The 129-member church in Auburn Hills, Mich., recently hired its first full-time Spanish evangelist. About 40 Spanish speakers attend services each week, member Bill Young said.

The ministry didn’t develop from a detailed strategy to reach the growing Hispanic population in this Detroit suburb, Young said. One Sunday a Spanish speaker showed up at the church in nearby Romeo, so church members looked for someone to translate the sermons. The ministry grew and moved to Auburn Hills.

About 870 miles west, in Norfolk, Neb., about 30 of the Glen Park church’s 80 members speak Spanish, minister Jeff Schipper said.

In 1990 three Hispanic brothers from a newly opened meat packing plant started attending worship. The church recruited their father, Jose Martinez Sr., to serve as Spanish minister.

“Having a diverse congregation is a great blessing,” Schipper said. “It takes a little bit more effort to communicate, but it is worth it.”

In the 15 years since the church launched its Spanish ministry, members have learned that “as diverse as we are in the world, our needs are still the same — and the solution is still the same,” he said.

REACHING A GROWING DEMOGRAPHIC

In that same 15 years, the number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. has grown to more than 28.1 million — a 62 percent increase since 1990, according to census data.

Across the nation, Churches of Christ use different approaches to serve the growing demographic.

At the Silver Spring, Md., church, Spanish and English speakers have separate services, but meet together quarterly for bilingual worship, elder Earle West said. About a third of the church’s 300 members are Spanish speakers.

Both language groups have their own minister and choose their own deacons, who meet jointly with the English-speaking deacons. Both groups share a budget and cooperate in mission work.

“The ideal of a unified, multicultural church is continually stressed,” West said.

The Westview church in Greeley, Colo., is “one church with two languages,” preaching minister Terry Newton said. Before they split into groups to hear a Spanish or English sermon, they worship together, singing hymns in both languages simultaneously.

“When people first see us do it, they think, ‘This isn’t going to work,’” Newton said. “But it just does.”

In Nashville, Tenn., the Spanish-speaking Grandview Heights church meets in a building more than five miles away from the English-speaking Brentwood Hills church. The two churches partner in outreach to central Tennessee’s growing Hispanic community, said Grandview minister Roberto Santiago.

In nearby Franklin, Tenn., a Spanish-speaking fellowship meets in a house on the campus of the Berry’s Chapel church, said education minister Wes Gallagher. Several English speakers assist the Spanish service, with an average attendance of about 35, but “there seems to be quite a bit of separation,” Gallagher said. “We would like to change that.”

Many Spanish speakers come from a Catholic background, and “we are reluctant to leave behind all our traditions,” said Alejandro Sanchez, the church’s Spanish minister.

But that doesn’t mean that all Spanish speakers want to remain in separate congregations, Santiago said.

“I prefer to pray in Spanish. That is my native language,” he said. But the ultimate goal of the Grandview ministry is to “integrate the members into mainstream, English congregations.”

MAKING THE MINISTRY MULTICULTURAL

For many churches, integration begins in children’s Sunday school classes. The children of immigrants grow up bilingual, and often become part of their church’s English services, Santiago said.

That’s the case at the South MacArthur church in Irving, Texas, said cross-cultural minister Berto Murillo. Worshipping together is good, he said, but the minister is concerned that young Christians may start to deny their Hispanic heritage.

That’s why Murillo, a native of Honduras, prefers the term “cross-cultural” to Spanish ministry. To build a truly multicultural church, Spanish and English speakers must respect each other’s backgrounds, he said.

Murillo takes Anglo church members on mission trips to Honduras and Latin America to work alongside church members and professionals in Spanish-speaking countries.

Placing Anglo church members in an environment where they are the minority helps them empathize with their Hispanic brothers and sisters back home, Murillo said.

“I’m here with a temporary visa on this earth,” he said. “We all are.”

Regardless of what language they speak, church members should work together “to be a part of this grandiose project of God,” he said, “to reach every soul from every culture.”

May 1, 2007