"A Report On Our Spanish Language

Outreach For Christ In Watertown"

Weekend of October 10, 1999

Sermon-- Revelation 7:9-10

Saint Mark's, Watertown

Pastor Karl Walther

Todos nosotros nos descarriamos como ovejas, cada cual se apartó por su camino, y Jehová cargó sobre Jesucristo la iniquidad de todos nosotros. Amén. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Jesus Christ the iniquity of us all. Amen.

The Word of the Lord to us today, as we consider the Spanish Language Outreach for Christ we carry on together, is the Apostle John's vision of God's saints from every nation in eternal glory-- Revelation chapter seven, verses nine and ten. I'd like you to read it aloud with me. This is on page nineteen hundred twenty-one of your pew Bibles.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."

This is God's Spirit-inspired Word of Jesus Christ.

Introduction: Rationale for a Report on

Our Spanish Language Outreach For Christ

Dear fellow Christians-- who carry on each week outreach for Christ in the Spanish language:

At a recent meeting of WELS pastors in our area, I gave a report on the Spanish language outreach work that you and I carry on together. The pastors, and our pastors, agreed that we need to let some of the area congregations know what's going on here-- and to give them the chance to participate in some way. That has resulted in a number of invitations for me to guest preach in area congregations.

Well, I got to thinking that -- of all people -- I especially owe you a report on the Spanish language outreach for Christ that we do together. So, I hope you don't mind if we relax the standard preaching rules a bit today, and I preach the Bible and Jesus Christ as I also give you an update on this exciting cross-cultural work of ours. I've also shortened the rest of the service, so I'd have a little more time to give you the entire picture.

Part One: Early History of Our Congregation

Included German Language Outreach

To begin with, I'd like to take you back one hundred forty-five years ago this month-- to October of the year Eighteen fifty-four. Franklin Pierce was the president of these united states, which numbered under thirty. The Civil War was still six years away. Wisconsin had just become a state six years earlier. And Wisconsin's two metropolitan areas, if you could call them that, were Milwaukee and (believe it or not) Watertown.

Back at that time, Germans were fleeing their cities and villages and coming to this land by the tens of thousands. Thousands of them took up farming in our area. It was at that time -- on October twenty-second, eighteen fifty-four -- that the Reverend Christian Sans gathered a number of people together to form Die Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische Gemeinde of Watertown: which is now Saint Mark's Lutheran Church.

It was six years later, in the year eighteen sixty, that Pastor Sans found the need to accept a call out of Saint Mark's-- and a fellow named Pastor Johannes Bading came to be this congregation's first Bible-based, Christ-centered (which is to say: truly Lutheran) pastor. Pastor Bading had been inspired, trained, and sent by mission societies over in Germany who were concerned with spreading the Bible's gospel message across the globe.

And aren't you glad they were? Aren't you glad that somebody back then cared enough to get the good news of Jesus the Savior to your great-great-great grandparents in a foreign language? Aren't you glad that those folks set up instruction by which thousands of people have now gotten to know Jesus well-- and tens of thousands of people have heard of salvation in Christ over the years?

Aren't you glad that, when they built this building some one hundred eleven years ago for some twenty-three thousand dollars (!), they put in this baptismal font-- by which thousands of souls have had their sins washed away in the name of the Triune God? Aren't you glad they established this altar by which a couple thousand people each year receive for themselves the body and blood Jesus shed on the cross to take their sins away?

Part Two: Recent History of Our Congregation

Includes Spanish Language Outreach

Now, fast forward to these nineteen nineties. Now no longer are tens of thousands of German speakers immigrating to these United States. Instead, hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers are doing so. I've read, in fact, that Latinos are overtaking African-Americans as the dominant minority in our nation-- with about twelve percent of the population. I've also read that in fifty years we white-skinned folks are likely to be a minority in America: to Asian Americans, African Americans and Latinos taken together.

And we've noticed it here in Watertown, haven't we? The Hispanic folks who years ago used to work in the canning factory to the north now comprise whole shifts at some of the production companies in town-- Watertown Metals, Reiss Industries, Fischer Barton, Johnsonville Foods, Watertown Table Slide, Innerpak, and others. The Spanish speakers who live in Watertown now number many hundreds-- probably pushing at least a thousand souls.

Well, about five years ago -- when Saint Mark's was evaluating its work -- your hearts were moved to reach these souls with the great good news of Jesus Christ on the basis of his Holy Bible. You decided to up your pastoral staff to five men-- making one of the full time pastors primarily responsible for outreach, and insisting that outreach include Spanish language outreach.

In nineteen ninety-five, God sent that call to me. I had a little experience before ministering in languages I don't understand at all (!), and sometimes I'm just bold enough to try to do what sounds impossible. So, the Lord led me to accept the call. During the summer of nineteen ninety-six your other pastors afforded me the opportunity to study Spanish-- at UW-Madison, six weeks, four days a week, two hours a day. It was really too little to learn a language. But God loves these people, God called me to reach them, and God made good on his apparently impossible promise for me to manage the language.

Now, the early going was slow. We began Bible classes in November of ninety-six. Intermittently people attended, some weeks not at all; it was usually relatives of one of the little gals in our congregation. But in the summer of ninety-seven, God gave us a break. Pastor Spaude's wife, Adela, was befriending a number of Spanish speaking folks, and the Holy Spirit used her to draw them in. Since that time -- by God's superlative grace -- not one week has passed that we haven't had the opportunity to share the gospel in Spanish. In fact, it was a year ago last month that weekly Bible classes turned into weekly worship services in this sanctuary.

Part Three: Present Status of

Our Spanish Language Outreach

So, where do things stand now? Well, I'll start with what is probably the most visible part of our Spanish language outreach-- and that's our worship services.

Every week, Sunday night, at six-thirty -- right here in this sanctuary -- Spanish language worship takes place. I say six-thirty; that is, of course, Latino time: it's six-forty or six-fifty our time. And who comes latest to our services? You guessed it: I do! (I've adapted quite well to Latino time!) Actually, the reason is that a number of us -- Enno Knief especially, Heidi Voigt, Dale Hella, and I -- offer rides to worship. Not all the Hispanic folks have cars, although many are within walking distance of church.

Usually lately, all told, we've had an attendance in the thirties. That includes Spanish-speaking adults numbering in the teens, Spanish-speaking children numbering in the teens, and a number of us gringos, too. Oh, and lately we've been gratified to see a dozen our so Luther Preparatory School students come down with Doctor Opsahl to worship services each week.

The service starts when I and my ayudantes, the little kids who are my helpers, go up to ring the bell-- thirty-three times, one for every year Jesus spent living a perfect life in our place. Then we all gather in this part of the church, right near the pulpit, for worship.

You all would probably be quite comfortable in the worship service. We begin as we began this service: "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." And then we sing a hymn-- always a tune I'm familiar with, and Miss Geiger plays organ. After that comes the confession of sins (just like ours), the announcement of the forgiveness of sins, and the confession of faith: the Apostles Creed. We keep them the same week by week. That way the adults, some of whom can't read (because their Mexican education ended before the customary six grades were up)-- that way the adults learn from heart these truths of sin and Savior and faith and Trinity, week after week.

Well, after that we have the Bible study. It's not really a sermon, but more of an adult Sunday School lesson-- because most of these people have never had a chance until now to get familiar with the Bible. In fact, the kids actually go downstairs here to the Parish Center for Sunday School, which Miss Geiger teaches. The adults stay up here, Scott Voigt dims the sanctuary lights, and we read from the Gospel of Matthew. In fact, I project the lesson on the screen up here. We also discuss the lesson-- and although it's taken a whole year, our discussion is actually getting to be quite good. After all of that, Ora Kuckkan, who always faithfully films the whole service, helps us show part of a video of the Gospel of Matthew in Spanish.

While my adult amigos sign their names for me, we bring the kids up from downstairs. Then we conclude: with the Lord's Prayer (and sometimes some other prayers), with the benediction, and with another hymn. If it's a special occasion, especially Christmas or Easter, we throw a fiesta in the Parish Center. For those services we've gotten whole crowds of sixty or eighty people. And incidentally, you can eavesdrop on any of these services by checking out our broadcast -- I guess it's now Community Cable Five -- at five in the afternoon any Monday or at eleven in the morning any Wednesday.

By the way, I mentioned before that these worship services are the most visible thing we do for Spanish Language Outreach. They're by no means the only thing. For example, and very significantly: a number of kids from Spanish speaking homes attend our school. Juana and Jobani are in their second year at our school, in third grade-- and have they ever learned of their Savior! Paco and Obed are in the first year in our school, in kindergarten, and are learning English and Jesus at the same time! Heriberto and Marcis are cousins of Juana and Jobani, and they're in their first years of kindergarten and prekindergarten over at Saint John's-- with some financial help from us.

Another thing we do for Spanish language outreach is visit in homes. I do a certain amount of that-- though not as much as I'd like, given my other responsibilities. Adela Spaude does a whole lot of visiting; she's the Mom and Grandma so many of these Mexican born gals don't have in this country. Dale Hella gets into homes on Sunday afternoons-- especially homes with kids, where he's able to read them Bible stories, and homes of folks who might not otherwise have the opportunity to hear the gospel. Ellen Geiger helps a lot with school and with the kids in school. Enno Knief does odds and ends-- sometimes even still helping to locate apartments for these folks.

One other thing worth mentioning is that we'd like to start offering English as a Second Language for our amigos to learn. If you've ever wondered about it: all these people want to learn English-- every one of them. It's just that it's hard! (I mean: how many of us are fluent in a foreign language?) We used to visit homes individually in an effort to teach English, often enough by way of Bible stories-- but all of that got to be difficult. You may have noticed from the bulletin a few weeks ago that we are hosting a conference early in November to learn more about how to teach English, and hopefully we'll be able to do more of that (along with proclaiming the gospel) in the coming year.

First Application: What You Might Want To Do To Help--

Pray, Pay, & Participate

Now, I've gone on quite awhile about what we're doing in Spanish Language Outreach for Christ. And it's really exciting, isn't it?! It might just have won your hearts over to be asking, "What can I do to help?" Let me direct you now to today's bulletin insert, which is entitled: "Spanish Language Outreach For Christ In Watertown". And let me suggest to you, if I might, that you consider praying for, paying for, and participating in this endeavor.

First of all, please pray for our efforts. There's not one of us associated with this outreach who doesn't acknowledge that we see certifiable miracles from the hand of God every week. And there's only one way to access miracles these days. That's by prayer.

So, please pray! Pray that the Lord lead more people through our doors to hear of Jesus. Pray that the Lord lead our people into more homes to bear news of Jesus. Pray that the Lord open people's hearts to his gospel message of Jesus. Pray that the Lord afford us necessary resources further to proclaim of Jesus. And pray that the Lord grant me and others greater Spanish language ability to tell of Jesus. And I put these things on the bulletin insert in such a way that you can tear off this section, plunk it on your refrigerator, and take a single minute every day to pray them.

And don't be thinking the Lord won't answer your prayer for the sake of Jesus Christ. The Lord himself promises you -- James five, verse sixteen -- The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Secondly, please consider paying for our efforts. Although I have quite faithfully shared with others news of what we're doing, and although the Lord has moved some to respond, this good work still rests largely on the shoulders of God's people here at Saint Mark's. I put these things on the bulletin insert in such a way that you can tear off this section, place it in an envelope with your contribution, and bring or send it here to church.

And yes, we do need some money to carry this out. Although you already faithfully and generously compensate me, we still do a quite a bit of mailing (to every Mexican sounding name in the book!), we buy and provide Bibles and Christian literature in the Spanish language (and I'm going to try to see to it that every Spanish speaking soul in town has one of our Bibles!), and we compensate and defray the costs of some of the people who are involved in our ministry. And don't worry about giving too much! We could, finally, use paying somebody even full time to do a lot of this good work.

And don't forget God's encouragement that goes toward your contribution. The Lord himself promises you -- Second Corinthians nine, verse eleven -- You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Finally, you might consider participating in our efforts. For one thing, there are those of you who know the Spanish language-- and some of you, perhaps, better than I do. Wow! We can really use you! But we can use all of you: Spanish or no. I'd like to suggest that we can use somebody to set up for us, we can use folks to offer rides, we can use people to befriend these families and provide them help in English, and we can probably use some people willing to teach some English.

One thing, though: I want you to show up at our Spanish language worship a couple times before we put you to work. That will give you a better introduction to what's going on. It will express your willingness to spend some time to work with us in this endeavor. And it will give me a natural opportunity to visit with you about what all you can be doing.

And don't be thinking that you can't be doing something in Spanish language outreach. The Lord himself tells you -- First Peter two, verse nine -- You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Part Three: Why You Might Want To Help--

A Return To Our Text

All of that is what you might do to help: pray, pay, participate. But it leaves one question unanswered: Why might you want to help? And this, finally, brings us back to our text.

Earlier I had you think back to the year of the founding of our congregation: eighteen fifty-four. Then I let you know some of the things we've been doing here in the last couple of years. Now, though, I'd like you to look ahead-- maybe a hundred fifty years, maybe fifteen hundred years, maybe fifteen thousand.

You see, that's what God enabled the Apostle John to do in God's Word to us today. He saw heavenly worship after the great final day of this world.

And here's what he reports to us: After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude -- many millions, no doubt -- that no one could count. They came from every nation-- not just the USA, every tribe-- not just those with German-sounding surnames, every people-- not just North Americans, and every language-- not just English.

They were standing before the throne of God himself and in front of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who had so awfully been slaughtered for their sins. They were wearing white robes-- white because they were washed in the blood of the Lamb. And they were holding palm branches in their hands-- connoting victory and royalty, the likes of Palm Sunday.

And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne -- who has provided salvation for us -- and salvation belongs to the Lamb"-- who has won eternal life for us.

Do you catch that vision? Do you see what that's saying? Someday, forever and ever, we will worship not in church, but in heavenly glory! Someday our clothes will be perfectly white and pure! We'll no longer need to wrestle with the lies, the greed, the lust, the anger, the disobedience that dwells daily in the hearts of each of us. Someday we will hold palm branches! We will enjoy a complete and smashing victory over sin, death, and hell.

And as I see this vision, I see next to us Angela and Juana and Jobani, and Paco and Maricela, and Obed and his parents. I see Noemí and Jenifer and Lizbet (whom some of the eighth grade girls are trying to help with her homework), and Flor and Uriel (whom I always pick up), and Antonio and Teodora and Elisa and Kiana (who live over here on Ninth Street), and Joanna and Pedro and Carla and Carlos (who may have the first millennium baby), and Alfredo (whom I've helped to wire money), and Jorge and Cristina (whose Mom and aunt have flown up from Mexico City twice and attended our services), and Jovita and family, and Tirzo and Guadalupe and their family, and Javier-- all of whom Dale faithfully visits.

Conclusion: Results of This Report on

Our Spanish Language Outreach For Christ

Folks, these folks are going to heaven with us-- because of work you are doing! Do you realize that?! And I am persuaded that if you work at it and if I work at it -- and if, above all, we pray! pray! pray! pray! pray! -- others will join us, too.

Can I count on your help? Can Jesus count on your help?! ...His work: what a joy! what a privilege! what an opportunity! Amen.

Todos han pecado y son privados de la gloria de Dios-- y son justificados gratuitamente mediante la redención que Jesucristo efectuó. Amén. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God-- and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Amen.