Reaching the Hispanic Community in Your Area
The Hispanic community must feel part of the mother church and not an inferior afterthought. It must not be a passing, “in vogue” outreach just to say a particular church has a Hispanic ministry. The mother church must be willing to invest in this ministry.
We found that our afternoon Hispanic service is more effective for us. We have weekly Sunday afternoon Hispanic service and a multicultural pastor. In addition, Pastor Joseph Perez teaches Bible studies, hosts conferences, broadcasts online Hispanic services, and ministers to many Hispanic works in our region.
It is important to understand that some Spanish-speaking souls prefer a separate service entirely in Spanish. Others prefer to attend the main service and glean what they can from the English service. Neither is right or wrong, nor all-encompassing.
One Sunday morning several years ago, I was personally stirred in my soul on my way to Sunday morning service. My wife and I passed several athletic fields full of primarily Hispanic souls which we were not reaching. I prayed that Sunday for God to give us the means to reach this sector of our community with the Apostolic message.
At one point, we did provide interpretation headsets and a live interpreter in our main services. Through a progression of events and prayer, God sent us first the Escobar family, and then a wonderful young evangelist with both the desire and abilities to establish a footprint in our Hispanic community. He now serves as our multicultural pastor. This family is faithfully growing La Primera Iglesia Apostolica de Knoxville.
