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All Saints' Episcopal Church All Saints' Day School Holy Child Filipino Ministries Iglesia Episcop�l deTodos los Santos 4201 West Washington Avenue - Las Vegas, NV 89107 (between Decatur and Valley View) 702 878-2373 - Fax: 702 878-1829 - Email the Parish Office Some pages on our site require "Adobe Reader�" or equivalent software - get "Adobe Reader�" through this link |
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A Trip Report by The Rev Ed Lovelady to Bishop Dan Edwards, Bishop of Nevada
Episcopal Hispanic Ministries Conference �Nuevo Amanecer� (New Dawn) June 30 � July 3, 2008, Peachtree City, GA
Attendees from All Saints� The Rev Ed Lovelady, Rector, Debbie Lovelady and Bernardo and Dolores Iniesta, Iglesia de Todos los Santos Hispanic Ministry
Bernardo and Dolores Iniesta, my wife, Debbie, and I attended the Episcopal Hispanic Ministry conference representing Iglesia de Todos los Santos.
The registration and travel was funded from personal funds, a private donation, and my continuing education funds.
We departed LV on June 30th arriving for registration and the opening Eucharist that evening. Bishop Katharine was the celebrant and preacher for the opening Eucharist, preaching in Spanish. The entire conference was conducted in Spanish, with �real-time� translation using ear phones. It was a challenge for me as a non Spanish speaker to keep up with the presentations as some of the translators seemed to miss some of the subtleties of the presentations.
The keynote speaker, Bishop Julio Holguin, Bishop of The Dominican Republic, in his opening presentation invited us to consider the theme of the conference �Nuevo Amanecer� (New Dawn) in seeing the opportunities for mission and evangelism in the light of a �new day� of possibilities. He emphasized Jesus� �High Priestly Prayer� that the disciples would be one as he and the Father are one and that because of that unity others will believe because the disciples have believed. It occurred to me that the song �They will know we are Christians by our love� might be the theme song for this conference as we seek new ways to be in unity in Christ in order to accomplish our mission of living and proclaiming the Gospel. Bishop Holguin suggested that without unity, there can be no mission. His theme continued in the context of Hispanic/Latino ministry and the fact that there are 45 million Latinos in the United States. Only if we work together can we do the ministry to which we are called. In unity is the strength to meet the challenge. The �new dawn� is a time of Grace and that grace is not for an exclusive club, but for all humanity.
The opening Eucharist was a lively celebration with spirited liturgy and music, hand clapping and some dancing. In that worship, I found no language barrier that prevented my full participation.
The workshops were helpful. Some were a little more basic that I would have liked. I attended �Episcopal Identity� where the conversation was around the Episcopal Church as via media between Roman Catholic/Orthodox and Protestant. The leader, The Rev. John Rawlinson, emphasized the �three-legged stool� image. I drifted off into imaging the three-legged stool as having �spring loaded� legs so that it might be �self leveling� as we seek to maintain balance in our polity, politics, and ministry. He made the point that in Hispanic/Latino culture, the �democratic� idea of an elected vestry representing the people might be counter cultural.
I also attended �Starting a Latino Congregation� led by The Rev Anthony Guill�n, Latino/Hispanic Missioner for the Episcopal Church. He began by stating that ethnic or multi cultural ministry cannot be effective if is it viewed as a �program� or �outreach� by a congregation seeking to have a multi cultural ministry. He made particular points about why should be begin a Hispanic ministry (I interpreted his comments to a broader base of �ethnic� or �multi cultural� as I believe there are many similarities). His first reason was simple: The Gospel Imperative. Secondly, the population of Spanish speaking people in the United States is the fastest growing cultural group. Third: Hispanics are young with an average age of 29 (US general population average age is 35); among those of Mexican heritage the average age is 24. There are approximately 600,000 people who leave the Roman Catholic Church each year and many of those are Latino (70 percent of Latinos identify themselves as Roman Catholic and 23 percent as Protestants). Why do Latinos come to the Episcopal Church? Anthony believes these are some of the reasons: Familiar liturgy; Pastoral leadership that is relational; opportunities for lay leadership; Inclusive and open nature of the Episcopal Church; roles of and for women; they are treated with dignity and respect; their cultural spirituality is valued; and their presence is valued. Some of the challenges: Fear and racism; stereotypes; ignorance; language; lack of [Spanish speaking] trained clergy and lay leaders; financial resources; immigration issues; and illiteracy. My thoughts were that these are challenges for almost all congregations.
Other workshops I attended were �Worship Music� that was primarily a conversation about a new worship music resource that is being developed by volunteers involved in Hispanic ministry. The �Stewardship� workshop was not particularly helpful as the presentation was very basic and did not address particular issues of stewardship in the Latino community.
Over 200 clergy and lay leaders attended the conference. It was enlightening to learn that some of these leaders have been involved in Hispanic/Latino ministry in the Episcopal Church for 20 or more years. There were leaders from all over the continental US, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. It was a small surprise to me that there were a number of clergy and lay leaders who do not speak English and are serving in congregations in the United States.
I believe this was a very meaningful experience for Bernardo and Dolores as an introduction to the Episcopal Church and others involved in Hispanic ministry. We had the opportunity to exchange stories of ministry and to pick up ideas and resources, and make some contacts with others in similar ministries.
The closing Eucharist was particularly moving, with even more music and singing and a spirited sermon (which I missed most of because of the interpreter, but I certainly �got� the spirit). Again, there was no language barrier in the liturgy and music; we were celebrating the love and grace of God revealed in the words and music, fellowship and Sacrament.
It was a meaningful experience. I was disappointed to learn that this was the first conference in six years and I hope that this will not be the case in the future. I have a general impression that Hispanic/Latino ministry � for all the publicity it gets from Church media � is the �red headed step child� of ethnic ministries. There seems to be less staff and funding available for this ministry than for other ethnic ministries.
I was disappointed that there was no recognizable youth or young adult presence at this conference, other than some who helped with the music and administrative tasks.
This conference reaffirmed my belief that multi cultural ministry is the most fertile field for mission and ministry in our diocese and the Episcopal Church. I hope that the Episcopal Church in General Convention, and in financial management will �put their money where their mouth is� to focus more resources to developing this significant and essential growth in mission and ministry. I believe I, and Bernardo and Dolores return from this conference with a new energy and new resources and ideas to build the Hispanic ministry at All Saints� and in our diocese. Thank you for your support for this conference and for our multi cultural ministry at All Saints�.
Yours in Christ,
Ed Lovelady
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