A friend is thinking of doing his dissertation research on Hispanic ministries in the United States and asked me if I knew of effective ones he might study.

What "effective" means is subjective, but he wanted to know of ministries that were seeing many Hispanics come to faith in Christ, others that were seeing Hispanic believers grow into maturity, and ideally, those churches or ministries that were seeing both evangelism and discipleship occur.

So, readers, please tell me about effective ministries to Hispanics that you know of....

When I was involved in a fellowship group in college, I was continually reminded of God's heart for missions.  While not entirely sure what this meant for me, at the very least I knew it meant I should go on a short-term mission trip.

On October 10, 2008, Evan Sparks published an article in the Wall Street Journal (“The ‘Great Commission’ or Glorified Sightseeing?”), questioning the value of short term mission trips.  His chief critiques include: the tendency of some trips to include large sight-seeing components (creating “vacationaries”); that capital spent on short term mission trips could be used more effectively as direct investment in the local communities (e.g., local home builders rather than 6 week trips to rebuild disaster areas, or supporting longer-term missionaries); and that such trips rarely have any measurable, lasting impact on those who go (the “service learning” justification). 

As to the final critique: 

Calvin College sociologist Kurt Ver Beek surveyed U.S. missionaries who built homes in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. After coming down from a post-trip ‘high,’ the short-termers did not evince much change in their lives. Only 16% reported ‘significant positive impact,’ including in prayer, friendships and financial giving. Then Mr. Ver Beek surveyed those whose homes were rebuilt by missionaries and those whose homes were rebuilt by local nongovernmental organizations. He found that there was ‘little or no difference’ in the spiritual response of the beneficiaries.Read more

One evening, with notepad and pen in hand, I visited a community that wouldn’t be mistaken for a PCA church. What struck me from the website first and then embodied at the gathering was their intention to be a church for dropouts and misfits. Whatever sins and idolatries encumber this particular ekklesia, phoniness is not among them.

I estimate that over two hundred twenty-somethings filled the cafeteria in the basement of large church building from whom this community received space. The young adults seemed to love the singing, which included both hymns with homegrown musical arrangements and other ‘organic music’ created by the worship leaders. We recited the Apostles Creed.

The minister preached for approximately 40 minutes on the subject of “Jesus Is My Hemi.”  He referred to Scripture early on, but mostly this was a topical theological message not dependent upon a close reading of Scripture. He surprised me by his use of terms like “ahistorical” “non-foundationalist” and “hermeneutic,” which left me wondering if the 22 year-old skater types that comprised a good chunk of the congregation knew those terms. (Perhaps they did.) They took up an offering, we sang some more before they prayed for the new leadership team, and then came the Lord’s Supper.
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In preparation for two weeks of short term mission work in Kenya that my wife and I have planned for our Church, I am reading Faster Beats the Drum by Gladys Stauffacher.  Its a granddaughter's account of her grandparents--two ground-breaking missionaries to Kenya, Uganda and Congo, during the first years of the Africa Inland Mission. 

John and Florence Stauffacher married knowing that God had called them to offer the Gospel to the souls living in East Africa at the turn of the 20th century.  Their whole lives were spent in the wilds of Africa, facing leopards, tribal uprisings, the turns of imperial tumult, war, famine...all of it.  Their first son, Raymond, spent three out of the first four years of his life in tent structures for home.  Only one year was in a solid structure house, and that was a rock and mud home his father built.

John and Florence would pray for people they only knew by the name of their tribes...Maasai, Rendille, Samburu and Kikuyu.Read more

Every Tuesday evening I stare into the face of a little girl I knew almost a year before I met her.

I began to know her in a pew in an urban Pittsburgh church during my final semester of college. She came to me in one of those God-filled mental miles when all of my future seemed to explode with purpose. From then on, I decided that whatever I would do for a career, wherever I would live, and whomever I would marry, I would give a part of myself to a little girl who needed a big sister, a friend, a guide.

Six months, a move across the country, and a new job later, I learned her name: Danielle, age 8. I had found a program for at-risk children in northeast DC, and signed up to tutor a child once a week in reading and math.

I thought she fit the bill. A child from a somewhat neglectful family, intelligent, excited to learn.

Together, we laid the ground rules: 1) We won’t be late to tutoring, 2) We won’t chew gum, 3) We will always be considerate of each other.

Then, we did phonics. We practiced multiplication tables. We read stories. I was a good tutor, and she was a good student.

And then one day, we switched roles.

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When Bailey and Elizabeth Marks married in 1959, their future appeared obvious. Bailey would work in his family’s successful furniture business and Elizabeth would raise their family in Birmingham, Ala., just like her debutante friends: with a nanny and maid and dream home overlooking a golf course

When God interrupted their plans, the Marks’ response reflected that of any new believer. “Little did I know the growing pains we were all about to experience,” says Bailey, “as we settled into a new way of life. Growing up spiritually was tough for me, probably because the Lord had a tough time getting my attention.” When He did, the Marks’ family up and sold their home, raised their financial support and moved to Campus Crusade for Christ’s headquarters, then in San Bernadino, Ca.

Once they arrived, Bailey faced another growing pain. There was no big, change-the-world job waiting for him. His fist assignment was to drive people between the headquarters and the Los Angeles airport. After two weeks of chauffeuring, Bailey began to use the lonely leg of the trip to argue with the Lord. “Is this what I left my lucrative business for?” he would ask. “I could have hired someone to do this job and continued my life in Birmingham!” Read more

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The knock came on my home office door about 10 that morning.  Not expecting anyone, I came to the door to find my neighbor, James (name changed), standing there, looking emotionally distraught.  He asked if I had had breakfast yet (“no”), and, with tears filling his eyes, he asked, “Do you have any time to talk?” 

I had met James not long after we moved into the Candler Park neighborhood here in the city of Atlanta two years ago.  I’ll never forget our first conversation in the kitchen of our home, when he came to introduce himself as the new next door neighbor, who was about to move in as well.  In his early fifties, James was married and had a two-year old daughter.  He had been successful in the home construction business for many years but had an inner ache for much of that time, to accomplish what he had always wanted to accomplish: graduate medical school, in order to become a doctor.  The son of an alcoholic father, he had been told many times while growing up that he wouldn’t amount to much, that he wasn’t “good enough” to achieve his goals in life.  And James half believed them, limiting his accomplishments and what he chose to do.Read more

            The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities...

 Isaiah 61:1, 3-4

  God has a pattern for transforming broken people and broken places. It is revealed simply in Isaiah chapter 61. The pattern has two parts. First, God moves into the lives of broken people. He did this most clearly through the sending of Jesus. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus was God’s anointed One to bring redemption and healing; to comfort those who mourn and bind up the brokenhearted. Through the ministry of Jesus, broken people are renewed and restored. That’s the first part of the pattern. The second part is that the broken people who are now transformed people become themselves transformers; God uses them to restore their broken communities. Think of what Isaiah 61 tells us about the people whom God meets, heals, and transforms. It says that they will be “oaks of righteousness” who will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated. 

We have the opportunity to participate in this pattern as we minister among the poor. We are the Body of Christ, and God calls us to move into the lives of the poor, believing that His power can transform them into “oaks of righteousness” whom He can use to advance His Kingdom in the “places long devastated.” Read more