Hispanic churches in the United States face unique challenges but are finding success in building community within their congregations and reaching those outside their walls.Lifeway Research partnered with two dozen denominations and church networks to include what is likely the largest number of Protestant Hispanic congregations in the US ever invited to a single research study. Sponsored by Lifeway Recursos, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, and Samaritan’s Purse, the study surveyed 692 pastors of congregations that are at least 50 percent Hispanic.
“For decades, the Hispanic population in the US has been growing exponentially, and it is imperative for churches to be informed about the specific needs of this community,” said Giancarlo Montemayor, director of global publishing for Lifeway Recursos. “This study will help us to continue the ongoing conversation of how to serve our brothers and sisters in a more strategic way.”
Congregational snapshot
The study reveals a picture of Hispanic churches that are newer, younger, and more effectively evangelistic than the average US Protestant church.
Most Hispanic Protestant churches (54%) have been established since 2000, including 32 percent founded in 2010 or later. Fewer than 1 in 10 (9%) trace their history prior to 1950.
Not only are the churches relatively new, but most people in the congregations are also new to the United States. The majority are first generation Americans (58%), born outside of the country. A quarter are second generation (24%), with parents who were born outside of the US. And 17 percent were born in the US to parents who were also born in the US As a result, a majority conduct their services only in Spanish (53%), while 22 percent are bilingual.
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Half of the churches (50%) are in a large metropolitan area with a population of 100,000 or more. Around 3 in 10 (31%) are located in small cities, 9 percent are in rural areas, and 8 percent are in suburbs.
In the average Hispanic Protestant church, a full third of the congregation (35%) is under the age of 30, including 18 percent under 18. Another 38 percent are aged 30-49, and 28 percent are 50 and older.
“The growth in the number of Hispanic churches in the US has been remarkable,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “While some of these congregations were started within Anglo churches—14 percent of Hispanic congregations in this study currently are conducting services within a church that is predominantly non-Hispanic—the missional impetus has clearly come from within the Hispanic community itself as two-thirds of these congregations are led by first-generation immigrant pastors.”
In US Hispanic Protestant churches, the average worship service attendance is 115. Like most other churches, they’ve not yet fully recovered from the pandemic. In January 2020, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the average attendance was 136. Still, 13 percent of churches are currently around their pre-pandemic levels. And 32 percent say they’ve grown in the past three years, despite the pandemic.
Almost every Hispanic Protestant pastor (99%) agrees, including 94 percent who strongly agree, their congregation considers Scripture the authority for their church and their lives.
Around 7 in 10 (69%) say their church has the financial resources it needs to support their ministry, which include some aspects that are common among most other Protestant congregations. Most Hispanic Protestant churches say they regularly offer weekly adult small groups or Bible studies (74%), weekly prayer meetings (66%), and weekly children’s small groups (52%). Fewer have weekly youth small groups (45%), weekly young adult small groups (40%), one-on-one discipleship, or mentoring (34%), evening large group Bible study (25%), or evening praise and worship (24%). Just 3 percent say they offer none of these.
When asked about moving weekend worship service participants to small groups, 42 percent of pastors say at least half of their adult churchgoers are involved in group Bible studies, including 15 percent who say at least 75 percent are connected to a small group. Around a third (34%) say fewer than 1 in 4 churchgoers also are members of small group Bible studies, including 9 percent of pastors who say none of those attending worship services are involved in groups.
As to what hinders their congregation from participating more regularly in church activities, most pastors point to long work hours for their churchgoers (61%). Others say extended family gatherings (35%) and personal hardships or crises (30%). Around a quarter point to recreational or entertainment pursuits (26%) and lingering fear of COVID (24%). Fewer say sports activities (20%), a preference to watch online (18%), lack of transportation (17%), school events (13%), or caregiver responsibilities (11%).
“Many of the activities within Hispanic Protestant churches look similar to those in non-Hispanic churches in the US with worship services, prayer meetings, Bible studies, and Sunday School classes being common,” said McConnell. “But pastors of Hispanic congregations are quick to point out immigrant families often have less time for church as many are working long hours, have family traditions and are impacted by American cultural distractions.”
Evangelistic outreach
Almost 4 in 5 pastors at US Hispanic Protestant churches (79%) say they regularly schedule opportunities for members to go out and share the gospel.
Specifically, most pastors say their outreach activities in the past year included church members inviting people to church (86%), using social media to share church activities (74%), children’s special events like VBS, Easter egg hunts, or Fall festivals (59%), community programs like food distribution, toy giveaways, or providing clothing (58%), and church members sharing the gospel in conversations (56%). Additionally, some congregations did door-to-door evangelism (30%), evangelism training (24%), and provided financial support for a new church start (12%). Hardly any churches (1%) say they have not been able to do any of those recently.
Their outreach seems to be effective, as close to half (47%) say 10 or more people have indicated a new commitment to Christ in the past year, including 24 percent who have seen 20 or more such commitments. Fewer than 1 in 10 (9%) report no new commitments.
As they’ve reached these new individuals, pastors say most are sticking around. Almost 3 in 4 (73%) of those new commitments have become active participants in the life of the church, according to pastors. As a result, 88 percent of Hispanic Protestant pastors say they consistently hear reports of changed lives at their churches.
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“Hispanic congregations are very active in engaging new people,” said McConnell. “Not only is there much evangelistic activity in Hispanic churches, but God is also blessing them with new people who commit to following Jesus Christ.”
Building community
As new members join Hispanic Protestant churches, they become part of congregations that are actively trying to grow together, according to their pastors. Almost 9 in 10 (88%) say their church has a plan to foster community in their church, including 53 percent who strongly agree.
Pastors point to numerous activities as vital to building a strong sense of community within their congregations.
At least 9 in 10 say praying together (96%), studying the Bible together (95%), choosing to get along and promoting unity (93%), welcoming those from different cultures and backgrounds (93%), choosing to be transparent and accountable with one another (89%), and checking-in or noticing when others are absent (90%) are very or extremely important aspects of unity in their churches.
Additionally, most say the same about members working together to serve people in the community (79%), socializing outside of church (81%), and sharing resources with each other (74%).
Most pastors say they’ve heard about their church members engaging in each of those actions at least a few times in the past month.
“Fellowship among believers in a local congregation is something the Bible communicates should be taking place,” said McConnell. “Hispanic churches take this seriously and invest in these relationships.”
Pastoral portrait
Among pastors of US Hispanic Protestant congregations, 93 percent are Hispanic themselves. Almost all (95%) are the senior or only pastor of a congregation, while 5 percent are Hispanic campus pastors with a multi-site church. More than half (56%) serve as a full-time pastor, 27 percent are bi-vocational, 10 percent are part-time, 6 percent are volunteer, and 1 percent are in interim positions.
Almost half of pastors in Hispanic Protestant churches (48%) are between the ages of 50 and 64. Pastors are more than twice as likely to be under 50 (37%), including 4 percent under 30, than 65 or older (16%).
Almost 8 in 9 pastors (85%) are male. Two in three (66%) are first generation Americans, while 15 percent are second generation, and 19 percent are third. Close to 3 in 4 are college graduates, including 44 percent who have a graduate degree, while 17 percent have some college and 10 percent have a high school education or less.
Theologically, 4 in 5 (79%) pastors at US Hispanic Protestant churches self-identified as evangelical. Around 1 in 6 (16%) say they’re mainline.
Today was Holocaust Remembrance Day (or Yom HaShoah in colloquial Hebrew). On this day, Jews do not have a uniform ritual for memorializing those who died as part of the Nazi genocide. The observance was established too recently (inaugurated only in 1951), for any genuine tradition to have developed. Jews marked the occasion in different ways today. I have even less sense of what I should do, but I decided this morning to wear my kippeh (yarmulke) to work as a sign of solidarity with my Jewish brothers and sisters. It gave me a number of opportunities to remind my Christian coworkers of today's significance.
The key issue Christians face is trying to grasp the degree of Christian responsibility for the Nazi genocide. Clearly, many German Christians were utterly complicit, but certainly not all. Clearly, there are cultural links between this history of Christian anti-Semitism and Nazi anti-Semitism. But there is more to the story than that.
Here are three things to remember and to help us have a balanced, accurate view of Christians' relationship to this great horror.
First, not all German Christians collaborated or quietly stood by. German Christians are counted among the ranks of the righteous Gentiles who resisted and protected Jewish lives. The most famous is, of course, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (See Christian History issue 32 for a full exploration of his heroism. And if you want to investigate the topic of righteous Gentiles even more, try to find a copy of the 1994 book by former CT columnist David Gushee, Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust: A Christian Reflection.) The stories of righteous Gentiles display how the fundamental Christian command to love our neighbors as ourselves motivated many to take great personal risks.
Second, Christian anti-Semitism was historically different in several key ways from Nazi anti-Semitism. One of those ways is the distinction between placing an accent on race (as the Nazis did) or on religious identity (as the medieval church did). Even in the church's teaching of contempt, the focus was on the spiritual blindness of Jews who refused to recognize what God was doing in Jesus of Nazareth. Baptism and conversion (and thus a changed religious identity) were always open doors for Jews who wished to escape prejudice and oppression. For a more detailed list of such contrasts, see my 1998 National Review essay about the Washington, DC, Holocaust Memorial Museum's handling of the topic. Also, my 1998 Christianity Today editorial, "Did Christianity Cause the Holocaust."
Third, without Christian activism, there would not be a Jewish homeland today. More to come on that in a few weeks when Christian History will publish the story of British Christians who wanted to show their love for the Jewish people in marked distinction from the history of medieval Christianity and its teaching contempt for the Jews. (These British Christians saw their efforts on behalf of the Jews as part of their Protestant departure from historic Catholicism.) They were responsible for the British government's 1917 Balfour Declaration, which laid the foreign policy and legal groundwork for the eventual establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In that forthcoming article, Donald Lewis of Regent College reports: "Seven of the ten members of the war cabinet that issued the declaration were from evangelical homes; six of the seven were from Calvinist backgrounds, including Balfour (the foreign minister) and Prime Minister David Lloyd George."
So on Holocaust Remembrance Day, please recall that the history of Christian relationships with Jews has both its bright spots and its dark corners. We bear the shame of our fellow Christians whose long teaching of contempt toward the Jews and whose complicity with Nazi policies led to the deaths of millions. But we also claim as our own the righteous Gentiles who stood up to the horror and the Christians who laid the foundations for a Jewish homeland. Today, we honor them.
