Leaders focus on Hispanic youth

KISSIMMEE — The problems facing ministers with Hispanic youth are many, but “the solutions are very easy,” said Ada Chong, a facilitator for the National Plan for Hispanic Ministry trained in developing youth ministries.

Chong, a member of Rosewood United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, Calif., was in Kissimmee May 19 at the invitation of the conference’s Hispanic Ministry Team to train leaders of Hispanic youth ministries. Among the 25 people there were youth workers from Hispanic congregations in Miami, Tampa and Orlando and leaders of the Brazilian congregation at First United Methodist Church here.

Yohanka Cabezas, a member of Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in West Palm Beach and director of the conference’s Hispanic Youth Ministry Team, said this event was the first step in organizing the various Hispanic youth ministries throughout the conference. “We are very separated and don’t have much organization,” she said. “Our first step is to organize the youth leaders.”

Cabezas said her team is holding monthly youth rallies in West Palm Beach and planning a statewide youth retreat in August. She is also looking for ways to work with the Conference Council on Ministries’ Youth Ministry office to exchange ideas and resources.

Chong said ministry to Hispanic youth faces a lot more challenges than the same ministry to other cultural groups. “There are too many variables in Hispanic congregations,” she said. “Some people are multicultural and monolingual or monocultural and multilingual. They face cultural biases, language barriers and adapting to a new life, which doesn’t leave time for spiritual growth.”

Chong said the purpose of the training is to identify and teach people who are “bilingual and open-minded” to “understand where these youth come from and where they’re going.”

Much of the training focused on how the National Plan for Hispanic Ministry relates specifically to youth ministry. Chong told participants that to begin or improve their ministry they need to “see, judge and act.”

Seeing means they need to see the present and the future of their ministries, she said. “See your situation the way things are,” she said. “You are leaders of leaders. You must have a larger vision, farther into the future.”

Participants listed challenges in their ministries, including lack of participation and dealing with different cultures, languages and levels of fluency in English and Christian formation. They also listed problems facing their youth — divorce, time, transportation, immigration, social status and pressure from outside the church.

“When you organize your ministry you have to work with these things,” Chong said. “You are heroes to the youth because you have overcome these things in your lives.”

Their personal experiences, Chong said, puts youth leaders in a good position to serve as mentors to the young people in their churches, and mentoring is key to an effective ministry. “If this [mentoring] doesn’t exist, your ministry will not succeed,” Chong said.

To provide a solid mentoring relationship with a youth, the mentor must have a strong personal commitment to ministry, Chong said. “When the leader is personally committed, it’s contagious and catches quickly,” she said. “The personal commitment is not to the youth or the church, it’s to God.”

Elias Hernandez, leader of a 20-member youth group at Iglesia Fe United Methodist Church in Tampa, said he attended the training to help him organize his own youth ministry. He said the instruction on mentoring was particularly interesting to him, especially as a means for evangelization.

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© 2001 Florida United Methodist Review Online