The Overlooked Missions Partner in Our Neighborhoods

Here’s an important question for churches to consider about outreach: What if we’re seeking to make the gospel known among the nations, but overlooking the Christians who could help us most?

Sadly, many churches invest significant resources to send short-term teams to Central or South America, but they fail to co-labor alongside existing Latino immigrant Christians in their own cities. 

What if working alongside those believers could help churches reach Latin Americans, with a better strategy than your typical week-long trip to Latin America?

IMMIGRANT CHURCHES ARE CLOSER THAN WE THINK

Given that Latinos are among the fastest-growing demographics in the United States, you’re most likely surrounded by immigrant churches you’ve never heard of. In Birmingham, I can name eight Latino pastors I know personally within a 30-mile radius, whose churches preach the gospel. These are just Baptist churches. There are four other Latino evangelical churches that are gospel-preaching as well. 

Whether in storefronts or garages, the Latino Protestant church often springs up out of nowhere, with little to no funds, and establishes itself. Church planting efforts focused on Latino pastors have heightened in the last decade, but funding remains a primary constraint for these efforts.

WHY IGNORING IMMIGRANT CHURCHES HURTS OUR MISSION

By overlooking the Latino immigrant church, more affluent evangelicals have planted churches where there’s less need, while overlooking co-laborers in the gospel who have access to neighborhoods with greater gospel need.

Partnering with existing Latino immigrant churches could give greater wisdom about where to partner, both in the United States and in Latin America. But this will require co-laboring alongside them, not simply offering financial help.

For the longest time, immigrant churches have been overlooked because of a lack of resources or a language barrier, but what if co-laboring alongside them comes closer to the discipling we see in Jesus’ life?

We must not bypass Jesus’ own example in our discipling strategies. He discipled 12 men from various backgrounds. Most of them were Galilean, and therefore bilingual and bicultural. These men were less like white Christians in the U.S. today and more like immigrant and second-generation immigrant Christians. Jesus discipled these ordinary men who would then challenge empires and bring about global transformation through local churches that affect us to this day. 

Many Christians think they must go overseas to learn from the global church. Learning from the global church, however, must begin by learning from the global local churches that surround us. The global church first discipled us.

WHAT FAITHFUL PARTNERSHIP LOOKS LIKE

First, churches should pray for all kinds of gospel-preaching churches in their prayer meetings and in their Sunday services. Churches often can be very narrow in who they pray for. Perhaps they only pray for churches they financially support, or churches in their own denomination—or churches that are their same size, socio-economic status, or language.

This doesn’t reflect the kind of fellowship richer and poorer churches shared with one another in the New Testament (Rom. 15:25–26).

Get to know some gospel-preaching Latino immigrant churches and pastors in your area, and pray for them publicly. You’ll be surprised at the partnership the Lord starts forming.

Second, pastors in English-speaking churches should seek to form relationships with second-generation immigrants in their congregations.

Since most second-generation Latinos speak primarily English, they often end up attending primarily white, English-speaking churches—specifically their youth groups or college ministries. This was the case for me. They often form deep relationships with their majority of friends in the congregation.

Pastors of these English-speaking churches miss out if they do not get to know the lives, backgrounds, and home churches of these second-generation immigrants. Imagine the genuine partnerships that could be forged if church leaders invested in these members.

PARTNERING WITH IMMIGRANT CHURCHES CAN TAKE THE GOSPEL TO THE NATIONS

Often, you may not be the person who directly takes the gospel to another nation, but you may be in a fellowship with the believers who do. 

For example, in a local immigrant church, I know of a member whose father was deported to Honduras. The father hadn’t shown much spiritual interest before his deportation, but when his son visited, and he read his Bible daily, the father asked him to download a good Bible app on his phone before he returned to the States. He hopes to bring him a hard copy during his next visit. The son continues to pray for the Lord to save him.

What could come of this? We can’t predict, but perhaps this man will be converted and reach a village in Honduras with little gospel presence. We don’t know, but the Lord often does above and beyond what we ask or think. 

Other members of the local church may never go to Honduras, but they can support their Christian friends who do. They can strengthen them and pray for them, and partner with overlooked missions partners who will spread the gospel into rooms and villages we will never enter.