The established Christian community and churches play a critical role in welcoming and supporting immigrants starting out in America. Dr. Alex Mandes is passionate about training and equipping Hispanic pastors and church leaders. He offers helpful advice for leaders of the evangelical church,
“When I’m talking about immigrants, first of all who can’t go to a university, and beyond university to seminary, etc., what do we do with those people that are called and gifted? That’s a question we have to ask ourselves as leaders.”
“For us, it’s having a real hard conversation with ourselves about what do they really need? What are the five stones, the slingshot, and the name of the Lord that they need to be able to impact a community?”
Dr. Alex Mandes explains how the evangelical church can make improvements to equip and train immigrant leaders for effective outreach. Our focus should be to provide adequate education and training programs for our immigrant pastors and leaders.
“If we can look beyond history and time and see that there is a general tendency to ossification of ministry, and death of mission and vision, and can somehow or another re-envision and see what God is doing in other parts of the world, we might have a chance here in America to do it all over again.”
“If we could realize that what God did in the book of Acts, He can do all over again in terms of reaching 5,000, 3,000 people, etc. It’s we and our systems that are slowing that down.”
He refers to a book by Steve Addison called .
“One of the things Steve said about the evangelical church is that three things are killing us: overemphasis on budget, building and credentials, which immigrants don’t have. They’re not always looking for money; they’re not always looking for credentials.”
“That’s where we can step in with a program like EFCA GATEWAY that gives them the armor of David rather than the armor of Saul, that gives them the right hand of fellowship, and that gives them the things that they actually need, rather than what we need to validate what we’ve done for God.”
God is at work in the Hispanic church of America. We can help to equip immigrant church leaders with the resources they need to effectively share the gospel around the world.
Dr. Alejandro (Alex) Mandes is dedicated to serving all people, Christian or otherwise. Everything he does ties back someway to the Great Commission or the Great Commandment. He is employed by the EFCA to lead their multicultural effort. He has also served as the executive director of Immigrant Hope and the Director of GATEWAY Theological Institute.
Helping our immigrant church leaders thrive
