With a sad look and a broken voice, a group of leaders in a church in California told me “we are dying, we are a church of aged people, the youngest  is 57 years old. We are dying one by one and this is leaving the building each time with less and less people. Our community has changed. We are surrounded by Hispanics. We have wanted to reach them for Christ and to continue with this church at this place. However, every effort that we have done has failed.”  I have heard this story in two churches here in the Metroplex, and likewise in one in Houston. The lack of vision brings a town to defeat.

 

The reality is that a lot of these churches had good intentions. In their own ways of working and culture, they tried to connect with the Hispanic community. However, this intent ended as a failure, a tasteless one. Some of these churches invested great quantities of money paying a Hispanic person to do the job. These churches, after some 10 years of intent, trying to reach the community, fired the person they commissioned. Other churches have had the good intention of assimilating Hispanics with their own people. Likewise, they ignore that the culture is not the same. Others have forgotten that the forms of practice: classes, Worship Service are not appropriate for a new generation and for a culture different than theirs, they have wanted to put new wine into old wineskins. Regrettable, but true, there have been leaders of some of these churches that have not wanted to share the faith and less the building with a community that is different than theirs.

 

Whether it has been because of bad decisions in selecting a preacher, or that they expect that the Hispanics enter automatically to become part of them or by simply not wanting to connect with the Hispanic community what we have today are buildings staying empty and many have closed their own doors because the demographics around the church buildings changed but the leadership inside of the church could not see that it was necessary to make changes inside the church to survive.

 

Empty buildings is what we will be seeing and that number will grow as long as there is nothing done about it. It’s necessary to apply what Paul implemented in his missions, “

²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.” (1 Corinthians 9:20-23).

 

Sixto Rivera

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