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The LCMS world mission director for North America, Bob Scudieri, says the vote to extend Pentecost 2000 initially surprised him. "But when you look at the census data and the ever-increasing opportunities to serve immigrants who are coming to the United States, it's not such a surprising decision after all," he says.

Jose Palos, coordinator of the United Methodist Church's National Plan on Hispanic Ministry, says census figures helped convince several Methodist conferences to appoint Hispanic ministry coordinators in, among other places, northern Indiana, northern Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. "The census figures really hit them hard. It finally dawned on people that there are Hispanics in their midst," Palos says.

One challenge Palos faces in implementing a denomination-wide effort to increase Hispanic ministry is measuring outreach. "It's one thing to count new church or ministry launches—we started 75 churches and revitalized many others," he says. "But have we asked existing local pastors what new outreach programs they have started? There is more outreach happening than we have been able to count."

Evangelical Covenant church-planting efforts emphasize incarnating into the various—not just one—Hispanic cultures, says the denomination's Hispanic coordinator, Walter Contreras. That includes curriculum development and training for those who are trying to plant Hispanic churches.

"There are many factors besides language to be considered in planting a Hispanic church," Contreras says. "Church-planting trainers need to be students of Hispanic culture." Covenant training materials note there are 17 Hispanic subcultures in the United States, and the differences in generation, economic class, and ethnicity compound the complexity of reaching out to them.

"In the training process, it is important for Hispanic coaches to be available to Hispanic church planters, for interpreting course material, converting case examples to Hispanic culture, and for encouragement and nurture," Contreras says.

Incarnation is the byword, even for Hispanic church-planting coaches like Contreras. "I am Argentinean. My work involves a lot of acculturation to the many different Latino cultures, because it's not just about knowing Spanish," Contreras says. "I have had to learn how to be a Mexican, how to be a Puerto Rican, how to accommodate my speech patterns and social skills."

Otherwise, the Evangelical Covenant Church systems for planting churches among Hispanics follow the denomination's established models—assessment, initial and continued training, coaching, financial support, pastoral care, and finding land and facilities, among other initiatives.

One of the first churches targeting the so-called Generation X, Calvary Church started in 1983 and has since grown to more than 1,500 members. As the church outgrew its facilities, leaders considered an all-too-common move to a large, suburban industrial park that could easily accommodate larger crowds and parking needs.

But Pastor Tim Celek asked a simple question: "What about the rest of Costa Mesa?" The rest of Costa Mesa includes a section called the West Side that is heavily populated by Hispanic immigrants. Hoping to incarnate into the community by moving the church to the West Side and by relocating a few church members and staff into houses in the area, Celek found a property for sale on the other side of the freeway—in context, the "wrong side of the tracks."

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November 12 2001, Vol. 45, No. 14