Pastor Dan Fickenscher updated Calvary adults on his role serving the Hispanic community in the Central Indiana. He is based out of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Columbus, IN. His calling is to serve the Hispanic community at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Columbus, Trinity Lutheran Church in Indianapolis, and Our Shepherd Lutheran Church in Avon. Pastor noted that Calvary financially supports this Hispanic Ministry.
The presentation opened with Pastor Fickenscher handing out the recently acquired Spanish Lutheran Hymnal, Himnario Luterano. This hymnal follows the format of the Lutheran Hymnal, but it is not a direct translation, but rather original work that better relates to the Spanish speaking community. We then sang a Hymn from it in Spanish. What a wonderful noise we made for the Lord!
Pastor expressed some of his thoughts about how to best serve the Hispanic community. It is best if this is done as an outreach in conjunction with an established English-speaking congregation as often times the Hispanic people being ministered to do not have the resources to fund their own Pastor and building. He was careful to point out however that the people want to help support the work of the church and their offerings should be accepted joyfully.
Pastor Fickenscher then highlighted some of his efforts at both St. Paul, Trinity and Avon. He mentioned that one of the ways of integrating the Hispanic ministry in with the host congregation is to have English and Spanish services at the same time, stating out separately during the Service of the Word, then joining together for the Service of the Holy Communion. At Trinity, the outreach has been centered around a group of Hispanic people that were using the school's soccer field. During the cold weather season, the opportunity arose to invite them indoors and to start the soccer time with a short opening devotion time. In Avon,the opportunity is to minister to Hispanic people when they come to the bi-monthly food pantry.
We thank and praise God for Pastor Fickenscher and his efforts, and we pray that God will continue to bless the Hispanic Ministry in Central Indiana.
