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Mike Gonzales began work as director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Hispanic Initiative Sept. 1. In an interview with the TEXAN, Gonzales discussed his hopes for increased gospel work among Texas Hispanics as they become a larger demographic group in the state.
Q. You’ve only been on the job for a month. At this point, do you have some goals formulated for what you want the Hispanic Initiative to accomplish in its first five years or so?
A. One of the things that I want to see is the development and the implementation of the “education superhighway” for Hispanic pastors. We need to develop leaders, pastors who are trained to lead churches. And it’s important that our Hispanic pastors are equipped to lead these congregations. We’re right now formulating plans to partner with Southwestern Seminary, The Criswell College, Jacksonville College and possibly Houston Baptist University. These schools will likely provide courses for our Hispanic leaders to be better prepared to do ministry.
At the same time, we have at least three candidates for PhD’s at Southwestern who are Hispanic, and we hope to see at least 10 candidates by the end of 2005.
Also, I’ll be acting as the liaison for Hispanic work to the SBTC missions department in training church planters. I’ll be helping in formulating a strategy specifically for Hispanic pastors and certainly, I’ll be working very closely with Terry Coy (SBTC senior associate) and we’ll be hosting a yearly retreat where we can address Hispanic church planting issues and training for prospective Hispanic planters.
I also see the need in helping existing Hispanic churches. This is a tremendous need. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve already talked with several Hispanic pastors and they see this as one of the priorities as well. Many of these churches need direction, they need resources, and they need a strategy for reaching the lost. Many of our Hispanic congregations desire to reach the lost in their communities but many also need to mature their congregations. This is an important issue, but many times the resources to do this are not available. They often don’t know how to tap into the resources or train their people to be better stewards–not only in money but stewards of time and other things.
Also, I would like to see more revival meetings in Hispanic churches. That’s one of my passions.
Another thing, I see the importance of producing materials in Spanish in helping these congregations train and disciple their members.
Also, we need to be sensitive to the generational gaps. When we deal with an Hispanic congregation, first and second generation, everything is done in Spanish. And when we look at the third and fourth generation Hispanics, they require more English and in some cases all English. So those are some of the things that we need to be aware of.
Q. How does Hispanic ministry differ in rural and urban settings?
A. You can have an Hispanic congregation in Dallas or Fort Worth or Houston or other metropolitan areas that have people from El Salvador, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, and some Mexicans. And so it takes a special person to unite those people groups and make a strong congregation. Some of these congregations fail; others become frustrated if they do not have the right leader who understands the Hispanic culture. So that’s one of the things I want to do as Hispanic Initiative director, to help cultivate leaders who know how to lead well.
Q. Earlier, you mentioned revival meetings. That approach works well among Hispanics?
A. Yes, I see a need for revival meetings. We need for God to show up and help our Hispanic congregations in winning the lost. Many times our Hispanic congregations are small and they do not grow, they’re not reaching their communities. They need to be challenged, and they need to have a personal evangelism strategy.
On a slightly different note, many of these small congregations, which is the majority, they feel abandoned; they feel left out of the denominational loop. We need to help them to provide training on the field, help them find resources that can minister to their churches. Right now we have over 70 Hispanic congregations in our convention. Many of them are struggling over finances or leadership and having a sense of being isolated.
Q. What are some of the obstacles to gospel proclamation among Hispanics in Texas?
A. Especially in South Texas the Catholic influence is still very heavy. I just did a revival in Rio Grande City and we had many Catholics come visit the congregation. It was interesting. We had a luncheon every day at noon, and we had maybe 40 percent of the people who were Catholic. In fact, in yesterday’s service there were five and six people who told me they were Catholic but said they wanted to come, they wanted to hear the Word, they wanted to hear the message, and that they were inspired. And so that leads me to believe that people are very open at rhis particular time. But it does become a barrier because many people still have family ties. It’s hard for them to break away from tradition. The people who came, they came by themselves. They didn’t come with family—almost like a secret believer.
The other obstacle that comes to mind is the generational gap. Sometimes the parents speak only Spanish and the children are beginning to speak English because they go to school. So there’s a great need for a Spanish and English ministry.
Q. What challenges do you see in planting Hispanic congregations?
A. The training of leaders and orientating our church planters. They also have to be not only trained in winning the lost but also in working within the cultural dynamics they encounter. Hispanics, for example, tend to be more family oriented. We need to develop ideas that include more family activities, family ministry. For example, when a person is baptized, we need to make a big deal out of it, because when you baptize someone, that’s a big thing in the Hispanic culture. We need to have a special service.
When you present a baby, that’s an excellent opportunity of having a service presenting the baby and inviting all the grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins—they’ll come out of curiosity. So there’s a lot of little things we need to do to help church planters relate to the culture and to reach out to them.
Q. The Hispanic population is forecast to be the largest demographic group in Texas by 2020. How can predominantly Anglo churches change to meet the challenges of this culture shift?
A. That’s going to be another area of transition where our Anglo churches, especially down in South Texas and in the metropolitan areas, are going to have to be open to reaching Hispanic people in their communities, or of opening their doors. If not, they’re not going to survive. That’s happening in South Texas. Churches that are traditionally Anglo that are opening the doors to Hispanics, they’re surviving. The ones that want to stay English-speaking only and Anglo, they are not surviving. That will be an issue we’ll have to deal with.
As the community changes, the congregation must begin to reflect the community. That’s going to be a challenge.
