A significant seasonal and permanent workforce in Morrow County relies on agriculture, and many workers identify as Catholic or evangelical Christian. Do local Protestant congregations have a gospel duty to cross cultural and language lines, or should ministry focus on established congregants?
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Add your commentI actually attend one of the smaller evangelical congregations out near the port and we started a Thursday night Spanish Bible study about two years ago. Started with 4 people. Now we regularly get 22-25. The hunger for community and Scripture among the workers out here is real. The harvest is literally plentiful and the laborers are literally few. I dont know how to say it any plainer than that.
Born and raised in Boardman. My grandpa worked the fields out here in the 60s before he got his own place. The church that reached out to his family when they first came — they did it in broken Spanish with a photocopied bulletin and a lot of heart. Nobody had a 'program.' They just showed up. If we can't do at least that much now, with Google Translate and actual resources, what exactly are we doing on Sunday mornings?
My aunt used to bring tamales to the church potluck every year and people would rave about them and then those same people never once thought to invite her coworkers from the orchard to anything. There's a real cognitive dissonance in enjoying someone's culture at a safe distance and then treating outreach to that same community as optional or even burdensome. Just something I've thought about for a long time living here.
The Catholic parish in the area already does Spanish Mass. So if we're talking about Catholic workers specifically, that need is at least partially being addressed. The more interesting and honestly harder question is whether the evangelical and Protestant churches — which often have more resources and more aggressive outreach philosophies — are doing their part. Spoiler: most of them aren't.
I moved here from Yakima three years ago for work and I will tell you the difference in how churches here treat the agricultural community versus how they treat everyone else is noticeable. In Yakima some churches had full bilingual worship — not perfect, but genuine. Here it mostly feels like workers are invisible to the congregations in town. That is a spiritual problem not just a logistical one.
Morally obligated is a strong phrase and I think it's the wrong frame. Nobody is OBLIGATED to conduct services in any particular language. But is it a tremendous gospel opportunity that most Boardman churches are completely sleeping on? Absolutely yes. There's a difference between a legal duty and a calling, and I wish more people here understood that.
ok so genuine question for the locals here — how many of the people complaining that churches ARENT doing this are actually volunteering to help translate or teach? because I've seen this conversation happen in our congregation twice and both times the people most passionate about it disappeared when the sign-up sheet came out. putting that out there.
Nope. Hard disagree on the word 'obligated.' Churches are voluntary associations of believers. They serve their members and their communities as God leads them. Forcing a language mandate onto a congregation is how you kill the congregation. If God is calling your church to Spanish outreach, great, pursue it. But let's not guilt-trip every little rural church in Morrow County for not having a full bilingual ministry.
Fun fact that I dont think people realize: the Great Commission in Matthew 28 literally says 'all nations' which in Greek is 'panta ta ethne' meaning all ethnic people groups. Biblical scholars universally agree this means the church has always been commissioned to cross linguistic boundaries. So anyone saying churches have no gospel duty here is just flatly wrong about what their own Bible teaches. This isnt even a debatable theological point its just exegesis.
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