In the main auditorium of South Walker Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 10 flags hang from the vaulted ceiling. The banners represent the countries from which members hail, including Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
At its foundation, the south Oklahoma City church is “for everyone.” It’s the congregation’s slogan — “A church para todos!”
Around 30 years ago, South Walker’s leadership recognized the area’s shifting demographics. A community with a 20 percent Latino population surrounded the predominantly White church body.
“Going up and down the streets, you figured out real quick by the names of the businesses — Chalo’s Tire Shop, carnicería, supermercado,” South Walker minister Taylor Cave said, referring to the Spanish words for a butcher shop and a supermarket.
Daniel Rodriguez’s 2011 book “A Future for the Latino Church” offered Cave examples of how the Spanish language and Latino culture could be integrated into church services. Moreover, Cave’s past gave him insight into intercultural outreach — he was a missionary in Vitória, Brazil, for a decade.
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“Fast forward a little bit, and we’re having about 40 percent Hispanic attendance in our services,” Cave said.
More than a third of the church’s 154 members — 56 — are Hispanic. In response to this change, the congregation no longer worships solely in English. Song leaders weave Spanish verses into hymns, and preachers include Spanish summaries throughout their sermons.
“I’ve been on the other side,” said Cave, who learned Portuguese as a missionary. “I’ve visited a country where they didn’t speak the language, and to sit through a worship service is kind of boring because you don’t know what’s happening. They’re still hearing the word of God in their native tongue, just a Reader’s Digest version.”
Punctuation and piñatas
On Wednesday nights, a worship service and English classes occur simultaneously at the South Walker church.
Echoes of singing from the auditorium fill one side of the hallway. On the other side, Spanish speakers learn English through videos and custom workbooks that the church developed from free online educational materials.
South Walker joined the Herald of Truth’s MESA (Mission: Evangelize Spanish America) network and plans to utilize digital tools like content creation and geofencing that the ministry offers.
David Clevenger grew up attending the Southwest Church of Christ in Oklahoma City, where he later served as the deacon of missions. When he and his wife, Aron, heard about South Walker’s new multicultural emphasis, the pair wanted in.
Now, David Clevenger acts as the church’s discipleship minister and leads one of its three conversational English classes in addition to his secular job with the Oklahoma County Assessor’s Office.
“I put just as many hours in both ways,” he said. “I go to construction sites and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got something for you.’”
Bernardo Pando, an immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico, was working in an oil field when he met Clevenger. Pando has taken English classes at the church for several months and is now in the congregation’s advanced class.
“I enjoy talking with the guys,” Pando said. “It helps me to relax the way I speak.”
For Clevenger, the goal isn’t simply helping immigrants speak better English — it’s introducing them to Jesus. South Walker volunteers’ invitations to attend worship have resulted in baptisms.
“I want to get them here on Sunday,” Clevenger said. “That’s my goal.”
The church also observes Hispanic holidays. Members recently celebrated Día del Niño — Children’s Day in English. Cave said the summer holiday rivals Christmas for gift giving. The congregation even had two piñatas — one for the younger children and one for the older children.
“If we’re going to reach them in their language, we also need to reach them in their cultural language,” Cave said.
‘Just sit with me’
Aron Clevenger, David’s wife, works as South Walker’s children’s minister.
She rotates between teaching classes of toddlers and classes of kindergarten through sixth graders. Her Sunday morning class averages more than a dozen kids per week, while the youth group has more than 40 children — a drastic increase from five years ago, when the only child attending South Walker was the Clevengers’ son.
In Aron’s class, about half the kids speak Spanish.
“We do bilingual songs,” she said. “It’s really a Spanglish-type feel. Half of it’s in Spanish. Half of it’s in English. Or we’ll do the whole song in English, the whole song in Spanish.”
The church found a disadvantage to rapid growth: a lack of adults who were comfortable teaching and leading.
“We have all these new children, but their parents are young Christians,” Aron Clevenger said. “They’re not as apt to teach because they’re like, ‘I don’t know anything.’”
Finding help often means dragging members into class — figuratively, at least. That’s how Aron brought Michelle Sloan into church volunteer work.
“I had her come to class with me,” Aron Clevenger said. “I said, ‘Just sit with me. You don’t have to do anything. Just sit.’”
By her second class, Sloan was helping translate English for two children. When the Clevengers left in early July on a medical mission trip to Honduras with Latin American Missions, Sloan traveled as their translator.
“I want our congregation to be invested in this,” David Clevenger said, “because the whole point is to make connections with people so we can get them into deeper conversations.”
This article originally appeared at The Christian Chronicle and is reprinted with permission.
Andrew Reneau is a contributor to The Christian Chronicle.