Church News
Empowering Hispanic lay ministers at St. Francis, Greenville
By Elizabeth Gandolfo
As has been reported in recent issues of e~DUSC, St. Francis, Greenville, is in the process of transitioning to become a largely Hispanic parish with Spanish-speaking leadership and a broad range of outreach programs to the local Hispanic community. One of the main challenges in this transition is the empowerment and training of lay leaders for ministry. Keep in mind this training must take place in Spanish and must be sensitive to the varied Latin American cultural contexts from which St. Francis's Hispanic parishioners hail!
|
|
|
Ema Rosero at St. Francis |
Given the uniqueness and urgency of this challenge, the Episcopal Church's Office for Hispanic/Latino Ministries was generous enough to send us lay leader Ema Rosero from a fledgling Hispanic congregation in Salem, Massachusetts, so that she could spend one week working with the new Spanish-speaking members of our vestry and other Spanish-speaking leaders in the parish. The week was one of many blessings and much empowerment. Working closely with Fr. Robert Taylor, the EDUSC Hispanic Missioner to the Upstate, Rosero began the week with a three-hour retreat which focused on participants' experience of God's grace at work in their lives through the story of St. Francis Church. Ema then facilitated four workshops on the importance of lay mission and ministry in the Episcopal Church. The topics broached in these workshops ranged from the mission of the church in general, to the mission of the laity within the church and in the world, to the specific mission of the laity in the specific parish church of St. Francis.
The workshops were filled with team-building, brainstorming, and empowering participants for the grand task of carrying on St. Francis' mission of ministry and outreach to the Hispanic community in Greenville. We ended our inspiring week with Rosero by holding a simple, yet beautiful commissioning ceremony during which we each anointed one another as a means of symbolizing the commitment of our lay leaders to the continued growth and flourishing of Hispanic Ministries at St. Francis. May God grant us the grace and the wisdom to carry on with this mission for many years to come!
For more information on Hispanic Ministries at St. Francis or to find out how you can help, please call the church office at .864.244.4510.