Local Outreach to Immigrants Helped Us Focus Globally
by Dr. Brent Gentzel
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Church Kaufman, Texas
This past fall First Baptist Church Kaufman launched a Hispanic congregation, but we had no idea all the places it would take our church family. Besides the multi-ethnic flavors we now enjoy, our Hispanic congregation has given us new missions opportunities. As our Hispanic worship service started to increase in size, our church concurrently pondered various mission opportunities around the world. As a pastor, I’ve been on a number of short term projects and I’ve sent teams a variety of places. However, as a church we were ready to settle down and quit taking a “shotgun” approach to missions—visiting some exotic locale for a few days and then packing up and coming home without any rhyme or reason.
In the past, I wasn’t particular about where we went. I was fanning the flame of sending teams somewhere—because it’s at the heart of helping people move forward in their faith (not to mention a command of Jesus). So last fall we were thinking, praying and talking about this a lot. As we explored where to focus, one of the possibilities that surfaced was Guatemala—primarily because our church has an influx of bilingual members who are able to reach a Spanish-speaking culture. We were already thinking about the possibility of going to a predominantly Latin-language nation.
Also about this time, I ran across a study (I don’t remember where) that said when people groups from one town in Latin America migrate, they often relocate to the same town in the U.S. In other words, friends and families all move from one town in Latin America to one town in the States. So I started wondering if we had the same thing happening in our town of Kaufman. Were there Hispanics in Kaufman who originated from the same town?
I brought this question up in one of our mission meetings, and Abraham, the pastor of the Hispanic congregation, answered unequivocally. “Yes,” he said. “There are at least 70 or 80 families in Kaufman from Palau, a small town in Mexico.” 70 or 80 FAMILIES? We were floored. I turned to a woman in our church named Eva. Her husband, Roy, a deacon in our church, was born in Mexico but has been an American citizen for over 30 years. I asked her, “Do you know someone in Kaufman from Palau?” She started laughing. “Roy is from Palau,” she said.
This past December we hosted an Inside Out Weekend event facilitated by WorldconneX. The Inside Out Weekend, customized for each church, is designed to build awareness and educate your membership regarding God’s heart for the world and their role in His plan to bless the nations. The WorldconneX facilitator led us through some interactive exercises that helped us uncover the resources (our people and our connections) that God had put inside our church and discover how these resources could be activated for His glory around the world. We chose a team to participate in an “Inside Out” leadership lab on Saturday and announced on Sunday three areas of focus for our global strategy.
I can’t really describe everything that happened after that. But suffice to say that we have multiple ties to Palau, Mexico and our church has a new mission location. We’re sending three teams to Palau in 2008, and the possibilities are exciting. (Did I mention that Tony Romo’s grandfather is from the Palau area?)
I announced the Palau strategy on the first Sunday in January. One of the women in our church who teaches at the junior high was inundated with Hispanic students on Monday. They asked, “Is it true that your church is going to Palau? That’s where my family is from!” She told me that in some class periods she could barely teach because her students had so many questions about our church and how we were going to minister to their hometown in Mexico.
The coolest part? We found out that there are kids in Kaufman that were born in the United States (making them citizens) whose parents have been deported to—you guessed it—Palau. They haven’t seen their parents in years. Now our church gets to send messages between family members (we’re thinking of making video messages) and share Christ in tangible ways between the communities. And we haven’t even talked about how this is going to help our Hispanic ministry.
The buzz is high right now. We’ve been on a few exploratory trips to Palau. God has provided a person of peace and a great church that is excited about partnering with us. Fifty or so of us are leaving for Palua in a couple of weeks and we are excited about where God is leading. And to think that just a year ago, we had no idea how launching a Hispanic congregation locally would engage us globally.