By Jeff Brumley
Cliff Temple Baptist Church was responding to the needs of the Dallas neighborhoods around it long before the term “missional” came into vogue, and before Brent McDougal took the helm as senior pastor.
But since McDougal’s arrival five years ago, the historically white congregation has moved beyond traditional ministries to the Hispanic communities around it to embrace a variety of cultures.
The result is a congregation embracing Hispanics in leadership and a growing Spanish-speaking membership that’s leading Cliff Temple to adopt more and more policies and practices to make people of all nationalities feel welcome.
McDougal said the church has simply continued to take steps that confront it as a crossroads for different kinds of people in Dallas.
“The word ‘missional’ is a catchall for anything outside the church walls,” McDougal said. “Where we are, it just means responding to the context that God has placed us in.”
Seeing themselves as ‘one church’
That context is an 85 percent Hispanic population within a one-mile radius of the church, with white and African-American neighborhoods located just beyond.
Historically, Cliff Temple responded to that context through a number of outreach ministries to Hispanics which, while helpful, reinforced the reality of separation between the church and its neighbors. A Spanish-speaking congregation it hosted largely had the same effect.
Seeing that challenge, a decision to merge the two congregations was made several years ago.
“We were going to think of one another as one church with two different expressions of worship, as opposed to being a congregation that has a mission to Spanish-speaking people, or just with a ministry that’s programmatic in scope,” McDougal said of the decision made before his arrival.
But soon after joining the staff, McDougal said he realized the idea hadn’t been implemented.
Embracing Mexican culture
So they got busy. Early changes included adding Spanish to exterior signage and holding joint worship several times a year.
Cliff Temple also boosted its outreach to meet the practical needs of those living near the church. Ministries providing food, clothing, job training, English instruction and gardening classes were created.
The church also hosts small-group encounters in the community. Neighbors are invited to members’ homes for simple meals and services as a way of widening the Cliff Temple circle, McDougal said.
Another piece, he added, was a recognition and celebration of Mexican holidays, including hosting an annual Mexican independence day party.
“We embraced the Mexican subculture in a Mexican context,” McDougal said. “We don’t lose any of our [U.S.] patriotism, but gain great credibility among those who have found a home in a foreign land.”
‘We need that relationship’
The church went even further to embrace Mexican culture when it hired Porfirio Bas as pastor two years ago.
Initially, Bas was considered pastor of just the Hispanic portion of the congregation, but that changed to more fully accept the concept that Cliff Temple is just one congregation, McDougal said.
Before, there had been no mixing of leadership between the different ethnicities at the church. That contributed to a segmented feeling at Cliff Temple.
That shifted when Bas’ title was changed.
“He’s pastor, now — he works as a co-pastor with me,” McDougal said. “We really need that kind of relationship because of our context.”
‘We should love everybody’
But context is just as important — and challenging — to the Hispanic members of Cliff Temple, Bas said.
Bas, who was a soap opera star in Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s before eventually becoming a minister, said white Christians aren’t the only ones who struggle to overcome misconceptions about other cultures.
“What I see … is that groups like to be with their ethnicities and with their cultures — that happens with blacks, Hispanics, Koreans,” Bas said.
That’s been changing at Cliff Temple, where African-Americans, Hispanics and whites are gelling as a congregation.
Despite the difficulties, the church is pursuing that growth because it’s actually called for in the Bible, Bas said.
“I can see in Scripture that we should love everybody,” he said. “The Lord is inviting us to the ends of the Earth, and that means all ethnicities and all different groups. Here, we are moving in that direction.”
‘The willingness to be open’
The multicultural bonding happening at Cliff Temple is solidified by local and international mission projects conducted by the full array of the church’s ethnicities, McDougal said.
Those projects convey to all members that everyone is valued at the church, he said.
“Churches need to rethink assimilation — the idea that when one joins, they need to be more like us,” he said. “What a missional congregation says instead is, ‘How do we connect with people, whoever they are?’”
McDougal said what works at Cliff Temple may not work at another church. Every congregation needs to discern the needs of the community around them and go from there.
“It’s not better or worse,” he said of the multicultural approach. “It’s just different — and the willingness to be open to that which is different is critical for cross-cultural ministry.”
— Baptist News Global’s reporting on innovative congregational ministries is part of the Pacesetter Initiative, funded in part by the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation.
