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BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the culture, heritage and ministries of Hispanic people in the churches and to extend the welcome to Latino people to come to church.

“You don’t have to speak the language to do the ministry, if you have the heart,” said the Rev. Edgardo Rivera, Director of Hispanic Ministries and a Guide in the Washington Region.

At least eight churches in the conference have Hispanic ministries, some with Spanish-speaking people on their staffs. Several others offer a variety of services to the Hispanics in their communities.

A significant demographic change in the United States the past 20 years is the explosive growth of Hispanics. Now at 50 million – almost one in six Americans – Hispanics have more than doubled their numbers since 1990, according to the U.S. Bureau of Census. Hispanics surpassed the number of blacks in the population in 2003.

By 2042 less than half of the U.S. population will be white, USA Today reported in a cover story Aug. 10.

In the Baltimore-Washington Conference, the Hispanic membership is less than 1 percent. “I’d like to make the church of Jesus Christ look like the community we live in,” Rivera said.

He lifts up Emmanuel UMC in Beltsville as one of those churches reaching out to their Latino neighbors.

The church is situated in a neighborhood that is 60 percent Hispanic. The congregation first responded with English as a Second Language (ESL) classes several years ago. Those classes have 35-50 students each semester.

Last semester, the church began a new outreach, this one to the children of the parents in ESL. While parents are in class, volunteers hold a “homework club” for children in first to seventh grade. They do homework for one hour, then have an hour of Bible study and Sunday school. Unlike their parents, the children speak English, having grown up in the U.S., said the Rev. Daniel Mejia-Munoz. Recently the church outreach has added a computer class with five computers.

Emmanuel’s doors opened wider to the Latinos, as well as the rest of the neighbors, with a monthly food distribution program that began in May with 45 families coming for boxes of food and produce, provided in partnership with the Maryland Food Bank. In three months, the program has grown to 75 families.

The ministry of the Rev. Miguel Balderas at Oxon Hill UMC follows another pattern. His congregation is multicultural with Latinos, Filipinos, blacks and white people worshipping together at 9:15 and 11 a.m. Then at 6 p.m., the congregation of about 125 people is Spanish-speaking, mostly Hispanics, but some English-speaking people learning Spanish also attend.

Latinos and other cultural groups serve on the church council and in other leadership positions. They work together in outreach and service projects, including one to out-of-work laborers.

Balderas is very intent on maintaining the integrated community that has developed around the Oxon Hill UMC. “We are a family,” he said. “Nobody is ever alone.”

Oxon Hill UMC will host a joyous celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month at 4 p.m., Oct. 2, on World Communion Sunday. Everyone is welcome.

To help non-Hispanic congregations work toward opening their doors to Hispanics (and others), Rivera offers a training event called, “Partnership in the Mighty Work of God.”

He led one such workshop in Harmony, W.Va. in August. The Martinsburg area has a growing Hispanic ministry, led by Teresa Aguilera.

To learn more about Hispanic ministries, contact Rivera at .