Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 5
May 7, 1953
NUMBER 1, PAGE 1,12-13

The Church At Work Among Latin Americans

Mack Kercheville, El Paso, Texas


(Editor's Note: This is a lecture delivered by Brother Kercheville at Abilene Christian College last February. It is indicative of the trend of thinking among that fine group of workers on the mission fields who are setting themselves to oppose the dangerous and destructive "centralized control" activities which now so seriously threaten the work in Germany and South Africa. This talk was warmly received; we heard more favorable comments on it than on any lecture given in the whole series.)

It is always a pleasure to attend the ACC lectureship, and of course, it is a very special pleasure to speak on the program. I am very grateful for this opportunity.

You have heard speakers on these lectureships year after year tell you about the Latin American work, and this story is all in print in a number of places. Therefore I don't intend to give at this time a detailed history of the Latin American work, nor a lot of statistics about the present status of the church-among the Latin Americans. Instead I want to give emphasis to some points which I feel have been overlooked in discussing this work in the past.

The Geographical Nearness Of The Field

I am tempted to give my talk a subtitle: "The Church at Work Among Latin Americans" or "How To Do Foreign Mission Work Without Leaving Home." That is exactly the situation we have in this field. Of course there are some parts of South and Central America which are a considerable distance from home. But most of the work we have done and are doing and even the greater part of the work we will be doing for some time in the future is right here at home. It is just a few blocks down the street into the Latin American colony, or just a few miles down a paved highway and across the river into Mexico. Or, as in the case of Cuba, the work is just a few minutes ride in an airplane across the waters from Florida. With transportation what it is in these times, the whole field is right here at us. It is in our midst.

What would the brethren working in the Eastern hemisphere give to have this advantage of being so close to the churches backing them here in the United States. This is one great advantage the Latin American field has over all other foreign fields. Because of its geographical nearness, we can become so much better acquainted with the work. We can know its problems, needs, and its opportunities first hand. We can have so much closer fellowship with the evangelists, and with the new congregations started. We can exert a much greater influence on the field and protect it so much better from all the perils which beset work in new places. These are all advantages which should not be overlooked.

For some reason, brethren, we have not taken advantage of the nearness of this field to us. Considering its location one would think that this field would have received as great emphasis or even greater emphasis than any other foreign field in the world. But such is not the ease. Since World War II we have spent more money in Europe than has been spent in the thirty years of work among Latin Americans. In fact there are several church buildings in the brotherhood which cost considerably more money than has been spent by the whole brotherhood in thirty years in the Latin American field. I say these things not to speak against big buildings where they are needed nor to speak against the fine work being done in Europe, but rather to prove my point that we have been blind to opportunities right here in our midst. The brethren in Germany, Italy, Africa and Asia would give anything to have the advantage for their fields that we have for this one. Yet here where we have all the benefits of being able to do a foreign work without leaving home, many of us have not seen the opportunity.

But the picture is changing rapidly. Churches everywhere are awakening to the needs of this field, and I thank God for it. There is still room for a lot of improvement, but we are going in the right direction. Let's keep it up!

However, and this may surprise you, this very geographical nearness of the field creates some problems. You may wonder how the closeness of the field, which in some ways presents so many advantages, could at the same time bring some difficulties. But it does, and I want to tell you about them.

The Problem Of Scattered Workers

One of our greatest problems is to keep from scattering the workers too much. When we send a party of preachers overseas to some distant field, we expect them to concentrate their efforts sufficiently to really build up a stable work. We are not happy if they so scatter their efforts that the greater part of what they start dies for lack of attention. But here at home, dealing with the Spanish speaking colonies in our own communities, we sometimes forget that the same principal applies. Some congregations set aside money in their budgets for the Latin Americans, but they specify that they want it used to evangelize the Spanish-speaking people of their own hometown. Now that is a commendable desire, and one that I would like to promote whole-heartedly. But at the same time I would like to recommend that we face realities in this matter. We have just so many Spanish-speaking preachers. There is a definite limit to the amount of work they can do. Money is not the only thing involved. Some have the idea that all problems can be solved and all work done by the simple process of setting aside the money for it. But there is more to the work than that.

You want to evangelize the Spanish-speaking people of your own community? That's fine! But are you willing to start at the beginning? Can you and will you provide a preacher for the job? I don't mean by that simply outbidding some other church for the services of a Latin American preacher who is already doing a good job where he is. Nor do I mean taking some already overburdened preacher in a nearby place to come over and help you part of the time. What I mean is this: Are you prepared to put an entirely new man on the job? Maybe you can send one from your own congregation to the work. Maybe you could help train some Spanish American man so he can do the work. Sometimes that requires financing his studies. Sometimes it means patient teaching and counseling on your part, and then a lot more patience as you overlook shortcomings of a beginner starting out to do a hard work. Or, it may be helping train a preacher for some other place where the church has already been established so a more experienced worker can come help you. In other words, I would recommend that churches wanting to back the establishment of a new Spanish-speaking congregation start at the beginning and help us train more preachers. That is what is delaying the work right now, the scarcity of Spanish-speaking preachers. I know some men right now wanting and needing financial assistance to get the training and practice they need to make full-fledged preachers.

It might be the wise thing for some churches, instead of trying to start a Spanish speaking congregation under the circumstances existing in their home town, should help work which has already been started somewhere else. I know good preachers in Mexico working without any support at all. I know quite a few right here in the US who are not receiving enough support. I know churches both in Mexico and in the US being hindered terribly in their work because of a lack of church buildings. From reports I know that the situation is even worse in Cuba. In Mexico City we have one of our finest young preachers, Brother Agustin Figuroa, an ACC graduate and a good preacher. But he cannot do what he is capable of doing because there is no building to which he can invite people. We have the same situation in Chihuahua where Brother Ben Cano, another ACC graduate, preaches. The laws of Mexico are such that we cannot make temporary arrangements for meeting places as we do here in the US. This fact makes the need for church buildings especially desperate. For some strange reason we have a lot of trouble getting brethren interested in helping on this matter of church buildings for the Latin American work. When the laws of the land almost completely tie your hands unless you have a church building, I think we would do well to give this part of the work more interest. I know that the brethren backing the preacher in Mexico City and in Chihuahua are doing what they can in this matter. If the rest of us would do what we can, we would soon have the problems solved. These places mentioned are just two examples. I could name many others.

The first thing of course is to get brethren interested in the Latin American field. But after that we need to learn to fit our dreams and plans for this field to reality, and not try to force the field to conform to our own plans. Let's help where the help is needed, and where it can get the greatest results.

The Problem Of How Much To Help

Now we take up another problem stemming from the nearness of the Latin American field to us. How much shall we help the little churches established by our missionary efforts? This is not so vital a question in work done in distant fields. There isn't too much we can do for the little churches out there but send financial help. But when the church we are helping is just a few blocks down the street or a few miles down the highway, the situation is different.

In works of charity we have a similar problem: How much help shall we give the man in need? We want him to have enough, but not so much that he loses all feeling of responsibility for himself to do his part. Parents of school children have about the same situation in helping their children with their homework. It is good for someone to help a child with his schoolwork, but it is not good for someone to just take over and get his homework for him. In like manner it is good to help new and weak congregations, but it is not good for other churches to just take over and get their homework for them. To do so cheats them out of the exercise God intended for them to have. Yet there seems to me to be quite a tendency over the brotherhood for one congregation to try to do the "homework" God assigned to another congregation.

In such cases our motives are usually good. We want to help those who need our assistance. We want to see the Lord's work done in the most efficient way possible. When money from the Lord's treasury is invested in a work, we don't want that money wasted. These motives are all commendable. But let's be careful that we avoid the error of the Jews who had a "zeal of God but not according to knowledge." If there is any un-Christ-like thinking in the matter at all, perhaps it is that some of us still have a touch of racial prejudice. We sometimes get the idea, without even being conscious of having it, that anyone who speaks a different language than we do, or who doesn't have the same color of skin we have, might not have enough intelligence to carry on the Lord's work. I suspect that, coupled with the other motives mentioned which are all good within themselves, this is one of the big reasons why we find this is so much of a problem in the Latin American field.

(To be continued next week)