Rev. Anton Lagoutine
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Newsletter Sep 06 - 2006/08/21 22:01
For the last few months we’ve been talking about the Hispanic Mission in the newsletters, church bulletins, during the Voters meetings, etc. We are excited to report that we’ve moved beyond talking and took some decisive steps in the direction of reaching out to the aliens in our midst (cf. Leviticus 19:33-34.)
One of the reasons for this decisiveness was due to the fact that St. John's was having a VBS on August 6-11. To that end, we've prepared VBS flyers in Spanish and acquired some CPH brochures about the Lutheran Church. We took this printed material and a few days prior to VBS went into our local Hispanic neighborhoods to talk to the adults and children. We've knocked on doors, walked around trailer parks, engaged in conversations with both parents and kids. It was a wonderful experience. We've felt welcomed and respected. At no point did it feel awkward (cold-turkey calls sometimes tend to be this way) or inadequate. All of the adults spoke Spanish only, but the two of our members had no problems communicating with them. All of the children (with the exception of one youth) spoke English.
As a result of our efforts, 25 Hispanic children participated in our VBS. During the family night, we've also had two mothers join us, and one of them, together with a number of children, came to church on that Sunday following VBS. There has been an overwhelmingly positive response from the leadership of St. John's (Youth groups, Elders, Council, Logos, Board of Missions) to this new mission and it has been decided that St. John's will continue its work on reaching out to the Hispanic community.
There are three ways we've identified to accomplish our goals. First one is to start a regular Hispanic Mission night to include a meal, a Bible study, crafts and games (kids said they love soccer but they have no place to play, and we got the field for it.) We are planning to have such a meeting some time soon.
Second is involving those children in our successful youth and children midweek Logos program where we basically have a great ministry in place; all we have to do is integrate the Hispanic kids in it.
Third is bringing the kids (and their parents) to Sunday school and church.
We are in the process of ironing out all the details and the logistics. For example, the first two ways identified above are so closely related that we will probably go with one or the other, depending on how things unfold.
The purpose of this article is to share our excitement with you, so that you too might become enthused about this new ministry opportunity. “We would do well to remember that today’s immigrants also are people for whom Christ died. God is blessing us with the opportunity to share His love in Christ with them—especially with those who are not Christians—so that they, too, may hear the Gospel of forgiveness through the merits of Jesus Christ and receive the free gift of eternal life.” (Jerry Kieschnick, President, LCMS, in the latest Lutheran Witness.)
For a long time, we’ve been discussing the need to reach out to the immigrants. Now it is clear that The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod is moving beyond mere discussions. St. John’s could become one the pioneers in that movement, at least in our area, if not the Southeastern District. We hope that you will not only join us in being excited about this God’s mission, but also will join us in “making disciples of all nations” (Mat. 28:19-20.) We need not to travel long distances to go to all the nations – they come to us, ten minutes away from church is where we go. We are not looking for people who speak Spanish – we have been blessed with those interpreters already. We are looking for mission-minded individuals who like working with kids and experiencing the joy of sharing Christ’s love with those in need.
If you are excited about this mission and willing to answer Christ’s call to “go and make disciples” in this way, please talk to Eric and Courtney Sigmon, Jennifer Ingle, Drew and Melanie Brunner, Michelle Taylor, Doug Travis or Pastor Lagoutine.
Post edited by: admin, at: 2006/08/21 15:26
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