Pastor Tom Johnson is devoted to meeting people in the cultural setting where they are.

Vicar Michael Larson is the second of three vicars training at St. Paul for urban outreach with an NID Ablaze! Grant.

Not so at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Melrose Park, Illinois. This congregation has instead determined to be proactive in its efforts to embrace all its neighboring cultures, and is utilizing an NID Ablaze! Grant to help make it happen.

The church is bordered on the north by an Anglo, historically German Lutheran neighborhood, on the south by an African American neighborhood, and on the west by a Spanish-speaking neighborhood. St. Paul's roughly 500 members are a mix of Anglo and African American, and a new focus is underway to revitalize outreach to members of the Hispanic community.

On board to help make that happen is Vicar Michael Larson.

“Michael is our second of three successive vicars being supported through a Northern Illinois District Ablaze! Grant,” explains Rev. Tom Johnson, pastor of the church. “Larson is specifically training for an urban ministry context, and our situation provides that.”

Although neither Larson nor his predecessor (James Lee was the vicar last year) speaks Spanish, Hispanic outreach has not been put on hold until a bilingual vicar arrives. Larson, who starts Spanish lessons in December, has teamed up with a bilingual parishioner and is planning to go door-to-door with brochures printed in Spanish.

Larson is also very involved with an active youth group of about 30, many of whom are bilingual. He took a group of them to Ontario this summer to teach Vacation Bible School on a Native American reservation.

Although one might think Spanish is the big language barrier for these vicars, Johnson notes that there is yet another that poses a greater challenge.

“The biggest hurdle I have is getting vicars to understand that the theological terminology they use doesn't mean anything to anybody – especially when they are speaking to people who aren't Lutheran,” he says. “We need to show how the gospel is relevant to people in their daily lives.”

“When we speak in a way that is communicating the human experience and what it means to have a relationship with God, we not only reach the new people,” Johnson affirms, “but the people who have been in church for 80 years will benefit just as much.”

The first year of the effort saw a lot of baptisms, including a few adults, according to Johnson, who notes that more than just the Ablaze! funded vicar program was at work.

“I think that the attitude of the congregation has definitely had a positive effect,” he adds. “We have always been proud of the fact that we are multi-ethnic, and have been standing on the shoulders of the pastors that have gone before me, and the men and women of the congregation.”

“Now we are also seeing that being multi-ethnic is an outreach tool in itself,” Johnson notes. “Younger generations are particularly interested in a more cosmopolitan church, a church that reflects the body of Christ – and that is multi-ethnic.”

He cites an example of two couples who came into the church because of English conversation classes started for the Hispanic community this summer. They came not to take the class, but because they wanted to be involved in the training.

“What got us high marks from them was the fact that we were actually trying to do something,” Johnson affirms.