Time for Hispanic Baptists to change the world, president says_61305

Posted: 6/10/05

Time for Hispanic Baptists to
change the world, president says

By Jocelyn Delgado

Communications Intern

CORPUS CHRISTI–Now is the time for Hispanic Texas Baptists to change the world around them, President Alcides Guajardo told the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.

“We have been the recipients of much support during all of the courses of our history as Hispanic Baptists,” he said during the Convencion's annual meeting. “We need that support. But now God has given us many members and many churches, and now we don't need to receive so much. Now we need to give.”

Hispanics can change the world by increasing their giving in three areas–education, hunger relief and church-starting, he said.

Twenty percent of Baptist churches in Texas are Hispanic, but the congregations only contribute 3 percent to the Baptist General Convention of Texas Cooperative Program unified giving plan, Guajardo said.

Guajardo promoted increased support for Baptist University of the Americas and education in general. Sixty percent of Hispanics who begin their education at a public high school do not graduate, he noted, citing state demographer Steve Murdock. One out of 11 Hispanics attend college.

The BGCT is forming a 24-member task force to evaluate how denominations and churches can alleviate the situation.

According to the Baptist University of the Americas website, three out of four Hispanic pastors in Texas attended BUA. The school needs more support to produce more Hispanic pastors, Guajardo said.

“We can contribute support in love and prayer. We can contribute money, and we can send our children and grandchildren to BUA,” he said.

Next, Guajardo addressed world hunger. Sixty thousand people die of hunger each year, but many do nothing because of misinformation, Guajardo said.

He cited Bill O'Brien, a Baptist missiologist, who said Hispanic Americans send more than $30 billion a year to their families in Mexico and Central America.

A portion of the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger goes to people in Mexico, Guajardo said.

Last, Guajardo mentioned a need to start more Hispanic churches. Two years ago, the Hispanic Convention agreed to partner with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to start 400 churches across the nation.

The convention has started only six in those two years. That is not meeting the spiritual needs of Hispanics, Guajardo said. Texas Hispanic Baptists must do more.

“We have done something to evangelize our town, to establish new churches and to support our beloved convention, but if we wish to triumph in the future and not diminish, we need to do much more than what we have done,” he said.