Spotlight
Opening Up New Opportunities for Outreach
An innovative program immerses LCMS pastors and seminarians in the Spanish language to equip them to better minister in the United States.
In fall 2024, the Rev. David Mommens, pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Melrose, Minn., spent five weeks in the Dominican Republic (DR) as the first participant in an innovative new program.
Called Expanding the Spanish Footprint, the program immerses LCMS pastors and seminarians in the Spanish language and Latino culture to equip them to better minister to the Hispanic population in the United States. The program is based in the DR and organized by LCMS missionaries serving there. Even though it meant leaving his congregation for a few weeks, Mommens was eager to sign up. Melrose is a small town of 3,500 people, yet roughly one-third of those are Spanish-speaking immigrants.
He had been studying Spanish for some time, but online language programs only got him so far. “[Those programs] are for travel, teaching things like ‘How do you get to the beach?’” he said. “It doesn’t have theological [terminology]. Phrases like ‘justification by faith’ don’t come up.”
“Learning a language is just the key to entering into culture: finding out one’s views on life, death, marriage, family, children, work and a whole host of other things,” said the Rev. Ted Krey, regional director for the Synod’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean, on a recent episode of KFUO Radio’s The Coffee Hour. “So, being able to speak [Spanish] opens up to you an entire new way of life.”
During the Spanish-language program, which is currently offered three times a year, participants are involved in intensive language learning in a classroom setting while also being surrounded by native Spanish speakers. Participants have time to take in the local culture as well.
While in the DR, Mommens saw some of the cultural differences firsthand. He described the marketplaces where idols were available for purchase. “That’s not something we experience every day here in Minnesota,” he said. “But in Latino culture, that is a thing they would experience. So, I learned how to interact with that and how to share the Gospel in that situation.”
While many countries in the region share the same language, each has its own unique culture and traditions. “We don’t think by somebody coming to study here in the Dominican Republic that that’s representative of all of our countries in Latin America,” said Krey. “But it’s meant to give them … a small foretaste of what the larger life across Latin America [and the] Caribbean looks like.”
“Learning Spanish in this context gives the [participants] something they can’t get somewhere else,” said Erin Mackenzie, an LCMS missionary and volunteer coordinator for the region. “We are the church. Yes, we’re teaching them the language, but they’re also seeing how that language is being utilized to spread the Gospel, plant Lutheran churches and show mercy in their immediate context.”
By the time Mommens returned to Melrose, he had gained experience leading worship in Spanish and had already written the first four sermons for the Spanish-language service he wanted to start at St. Paul’s. That first service was held on Christmas Eve 2024, and this past summer the congregation started offering English-as-a-Second-Language classes.
Mommens also is considering sponsoring a team in the local community baseball league as an outlet for sharing the Gospel. Baseball is popular both in Mommens’ Minnesotan community and in Latino culture. “Not every town [in the DR] had clean drinking water, but every town did have a baseball diamond,” Mommens said.
During the past year, four others have completed the Expanding the Spanish Footprint program, bringing together those serving in diverse locations to learn, collaborate and find new opportunities for sharing the love of Jesus Christ.
Learn More
- Read more about Expanding the Spanish Footprint
Brianna Dehn
Former staff writer with LCMS Communications.
