Latin American Experience with Changing Culture and Churches is Similar to the USA.
Last two weeks I have been working with Uruguayan Methodists, facilitating a national gathering of leaders for clarification of core values and discernment of ministry vision. The Uruguayan church is small, only 11 churches, plus an array of social outreach ministries:
+ 9 residential communities mostly for addiction recovery plus a couple specialty communities for special populations.
+ Three group homes (10 families each) to help migrants from troubled lands get settled into society.
+ a major center for serving the homeless population in Montevideo.
+ a solid history of human rights and justice witness, so that a very secular Uruguayan government trusts the Methodist Church as a valued partner.
There are lay and clergy serving as pastors, hailing from Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia and Cuba! So their sensibilities represent places beyond Uruguay.
And their challenges are very similar to ours: a busy public with limited time and attention span, rising secularism, the need to reboot children’s and family ministries, the need for lay-led Fresh Expressions to relate to a fast changing and diversifying population, and a need for a new generation of discipleship practice/training. Not to mention they have expensive aging buildings that need diversification of use in order to cover costs of maintenance and renewal.
Just like here.
Central Methodist in downtown Montevideo is launching a theater company in a subterranean space just like what First UMC Chicago does.
Because of the amazing parallels, I am enlarging the folks I watch in ministry to include South America. Pentecostalism and Catholicism are in decline across the continent. It’s a new day there as in the North.
And there are some smart ministry practitioners who are teaching me lots!
Stay tuned. And please pray for our spiritual siblings to the south !!
