What The American Church Needs To Know About The Growing Hispanic Community

 

 

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that Hispanics made up 15.5% of the population in 2010 totaling 47.8 million people.  These numbers are expected to grow to 17.8 % and 59.7 million people by 2020.  How should this effect churches and how we do ministry in this country over the next decade?

Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, GA recently launched a Hispanic service we call Fellowship En Espanol.  This has been an incredibly successful undertaking by our congregation.  The following are several observations:

• The influx of the Latino population into our congregation has brought a joy, vibrancy, and energy that did not exist prior to its launch.
• Pastor Miguel Montenegro is seeing lives changed weekly as people are finding hope and meaning in Jesus Christ.
• Fellowship En Espanol is drawing people from a greater distance than our regular services are.
• The service is growing rapidly enough that we will soon launch a 2nd service.
• While the adults mainly speak only Spanish, their children are bilingual.
• Therefore, the children of those who attend Fellowship En Espanol attend our church’s regular Youth and Children’s programming and are easily integrated.  Very interesting.
• We do not segregate our baptism services.  Freshly redeemed Hispanics take part in the church baptism services along with the rest of the congregation.  There are few things as beautiful as someone sharing the life-changing message of Jesus Christ in their native language.  
• While I may not understand the language, I have total clarity when seeing their tears, smiles, and hearing the joy in their voices.
• Baptisms, the picture of a changed life, crosses all language or cultural barriers and unites our church like nothing else.

In the July/August edition of Fast Company magazine, five companies are featured regarding how they are engaging this growing segment of our population.  Church leaders should learn from and apply these principles.

• Southwest Airlines – Communicate in a personal and direct style by using Spanglish – a mix of English and Spanish.  Hispanics deeply value relationships.  Create events that unite families and touch their hearts.
• JCPenny – Think of the Hispanic holistically.  JCPenny stocks smaller sizes in stores located in large Hispanic populations.  Understand their culture.  For instance, the Mexican Mother’s Day is a different day than ours.   Do you recognize both days as a church?  The goal for JCPenny is to build a lifelong relationship with their Hispanic community.
• Spooner – This company is launching brands in countries like Brazil in preparation for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics which will both be held there.  If you are a church that multi-sites, you should launch in Rio de Janeiro.
• Telemundo – It sounds obvious but Hispanics live among us.  NBCUniversal launched “Hispanics at NBCU” which helps bring the larger culture to the Hispanic media and vice versa.  Successful churches over the next decade will begin to seamlessly integrate Hispanics into all areas of the church including leadership, platform, and key volunteer opportunities.
• L’Oreal – You may not know this but Hispanics spend more time on social media than non-Hispanics.  The ability to build on-line communities and take advantage of house churches with streaming video of services is critical to reaching Hispanics in the future.

Simple question – Church leaders, what are you doing to impact the Hispanic community?

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