Ministering to Hispanics is an equally difficult and rewarding experience. There will be times when you become frustrated because some people cannot understand that salvation is a free gift, but you will rejoice when the truth finally penetrates a hard heart and the Savior gloriously transforms a Spanish speaker. You will feel as if you have wasted your time when people place work above worship or grow in the faith for a time only to grow cold inexplicably, but you will feel refreshed when a believer finally “gets it” and places Christ above all else in his or her life. You will consider quitting when the ministry does not grow as quickly as you had hoped or anticipated, but you will praise God when without warning He moves in such a way that many unbelievers place their faith in Christ in a short period of time or a number of believers commit to serve God regardless of the way in which He leads them.
If you are not truly called to Hispanic ministry, you will not endure. My wife and I could recount to you the names of a dozen North Americans who expressed interest in serving the Spanish speakers at Nueva Vida, but departed just as quickly as they had arrived. Often, the hasty exit occurred either because they did not fully invest their hearts in the ministry or because the romantic idea that hundreds would come to Christ in a worship service conflicted with the reality of periods of hard work without much discernible fruit. Hispanic ministry is not for the fickle!
If, however, God has called you to minister to Hispanics, continue on even in the midst of difficulties and discouragement. Read often Paul’s encouraging words in Galatians 6:9: Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. This verse does not state that we may reap, but that we will reap in due time if we remain faithful to the Lord and the work of the ministry to which He has called us.
The Hispanic population comprises the largest minority in the United States, and regardless of future economic or immigration issues, this statistic surely will continue to remain true. Not only has God called us to go to all of the nations (Matt. 28:19-20), but He has brought the nations to us as well. Amongst Hispanic peoples in the United States, the fields are white for harvest (John 4:35).
In 1968, Jorge Lara-Braud lamented the fact that “perhaps the most glaring shortcoming in the domestic mission programs of U.S. Protestant churches is the inadequacy of their outreach to . . . Spanish Americans who live in this country.”[1] Unfortunately, the same statement is true of national efforts in the twenty-first century as well. Now, more than ever, Spanish speakers in the United States need individuals and churches to invest in the planting of Hispanic churches that will in turn plant other Hispanic churches that will repeat the process until the glorious return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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