“What does success in church ministry look like within the Hispanic-American context?”
11pm on a Sunday evening, Pastor Luis, still pondering the last conversation, walks up the front walk, and shakes out a large, eye-watering yawn before turning the key in the lock of his front door. “¿Cómo te fue, mi amor?” his wife, Gabi, greets him. “Bien; rather complicated; a long day, but…”, he hesitates, “¿bien?” In truth, it was a long day. Luis and his family left the house at 8am, to set up chairs, sound, cafe y pan in the rental space for worship; for his children to warm up with the musicians; for he and his wife to meet with the couple they are counseling before service. Then Sunday service itself: preaching the Word of God was encouraging as always, but there were individuals Luis had hoped and prayed to see there, but were not. Jaime had taken a job; María and Felipe had been busy with work and children all week, and likely were using one morning off to sleep.
Still, Greg had brought a friend who had talked with Luis for some time after service. And then there was Mauricio: he had shown up after the difficult conversation earlier this week, and seemed eager to participate in both worship and fellowship! Fellowship after church had led to lunch with a few families; and in typical, Hispanic fashion, “lunch” had lingered nearly through time for Sunday evening prayer. Then, while Gabi had taken the children home, Luis had taken a young man who had shown up off the street out for a bite after prayer. Over a simple taco, this man shared the story of his recent conversion, and was seeking help with some financial issues tangled up in his former life of substance abuse. Yes, it had been un largo día, with plenty of follow-up already on the calendar for the week. Yet for certain, the Lord had been at work. “But is this success? Am I being faithful?” Pastor Luis cannot help but wonder. “Should I expect more growth, or is this chipping away enough?”
Although the details may differ, for many pastors and ministry workers in the Hispanic context, this scenario and these questions may feel familiar. What does success in church ministry look like within our particular context? How are we to be encouraged, when the work is hard, and the progress seems slow? How are we to measure faithfulness, when pastors around us are celebrating rapid growth and thriving financially? How do we explain to supporters that the work vale la pena (is worth it), when the main question of success regards numbers in Sunday worship?
THE MEASURE FOR SUCCESS
The book of Acts tells the incredible story of the exponential growth of gospel in the early church, as the Apostles, empowered by the Holy Spirit, embarked on the task of sharing the Good News of Jesus after His ascension. The growth through bold and faithful ministry is exciting. After Peter’s first public sermon at Pentecost, we are amazed to read the response, that “there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41). As the new believers devoted themselves to fellowship, prayer, teaching, and breaking bread together, “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (2:47). In the face of Peter and John’s faithfulness in speaking truth during arrest and persecution, the Lord brings about five thousand hearers and onlookers to faith (Acts 4:4). This is simply within the city of Jerusalem, but the story of Acts continues on to tell how Paul and others help spread the gospel not just throughout Asia Minor, but throughout the reaches of most of the Greco-Roman world.
It is easy to look at the stories in Acts, to look at the mega-churches and large ministries around us, and to be discouraged looking at our own small congregations. It is easy to see the multi-staffed churches who have multiple pastors and elders (not to mention adequate resources) to share the burden of caring for their people, and wonder whether the long, understaffed and under-resourced hours are worth it. It is easy to forget when the world–and even Christian circles–measure success by numbers and statistics, that success in the Lord’s eyes is actually faithfulness to His calling, no matter how big or small, no matter how simple or complex.
In fact, it is easy to forget that the exponential growth taking place in Acts, while an incredible piece of God’s plan for the expansion of Christianity, is not normative for the Bible, or usually for the church. Most of the context of Scripture actually speaks more to the normative experience of the Hispanic and immigrant communities: it speaks to the long, hard game of faithfully proclaiming la Palabra de Dios (the Word of God), of faithfully loving the context to which He has called us, and trusting Him to be at work, in His timing. Although the context of the text is different, the principle applies, “man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (I Samuel 16:7). The real question of “success” in ministry is a question of faithfulness in chipping away, day after day, at the “good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
SUCCESS REDEFINED BY THE BIBLE
So what does faithfully chipping away at the Lord’s work look like in Scripture, and in the Hispanic context?
In the Bible, faithfully chipping away looks like Noah, spending years, maybe decades, building the ark, while all his friends and neighbors laughed at him, trusting God that this was indeed His good plan. Faithfully chipping away looks like Abram, following the Lord out of his homeland in Ur, and waiting decades for the son God had promised him, to instruct Isaac in the ways of the Lord, trusting that the Lord would expand the generations through his offspring, even though Abraham himself would not see it with his own eyes. Faithfully chipping away looks like the prophet Jeremiah, speaking faithfully for the Lord prior to, through, and even after the exile to Babylon, warning the people to repent, and reminding them of the Lord’s kindness. For all of his pain, imprisonments, rejection, and even being taken to Egypt with unfaithful people against his will, the book of Jeremiah records him seeing only ever two converts to his cause. And yet, Jeremiah’s impact, not only within his time and context, but as one of the inspired, Biblical authors for the generations of God’s people, is far beyond what this man ever could have dreamed. His work and faithfulness, while painful, lonely, and exhausting, was a part of God’s plan to offer hope and encouragement for innumerable people across the generations.
Faithfully chipping away in the Bible looks like nothing less than the ministry of el Señor Jesucristo Himself, who entered the world humbly through the womb of a virgin; who started His public ministry slowly and quietly; who invested in a small group of disciples; who indeed performed miracles, and amassed followers, but who saved the explosive growth of His Kingdom for the work of the apostles following His death and resurrection. Jesus’ concern was not about the numbers, reputation, or the ease of His own ministry; far from it! His concern was to be faithful to the work the Father had called Him to do. This was His calling for His followers as well. When the disciples return from their first mission, amazed at the miracles they have witnessed, Jesus tells them “do not rejoice that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Faithfulness and success in ministry look like allowing the wonder of your own salvation to drive you to joyfully chip away at His work, knowing that the results belong to Him, and He delights to use you.
CHIPPING AWAY IN MINISTRY
So, in spite of the inward and outward pressure to define it otherwise, “success” in ministry focuses away from human results, and trusts the Lord’s work by His Spirit through the daily grind of caring for lost, hungry, hurting souls. Especially in the Hispanic context, such a definition is both necessary, and freeing. Defining success in ministry as faithfully chipping away at the Lord’s calling is necessary because the work of caring for an incredibly diverse community, struggling to make a life in a new home, or living with constant reminders that they do not fit in, is challenging. Gaining confianza or trust and credibility within a community treated as “less than” takes time. Planting the seeds of the gospel in this soil means not just scattering seeds, but preparing the ground: removing boulders, adding fertilizer, carefully making holes, and then constant watering and weeding. The Lord’s work is to actually make the seeds grow; yet in soil that has been hardened by the experiences of life, forsaken and overlooked by many, and strewn with the weeds of Catholicism, prosperity gospel, liberation theology, and even irreligion, the work for the harvest is lengthy.
At the same time, defining success in ministry as faithfully chipping away at the Lord’s calling is freeing, because it allows us to focus on the work rather than the results; it allows us to rest in the Lord’s plan, rather than trying to evaluate ourselves through standards that do not fit the context. It reminds us to come to the Lord constantly with the burdens and stresses of a ministry calling, knowing that “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain”; it is the LORD who allows His servants to stop and rest, knowing that the LORD brings the results; “He gives to his beloved sleep” (see Psalm 127).
It is this long-view, this faithfulness in chipping away at the Lord’s calling, that helped missionaries Ken and Elaine Jacobs to persevere in caring for the indigenous Tzotzil people in Chiapas, Mexico. After ten years of working to learn the language, know the people, and translate a copy of the Bible for them, the Jacobs could only point to two converts. While it would have been easy to give up, to call the work not worth their time or the persecution they faced, the results of their chipping away were in the Lord’s hands. The Lord then used these two new believers to lead thirty-three others to faith over the Jacobs’ eleventh year of ministry; twelve years later, there were approximately 1000 new Christians in the area, and another seven years later, 4000!* Indeed, as the Lord showed the prophet Habakkuk (who, like Jeremiah, also spoke to God’s wayward people), the Lord’s vision will come at its appointed time. “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come…” (Habakkuk 2:2-3). If it is the Lord’s work, then surely vale la pena to chip away faithfully, trusting the Lord to accomplish His purposes.
THE LORD’S FAITHFULNESS IN CHIPPING AWAY
Taking off his shoes and jacket, Pastor Luis sinks onto the sofa next to his wife, Gabi, to debrief the day. “Is this success?” he asks, “am I being faithful?” Gabi nods and smiles. “Piénsalo,” she tells him (“think about it”). “You have been faithful in little – like when we came to the city and were starting from nothing – and you are being faithful in much, as the Lord has added to our plate so many more people and areas for service. When we were only six people (including us four!), meeting weekly in our home, you were faithful in preaching Sunday after Sunday, following up with those coming and those interested. Now, we may not seem like many, but seven years later, there are nearly forty coming every week. You have been faithful, but more importantly, El Señor has been faithful! How could we boast in these numbers? How could we dare complain that the men, women, and families we have seen come to faith, or growing in their faith are not evidence that the Lord’s hand is in this work?”
Pastor Luis is pensive; only this week, pastors working in some of the suburbs of the city were celebrating the growth of their church plants (and rightly so), from a core of 40, to a group of 150 in two years. Yet their context was different; and rather than calling him to that context, the Lord had uniquely called and gifted Pastor Luis and his family to serve the transient immigrant community of the city. “Sí,” he agrees, “El Señor es bueno; they’re serving in another city now, but do you remember Ángela y Marcos, how we witnessed the Lord grow them towards ministry after coming to faith in a failing marriage? ...The fact that the Garza family is coming to service, and that their son Carlos wants to be baptized… It has been a long road, but only the Lord could do such a thing!” Thirty minutes pass; an hour, as Pastor Luis and Gabi recount with wonder the individuals whom they have encountered in the past years, in whom they have seen the Lord working. It is easy to get lost in the chipping away, and forget the fact that, as they have been serving Him and doing His will, the Lord has been more than faithful.
It is past midnight as Luis and Gabi turn out the light, but as they fall into bed exhausted, they are at peace, ready to face another week of chipping away at the call. They are thankful for their culture, their community, and how the Lord is at work, using even them (they are amazed!) to expand the Gospel in their corner of the city.
“A Dios sea la gloria!”
JOIN US IN PRAYER:
Pray for encouragement for leaders and pastors of Hispanic churches and ministries, that they would be faithful in the often exhausting work of reaching their context, and that the Lord would help them see His hand at work.
Pray for growth in the Hispanic church in America and beyond; pray that the Lord would work through the faithful efforts of His servants, and continue to raise new leaders and lay-workers to work in the fields.
Pray for majority-culture leaders and believers to grow in awareness and understanding of the different dynamics of church planting and ministry within Hispanic and minority-culture contexts; pray that there would be a spirit of encouragement, and redoubled efforts to care for and encourage these brothers and sisters in faith.
Please consider giving to HLI so that we can continue supporting, encouraging, and caring for Hispanic pastors and their congregations throughout the United States, and that through doing so, we can help multiply and grow new leaders to reach more people with the message of the Gospel.
ENDNOTES:
*See Todd Hartch, The Rebirth of Latin American Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 28-29.
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