Multi-cultural Ministry Resources
Assess & Implement your Ministry Potential
The Central District EFCA Multi-cultural Ministry Team is here to help you assess your ministry potential and implement strategies to multiply healthy churches among Asian, Hispanic, African, Russian and Afro-American.
We welcome your feedback so that we can assist you in your ministry to reach out to all the people groups that God has placed in your sphere of influence. Let us know how we can help you turn your dreams into realities and reach more Multi-cultural people with the Good News about the Lord Jesus Christ!
He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.
Acts 17:25-27
Consider
Guidelines to help you ask and answer the questions you need to address in order to assess and implement your ministry potential
How is your church positioned for:
- Increasing multi-cultural attendance in our EFCA churches?
- Developing ministries to reach out to multi-cultural people?
- Planting new multi-cultural EFCA churches?
- Supporting district-wide multi-cultural ministries?
Resources for Getting Involved
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Inventory the opportunities and resources within your church and community
A – Resources in your church or community (people, skills, money, time, etc)
- Who has a vision for Hispanic outreach or ministry? Who is praying about it?
- Start a pray-and-plan team to brainstorm about ministry opportunities.
- Ask your pastor and elders and other church leaders to pray with you.
- Who has God brought to your church who can speak Spanish or teach English?
- Will they teach some key Spanish phrases to others in your church?
- Could they or others help teach English as a second language?
- Who has experience in cross-cultural ministry? How can they help?
- Find out what skills or resources they can provide.
- Follow up on other contacts they recommend.
- What specific resources are available or can be obtained? How & when?
- Make a list of your resource assets. Pray about how to use them. People: Skills: Facilities: Money: Other:
B – Needs of Hispanic people in your area (physical, spiritual, etc)
- Organizations, agencies or churches working with Hispanics.
- Find out who is doing what, and why, and how it is working!
- Observations of people in your church, community, schools, and elsewhere.
- Get as many perspectives as possible to understand the needs!
- Opportunities that your church could uniquely or quickly address.
- Make a list of specific needs that your church could meet soon!
- Practical needs (housing, food, clothing, language, etc)
- Spiritual needs (prayer, counseling, parenting, marriage, etc)
C – Data & information about Hispanic people and needs (statistics, surveys)
- Job prospects and projections
- Whats the job outlook for Hispanics in your area?
- How are Hispanic businesses growing in your area?
- What is the Hispanic income level, and need for assistance?
- What can you learn from area Spanish-language newspapers or radio?
- School enrollment information http://www.iowa.gov/educate/ & http://nces.ed.gov/
- How are your area schools changing? http://www.iowa.gov/educate/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=346&Itemid=299
- Population growth and outlook http://data.iowadatacenter.org)
- How will the Hispanic population of your city or county grow?
- What other census or survey data can you reference? http://www.seta.iastate.edu/
- Hispanic population http://data.iowadatacenter.org/datatables/CountyAll/coracehispanic20002005.pdf
- Who has a vision for Hispanic outreach or ministry? Who is praying about it?
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Challenges: What Barriers do You Face?
Identify challenges to tackle and specific resources you need to address the opportunities
A – Language – do you need bi-lingual people or language materials?
- Can you check with local schools, colleges, agencies, businesses, etc?
B – Resources – what other skills, finances or resources do you need?
- What specifically do you need? and when do you need it?
C – People – what other human resources would help you meet the needs?
- How can you encourage and train people for cross-cultural ministry?
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Implement step-by-step strategies according to the priorities your team identifies
A – How to increase Hispanic attendance in Anglo churches
- Offer sermon translation so they (adults) can hear in their own language
- Add Spanish words and music and prayers to your worship time & Powerpoint
- Start a Spanish-speaking or multi-lingual adult class or small group Bible study
- Provide transportation to your children’s ministry activities
- Provide camp scholarships to Latino Camp at Hidden Acres
- Host outreach events, such as “free food fairs” with family activities, music, etc
- Start a soccer team or league in your church, neighborhood or city
B – How to develop ministries to reach out to Hispanics
- Start a Spanish-speaking department or church-within-a-church or kids ministry
- Offer ESL or SSL classes at your church or elsewhere
- Offer marriage or parenting or finance classes at your church or elsewhere
- Work with local charitable or service organizations that can help meet needs
- Assist or lend resources to sports or youth organizations (soccer, scouts, etc)
- Start a food pantry or “free store” for clothing and other household needs
C – How to plant new Hispanic churches
- Provide your facilities and other resources to a Spanish-speaking church plant
- Or start a “church-within-a-church” to provide supervision and support
- Structure your worship and class times to share facilities, resources, staff, etc
- Or provide facilities, finances, personnel, to help plant a new off-site church
D – Supporting district-wide ministries
- Latino Family Camp
- Provide financial or human resources for this annual event
- Make sure someone from your church attends or assists
- Distribute publicity to other churches and businesses
- Hispanic Ministries Summit
- Participate in this forum to share information and experiences
- Contact the Central District office for details on the next Summit
- District Multi-cultural Ministries
- Provide finances, prayer, personnel and other assistance for the EFCA staff person (Brad Wos) directing Central District Multi-cultural ministries and support the needs of EFCA churches working to reach minority groups
- Donate to Multi-cultural Ministry (Brad Wos)
Evaluation: Keep Praying, Talking, and Working as You Build on Your Foundation
Involve more people as you evaluate your progress and keep trying new approaches
A – Look at opportunities, challenges, strategies from different perspectives.
- How does your church as a whole see what’s going on with Hispanic ministry? Your community? Your target groups? Other ethnic groups? Other churches?
- What does God think about what you’re doing or not doing?
- What do Hispanics really think about your church or ministry efforts?
B – Consider what it would look like if you tried something different.
- Realize it will take a long time and requires working from different directions.
- Involve more and more people (both Anglos and Hispanics) with new ideas.
- Start small or with a narrow focus, utilize and empower people as they surface.
C – Talk with other people, organizations & churches for different approaches.
- Get out of your comfort zone to connect with others who care about Hispanics.
- Be willing to try new things, be willing to fail, but equip your people to succeed.
- Realize that it takes time to build trust, relationships, and personal growth.
D – Support other district activities to learn and encourage more outreach.
- Especially if your church is not in a position to become actively involved in your own area, or if you need more time to develop resources and strategies.
- Your support of other projects will jump-start your own ministry learning curve.
E – Pray & plan on a continual basis, to re-focus your activities and objectives.
- Gather interested people and leaders in your church for feedback sessions.
- Make sure you are utilizing your resources and meeting the needs of people.
- Be willing to cultivate, plant, and water, as well as harvest.
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Latino ministry in the EFCA
- Latino Family Camp—weekend for families
- Adding Salsa to the Table: Reaching out to Latinos, audio CDs by Alex Mandes
- Que Pasa: What’s happenin’ Hispanic ministry
- Gateway EFCA Extension Theological Training
Mission and outreach in the EFCA
- EFCA Leading Edge Volume 7 Number 4 – April 2006 “Biblical Pattern of Diversity”
- Diversity Change
- Heart For The Often Forgotten People
- Compassion and the Poor
- Mission & Evangelism
- Evangelistic & Missional Church
Healthy churches in the EFCA
- Embrace Change
Other church planting resources
- Center for Intercultural Training
- Church Planting Resources
- Esperanza USA
- A Guide for Citizens & Communities (pdf)
- The Charitable Choice Handbook
- MultiCultural Toolkit
- World Impact
- Leadership Network
Publishers & Other Publications
- CAMINO Global bookstore
- Equipping The Saints
- Multi-Language Media
- Mensaje De Vida
- Desiring God
- Being Latino in Christ – Finding wholeness in your ethnic identity, by Orlando Crespo, InterVarsity
- One Body, One Spirit – principles of successful multi-racial churches, by George Yancey
- The Hispanic Challenge – Opportunities confronting the church, by Manuel Ortiz, InterVarsity
- One New People: models for developing a multiethnic church, by Manuel Ortiz
- Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America, by Juan Gonzalez
- Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond, by David Hesselgrave
- Hispanics building bridges with Anglos
- Cross-Cultural Servanthood, by Duane Elmer, InterVaasity
- Cross-Cultural Conflict, by Duane Elmer, InterVaasity
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Information that may fuel your fervor for multi-cultural outreach and prayer
Hispanics Lead U.S. Population Growth
- Minorities are coming closer to becoming a majority in the United States, with Hispanics as the fastest-growing group, according to recent Census Bureau statistics. Hispanics born as American citizens accounted for more than a third of the population increase in 2005. Hispanics are the largest minority group at 42.7 million. Blacks represented the second-largest minority group, with 39.7 million people. They are followed by Asians (14.4 million), American Indians and Alaska natives (4.5 million), and native Hawaiians and other Pacific islanders (990,000).Census statistics also show that 45 percent of children under age 5 are from a racial or ethnic minority. The overall U.S. population totaled 296.4 million in 2005; 33 percent of that number, or 98 million, were minorities.
A Picture of Poverty in the U.S.
- More than 37 million Americans live in poverty. Individuals under 65 earning less than $9,800 a year are considered poor. The average percentage of those living in poverty by race are: White 8%, African-American 24%, American Indian/Alaska native 24%, Asian 11%, Pacific Islander 13% and Hispanic 22%. (Newsweek, September 2005)
Unchurched Numbers Hit 76 Million
- One-third of the U.S. adult population—76 million adults—has not attended any type of church service or activity, other than a special event such as a funeral or wedding, during the past six months, according to research from the Barna Group www.barna.org
Hispanic statistics and analysis from national surveys conducted by Barna Research
- One third of Hispanic adults (32%) are born again, compared to 59% of black adults and 48% of whites. (2006) About 3% of Hispanics are classified as “evangelical Christians” (2006)
- Only one in four Hispanic adults (27%) claims to be “absolutely committed” to the Christian faith, significantly below the 65% of blacks and 58% of whites that reported likewise. (2006)
- Hispanics are no different than adults nationwide when it comes to the importance of their faith plays in their daily life. 89% of Hispanics say that their faith is a very important part of their life compared to 85% of adults nationwide. (2006)
- 62% of Hispanics believe that the Bible it totally accurate in all of its teachings, compared to 68% adults nationwide, (2006)
- Like adults nationwide, 37% of Hispanics believe that they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs with other people. (2006)
- 43% of Hispanics believe that when He lived on earth, Jesus Christ was human and committed sins, like other people, statistically identical to 41% of adults nationwide. (2006)
- 69% describe God as the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator of the universe who still rules the world today. (2006)
- 64% of Hispanics believe that Satan is just a symbol of evil and not a real living being (a belief held by 55% of adults nationwide). (2006).
- Hispanics are more likely than the average adult to believe that you can earn your way to Heaven, with 65% of Hispanics believing that if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in Heaven, compared to 54% of adults nationwide. (2006)
And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God and they shall reign on the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10.
