanics is that they're kind of a
subsidiary of the Anglo population,
you know, as existed by the backroom, second
after Saul's time in Hell.
So what we recommended doing and what we
implemented at that time
was for the Spanish-speaking brothers and
sisters to be in the main auditorium
and for the Anglos to go to the Annex.
And the fallout from that was, needless to say, fascinating.
We had folk that stormed and screamed and
fussed and said, no way, and all of that.
So I just mentioned this is all kind of, you
know, the oral history type thing.
You know, maybe it's, you know, don't let this
happen to you.
Take with it what you wish.
But all the way to say that it's very, very hard.
If you're beginning a work like this, you need
to be aware that patterns,
whether you're talking about a family system or
whether you're talking about a church system,
are notoriously resistant to change.
The tendency will always be to revert back to
the old pattern, always.
And this is what we encountered.
You know, you can try as you might.
It will take a bulldog or pit bull tenacity
and, you know, just not wavering
and just stay on course because you will have
people that will fuss and leave
and threaten and cajole and everything else.
But I think for the sake of the Lord's Church
and for the sake of the Hispanics in the U.S.,
you know, if we don't do that, then we're just
setting up for extinction.
That's our point.
The other mic.
There is a very important factor in an
integrated work that needs to be addressed,
and that is when we at Johnson Street in San
Angelo do have a bilingual integrated work ministry.
The elders are viewing and they want to see
that the Hispanic group that meets there at
Johnson Street,
that we're one church.
However, and we've gone around and around with
the elders there in San Angelo,
my concern has been that the eldership, if they
view that Hispanics are one with the body,
they need to be shepherding to the Hispanic
group as much as to the Anglo group,
outside of just the monthly meal.
And, of course, that means more work.
Well, but it's part of the church.
It's part of the hope.
Sometimes it's very difficult to try to
persuade and convince our Hispanic members
to believe that they're really one with the
Anglo group
when they see a lack of participation from the eldership.
They're not shepherding over the Hispanic group.
One of the things that we've done to address
exactly that point is on Sunday nights,
what we've done is we have broken up the
congregation into whatever you want to call them,
care groups or brother's keepers groups,
whatever you want to call them.
We've broken up the congregation, and
originally we had one elder.
We had three staff members, three ministry
staff folk, and we had three elders.
So originally we came up with three groups with
one minister and one elder over each group,
and that would allow for some theological.
Sometimes the elders are shy about doing some
things, and so you've got a minister there.
Then you also have an elder there to make sure
that those young ministers don't go wild.
But that worked really well.
And then when our elders were comfortable with
that, then we split that up,
and now each minister and each elder has a
group that they oversee, that they work with,
and that they shepherd.
And so on Sunday nights, and of course we have
that building there and whatnot,
and we don't want a visitor to come by and not
find anyone there.
So one of our groups will always meet at the
building on Sunday night,
but we're in each other's homes on a Sunday night.
Again, we've only been doing this for, let's
see, I'm trying to think.
It's about three years ago that we, time flies
when you're having fun.
About three years ago, I think, that we went
through the system.
Numerically, if you look at that thing, if you
ask has that been successful,
it depends on how you define success.
Numerically, we've lost some members.
We've lost quite a few members.
But if you look at our involvement in our
ministries, involvement in our mission work,
or the all-important budget, we're doing better
than we ever have.
So I guess what we set out to achieve is unity,
although with the existence of diversity.
And at this point, I feel very comfortable
saying we do have that.
We still ask ourselves and we struggle with the
fact that some folk are having to sit in the auditorium
and not hear their, quote, native tongue.
And what we do is we have a sound room upstairs.
I'm in that sound room, and I am translating
what Mike is saying.
And so the few folk, we have anywhere from 8-10
to 14 folk that will take advantage of that.
The rest of our congregation functions
perfectly in English.
But we do have, for identification purposes,
and I think that's important,
we do have bilingual prayers and just a few
things to emphasize.
Because some of our members originally, you
know, yeah, we'll give money so that we don't
have to see it,
hear it, whatever, you know, out of sight, out
of mind.
But we want to say to the community, you know,
somebody walks in, we want to say,
we know you're here, we want you here, we
identify with you.
And so we're working on our worship service to
make it more bicultural,
more basically to reflect the area that we live in.
Talking about my project and whatnot, I do have
an appointment,
so we're going to give you about five minutes
that you had counted on.
Any, yes?
How would you start at the work?
I understand when you already have the work and
you don't think it's good.
How would you start work when you have a
totally separated community?
How do you reach to them when you have, you know,
English-speaking congregants here in the community,
with the Hispanic community in the outside of town?
How do you start?
One of the, I guess probably the best way I can
answer that is by meeting people's needs.
That would be just a quick response.
And sometimes that takes different shapes
depending on what your community looks like
and what the needs are there.
But one of the things we're bombarded with
every week, never does a week go by
that someone's not knocking on our door asking
for food or asking for clothing
or asking for, you know, just a variety of things.
And we used to set aside X number, you know,
several $1,000 a year, you know,
with our little tags, you know, benevolence or
whatever you want to call it.
We would set aside X number of dollars, and we
did that in a variety of ways.
But, you know, if somebody knows that you're
helping people with their bills
or electricity or gas, whatever it is, you can
spend huge sums of money very, very quickly.
You know, what we do more nowadays is we try
to, we work with helping children get clothing
to go back to school.
We have a year, once or twice a year, we'll
have, we'll announce to our community
that they can come and they can outfit their
children with, you know, whatever it is,
jeans, tennis shoes, whatever.
The school will contact us about specific needs.
In particular families, there was a tragic
death in one family,
and they couldn't afford to bury their child,
and, you know, we took care of that.
Were you talking just about clarification?
Were you talking about just starting like from
the very get-go? Exactly.
Like it's no work, right?
I understand that, but people are here, and if
you open a step here, they don't even know it.
And when you're there, they don't even want to come.
They just don't come.
They don't speak English.
This was a situation we faced in Lockhart, and
there was, at that time,
I don't know what, Bob, you may have more
updated demographics now,
but I think at that time it was like 48% of the population.
This is like-
It was 58, I think.
Yeah, 40, 50, somewhere around there.
Basically half the population was Hispanic, and
there was virtually no Hispanics in the church.
You know, same sad story.
And so I began-I talked to the elders at that
time and said, you know, this-
and, you know, kind of went over again the
future demographics and said, you know,
this is going to be the wave, I said.
This will progressively become more and more of
a Hispanic community,
and if we're not seriously doing something now,
the population can pass its fire,
the church will gray, die away, and that'll be
the end of the story.
And to their credit, they said, yeah, that
makes sense.
So I began, myself, going to the Adult
Community Education Center,
made friends with the director who was a Puerto
Rican, worked with him,
and he worked with me in Spanish.
And through him, as we developed a relationship,
he would help interconnect me with various
members of the community that came to the-
you know, for ESL classes or GED classes or
what have you.
And he would even go with me.
We'd make little home visits and so forth.
Then Abel came aboard, as he said, through
George Rogendorf and the Westover Hills Church.
And then Abel kind of took the ball and began
developing the work there.
By the time he left, we had, you know, many
more Hispanics than obviously we started,
which may not be saying much, but it was a
significant start.
The church there eventually had one of the
folks that Abel helped bring into the church as
an element.
And so I'd say, you know, that's just whatever
it's worth.
In other words, that's kind of how we started.
And I think you find a place where-and a place
like an adult community education center
might be a good place to hang out, get to know
the director.
And that's why I mentioned meeting needs,
whether it's education, whether it's food, clothing.
And you don't have to have any members or
anything like that,
but you do have to have someone that's going to
lead in that ministry.
And most of our early works were begun by folks
that spoke very little Spanish.
Eventually, obviously, somebody's going to have
to be able to dialogue with these folk.
My question was more about geography in terms
of, you know, the two different places.
That's what I was wondering. Were you talking
about two different churches, like a Spanish church?
No, no, no. What I'm saying is the Hispanic
community is way-
Across the tracks kind of thing.
To give, I guess, something analogous, when I
was in Hillsboro,
the Hillsboro community was very, very racially divided.
You know, the tracks pretty much separated the community.
There was a-there wasn't a Hispanic
congregation there,
but there was a white congregation and an
African-American congregation.
In the past, the two never really had much to
do with one another.
So that's important.
I and another man met with the brothers and
sisters there.
You know, we said, you know, we need to do
something about this.
We said they agreed.
And so we began, for example, having joint
worship services, joint fellowships and so forth.
And then we had people that wouldn't show up
for those.
People that said, you know, I'm not going to,
you know, meet with blacks.
And they used-of course, used more pejorative
language than that.
But, you know, basically what I told them was,
you know,
well, don't let the gates of Hell hit you on
your way out.
And again, you just-with racism, you have to
call it as it is.
You cannot kowtow to it.
You can't sweep it under the carpet or wink or,
you know, nudge.
It's a sin, you know, just like adultery or
idolatry or anything else.
But I think finding those shared moments, I
think to have, for example,
some kind of event to get together, something
at the park,
something that you can invite people to.
I mean, it has to be a one-to-one thing.
You have to be personally invited, not just
send a brochure and say, y'all come.
But personally go and say, we really want you
to come to this.
And I think that personal touch, that genuine
sense of caring is what ultimately rules with it
and helps build bridges.
And they may not be, you know, Bible studies initially.
I mean, you know, just opportunities to-
I think some of the earliest things that we did
were cookouts and, you know,
just what you would do with friends and family
kind of stuff.
Just a quick note here, the church in Atlanta,
the Chestnut Church,
they started putting on their clothing and bands
and taking them to these immigrant communities
and just opening the doors and spreading the word.
And they just make friends.
And eventually they'll find somebody that is
interested in what they're doing
and they establish a relationship as a Bible
study in that house.
That's the seed of a church plant right there.
Let me suggest something that we're just
starting in San Angelo.
And I think it addresses what you're asking.
Here is Johnson Street, a white-collar church,
way out away from the Hispanic population.
What we decided to do is Wednesday night, not
for everybody,
Wednesday night, those that in-well, maybe I
shouldn't say it this way,
but in lieu of being at church,
we put on some working clothes and go out here
in the neighborhood
and we designate a certain area for, let's say, Bob,
to visit two or three blocks, the same blocks.
And he's going to call on those people probably
twice a month or three, four months.
Bob will establish a rapport with that
particular neighborhood.
No one will know me if I go with a church invitation.
They'll know Bob because they've seen him around.
He's gone there to take them, oh, a little,
just a little token gift,
maybe a pair of glasses or a light bulb or salt
or water or something.
And what's prompting Bob to do that? The love
of God.
That's it. Have a good day. We'll see you later.
And you go back again. Bob goes back to the
same location.
And then we started what we're calling the
Christian Life Center in that neighborhood.
And now Bob, this is like his third month
calling on the same folks.
And they're kind of puzzled because, well,
what's in an organic?
What's he going to get out of it?
And then, but he'll then start telling them,
look, we're having a special gathering.
It's here, two, three blocks from your house.
And we're going to offer ESL, conversational
Spanish, GED, American citizenship.
And, of course, then we have some other folks
at Johnson Street that might not,
they might not like to go out door knocking and
doing that type of work that Bob is doing.
But they're specially trained.
They can teach a class with GED or ESL or
something else like that.
And so then we just tell them, you know, two,
three blocks from here,
we're having next Tuesday at 7:00, you're
welcome to come to it.
So my question would be, how do you make it,
don't start a congregation right there.
I guess that's a failure, right?
Make it separate.
How do you make it to then bring the people
right away before you're making a congregation there?
Maybe you will and maybe you won't.
That's what we're finding now.
Some folks will be extremely intimidated to go
to the Anglo white-collar church over here.
So you have something else to offer.
One of the things we're looking at in the third
session is that there's a variety of models.
Not that we don't need the Spanish monolingual view.
That's all that some people will be able to be
reached by, and that's okay.
What I'm saying is that's not the only way,
because there's not one way to describe what
Hispanics look like or what they prefer.
Believe it or not, it's probably maybe hard to
believe, but I did find someone to marry me,
and we have children, and they don't know a
word of Spanish.
That would be very uncomfortable in a
monolingual Spanish-speaking church.
My parents, on the other hand, when I was
growing up and I was a teenager,
they didn't know a word of English.
And so we need a variety of models.
I hope you didn't hear me say that the
Spanish-speaking model is no good and doesn't work.
We need that, and we need other models, though,
besides just that one.
We run out of time.
Thank you for your attendance, and hopefully
we'll see you again.