English, Spanish worship helps church reach out

Los Fresnos UMC has joined the growing number of churches in the Southwest Texas Conference making a concerted effort to reach out to the Spanish-speaking community.
Since Palm Sunday, the church has been conducting a blended English/Spanish worship service at 8:30 a.m. every Sunday.
The Rev. Emet Huntsman, pastor of the 170-member congregation, says the idea for the worship format came at a men’s breakfast late last year.
Abraham Avila, a resident of Los Fresnos, was the guest speaker. He told the men about how he has been involved in starting nondenominational churches in northern Mexico. He said he was making plans to start a new church in the Los Fresnos area as soon as he could find a location for Sunday worship.
Huntsman asked Avila if he would be interested in using the Los Fresnos church facilities. The idea took off from there.
After speaking with McAllen District Superintendent Larry Howard, Huntsman got permission to supervise Avila, affectionately known as “Father Abraham” to those who know him, and let Avila lead Spanish-language worship.
“My Spanish is not good enough to preach a whole sermon,” Huntsman said, “and I did
not want to have a translation-based delivery.
“What we do is all come together for the opening of worship and the singing of hymns in English and Spanish with shared music. Then we separate for the sermon, one preached in English for those who prefer English, and one preached in Spanish for those who prefer Spanish. We come back together for prayers and communion.”
To help, the church purchased several copies of Mil Voces Para Celebrar for the Spanish-speaking worshipers. Hymns are selected so all can sing the same songs in the language of their choice.
“Abraham and I wanted to make worship as much a shared experience as possible,” Huntsman said. “We wanted to avoid as much as possible an ‘us-them’ attitude. For too long we have been known as ‘the rich white church,’ and that is a difficult perception to overcome.”
One woman told Huntsman she drove by the church year after year and never stopped because of that reputation. But one Sunday she did drop in and discovered how wrong her perceptions were. She found a loving and accepting church whose members welcomed her with open arms.
She and her husband have since become strong advocates for the church in the Hispanic community and recently began a Bible study in her home led by Huntsman.
For the most part the congregation has been very receptive of the change. The church still offers a traditional worship service at 11 a.m., but few worshipers at the 8:30 a.m. service have changed to the later time.
Growth has been slow, but new faces are evident. One family has joined the church,
and more are indicating a desire to do so.
Leaders’ desire is a church that has no barriers to people who want a relationship with Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. This is all in keeping with the church’s vision statement: To reveal Christ, perhaps as never before, to this community.
“We are committed to making this work,” Huntsman said. “We will fine-tune where we need to, and we will make the changes that need to be made, that we remain faithful to Jesus’ command to ‘go and make disciples.’”