A Southern Baptist task force has urged leaders of the nation's largest Protestant denomination to take “unprecedented” measures to evangelize the growing number of Hispanics in the country.
Goals include baptizing more than 50,000 Hispanic converts by 2010 and starting 250 new Hispanic churches each year during that same period. The effort to start new churches would give the denomination a total of 3,980 Hispanic churches by 2010.
The task force members said the denomination must work among both Hispanic church members and non-Hispanics to evangelize Hispanics in their communities and workplaces.
“Due to the explosive growth of the Hispanic population, unprecedented cooperative efforts are going to be needed including the North American Mission Board, state conventions, state Hispanic fellowships, other Baptist agencies and existing churches,” concluded a report developed by task force members titled “21st Century Hispanic Realities: Transforming the Social and Religious Panorama of North America.”
The task force also recommended that the denomination's mission board create a bilingual Web site to communicate with Hispanic Baptists and seminaries should offer training for Hispanic leaders at a range of education levels.
Task force leaders noted that there must be outreach to Hispanics who are not English speakers as well as those who are.
“We cannot be lulled into thinking that most Hispanics are assimilated and that our typical English-speaking approaches are all that we need to reach them and to start churches among them,” the 21st-century report reads.
Religion News Service