Building Bridges: How One Church Embraced Hispanic Ministry
Pastor Chris Nitzel shares his inspiring journey in ministry and the transformative impact of his congregation's outreach to the Hispanic community in Hartley, Iowa. Emphasizing the importance of humility in leadership, he reflects on the best piece of advice he received: to wield authority wisely while empowering others to take credit for their contributions. The discussion highlights the challenges and opportunities faced when integrating a new cultural group into church life, including the implementation of ESL classes as a gateway for connection. Pastor Chris also shares heartwarming stories of faith development, including baptisms and community events that fostered deeper relationships. His insights serve as a valuable guide for other churches looking to engage with diverse populations and create inclusive ministries.
Pastor Chris Nitzel, serving at St. Paul Falls Lutheran Church in Hartley, Iowa, shares his rich journey into ministry and the transformative initiatives he has led to reach out to the Hispanic community in his area. With a background that spans nearly two decades in pastoral work, Pastor Chris reflects on the importance of humility in leadership, citing a piece of advice from his predecessor about the balance of ego in ministry. The conversation transitions into the challenges and opportunities that arise when a church seeks to engage with a diverse community. Pastor Chris emphasizes the significance of building relationships, particularly through the launch of ESL classes, which have become a vital entry point for connecting with Hispanic families. He discusses the unique cultural dynamics of the community, highlighting the contributions and traditions of migrant workers, as well as the church's commitment to inclusivity and outreach. The episode underscores the church’s dedication to not only providing English language education but also fostering faith through baptism and wedding ceremonies that celebrate cultural heritage.
A central theme of the discussion revolves around the challenges of adapting ministry practices to better serve a multicultural congregation. Pastor Chris candidly addresses his limitations in Spanish and the innovative strategies his church employs to bridge communication gaps, including the use of technology like Google Translate. The narrative unfolds to reveal how the church has navigated initial stereotypes and misconceptions within the community, fostering an environment of acceptance and understanding. As Pastor Chris recounts specific successes, such as the increase in attendance at Sunday school through creative engagement strategies, it becomes clear that the church’s approach is a testament to the power of listening to community needs and responding with love and service. The episode culminates with Pastor Chris’s insights on the importance of collaboration and support from the wider church community, advocating for resources that would enhance their mission and allow for further outreach efforts.
The episode closes on an inspiring note, with Pastor Chris articulating his vision for the future of his ministry, emphasizing that the ultimate legacy he wishes to leave behind is not one of accolades or recognition, but a loving witness to the life-changing message of Jesus Christ. His passion for sharing the gospel and commitment to fostering relationships within the community serve as a compelling reminder of the transformative power of faith-driven outreach.
Takeaways:
- Pastor Chris emphasizes the importance of giving credit to others in ministry leadership.
- Engaging with the local community can lead to revitalized church programs and attendance.
- Building relationships with new congregants, especially from diverse backgrounds, is a gradual process.
- Creating a welcoming environment for all cultural groups enhances community connection and growth.
- Providing bilingual services and ESL classes fosters inclusion and understanding in the church.
- Pastor Chris advocates for exploring various ministry initiatives to find what resonates with the community.
Links referenced in this episode:
Transcript
Well, Pastor Chris, welcome to my podcast.
Host:How you doing today, my friend?
Pastor Chris:I am doing very well.
Pastor Chris:How are you doing?
Host:I'm doing great.
Host:Looking forward to talking to you and getting to know you a little bit better.
Host:I'm going to start out with a little different question for you, so give us a little bit of your bio background.
Host:For those who may not know you.
Pastor Chris:I am Pastor Chris Nitzel.
Pastor Chris:I serve at St.
Pastor Chris:Paul Falls Lutheran Church in Hartley, Iowa.
Pastor Chris:For those who know a little bit about Iowa, we're close to the Iowa Great Lakes, if that makes some sense.
Pastor Chris:But if you don't know anything about Iowa, well, Northwest corner, not quite Sioux Falls, not quite Sioux City, not quite Spencer.
Pastor Chris:Just a lot of my other church work friends call it Moni, Middle of nowhere, Iowa.
Host:That's pretty cool.
Host:I love that.
Pastor Chris:And I've been been serving here for nine years now.
Pastor Chris:Previously, I served at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bloomington, Illinois.
Pastor Chris:Teamwork ministry.
Pastor Chris:I was there for nine years and that's kind of been the context for which I've served in my pastoral ministry so far.
Host:Well, cool.
Host:Good to have you on.
Host:Now, here's my favorite question to ask all my guests.
Host:What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Pastor Chris:When you say best, wow, that's, you know, a quantitative type term.
Pastor Chris:I would say the piece of advice that I rely on the most, especially when it comes to ministry, is something that the senior pastor used to say at my former congregation is you have to have so much ego.
Pastor Chris:You have no ego.
Pastor Chris:And as he would explain that, it just meant that in leadership, you have to be in charge and you have to have that authority that's been given to you, but you have to know when to use it and not use it all the time.
Pastor Chris:And then also to develop your staff, your members, your other people that you are over to get all the credit and you get none of it.
Host:I love that.
Host:And it's very true.
Pastor Chris:And be okay with that.
Host:And be okay with that.
Host:Yes.
Host:One of my favorite stories to kind of go along with that my own ministry was when I got to my very first congregation in Detroit.
Host:We had, like most churches, a failing Sunday school.
Host:We had more teachers than we had students.
Host:And I came up with the idea of we have a lot of kids who come to church, but they don't come to Sunday school.
Host:So what happens if we did Sunday school during a portion of church so we'd have more people there?
Host:And I just threw the idea out there and I just let it sit and it didn't Pick up.
Host:But then a few weeks later, someone came back and said, pastor, I've been thinking about this Sunday school thing, and I got this great idea.
Host:What if we move Sunday school to during church?
Host:And I'm like, I've heard that before.
Host:I didn't say that, but I was thinking to myself, I heard that idea before.
Host:And I'm like, that's a great idea.
Host:If you proposed it in a council meeting, I'll back you on that.
Host:And they did, and we changed it around.
Host:We went from having three kids to 30 kids in our Sunday school, and it just revitalized that ministry.
Host:So, yeah, gotta be okay giving someone else credit.
Pastor Chris:That's right, yeah.
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Host:So I'm always curious for pastors, you know, tell me about what, how you decide to go into the ministry.
Host:I'm always curious about those stories.
Pastor Chris:I.
Pastor Chris:I don't know.
Pastor Chris:It wasn't me.
Pastor Chris:I often think, and I hope this comes across okay, I almost think you have to not want to go into the pastoral ministry.
Host:Make a lot of sense.
Pastor Chris:Never, never in my wildest dreams did I ever envision that I would be serving as a pastor.
Pastor Chris:But there was just a number of things along the way that eventually you stop fighting and realize this is what God's calling me to, whether I want to do it or not.
Pastor Chris:And so for me, it started with my confirmation pastor just pulling me aside one night and saying, you actually like learning this stuff and you connect with people, pray about it.
Pastor Chris:And so as I was developing then into high school, thinking about what may be next, that was in the back of my mind.
Pastor Chris:But I was full steam ahead, looking at architecture or some sort of engineering, things of that nature.
Pastor Chris:But then, as I did the college visits, there were just so many things that I can't describe the why or the how.
Pastor Chris:It just, it made sense.
Pastor Chris:And so I went and I did, and now I do.
Host:I love that my journey started in high school.
Host:I went to a workshop, a conference, and we're talking about the need for pastors, especially African American pastors, especially in our church body.
Host:And it hit me that maybe God was talking to me.
Host:And so I applied right away from high school to go to seminary, and he wrote me back a very nice letter.
Host:That's not how the process works.
Host:You have to actually get an undergraduate degree first and then you can talk about that.
Host:So I had to go back and learn that.
Host:Oh, I'm just walked from high school into the seminary.
Pastor Chris:So that'd be nice though, wouldn't it?
Host:It would be.
Host:It was so Much cheaper too.
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Host:So tell us a little bit about your congregation because I want to kind of walk into the context of how you went from where you were as a congregation in Millino, Iowa, to being involved in Hispanic ministry.
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Pastor Chris:So our congregation is.
Pastor Chris:We worship.
Pastor Chris:Before COVID we were worshiping about 120, 130 people on a Sunday morning.
Pastor Chris:And when I got here nine years ago, there were some members that were wanting to do more within the community.
Pastor Chris:There was a perception that they shared with me that, oh, we're the stuck up church, we're the traditional church.
Pastor Chris:We.
Pastor Chris:And you know, it's.
Pastor Chris:Well, because we have close communion and we care about the practice of the sacraments and we care about those things, but our community and the culture around us made that seem like we were stuck up or something of that nature.
Pastor Chris:And so as we tried to navigate that, of the importance of holding to the purity of doctrine and how we practice that in love and truth and sincerity, do we still open our doors to the community and let people know who we really are and try to overcome that perception?
Pastor Chris:I reached out to Mark Gerken, your predecessor at the district, and at the time he was using the resource Transforming Churches Network.
Pastor Chris:And so as a congregation, we went through that.
Pastor Chris:And one of the things they have you do is create a group.
Pastor Chris:Their phrase for it, and it's stuck for us is people of passion, but we call them our poppers, but people who are passionate about the Lord and then passionate about finding ways to then be able to meet needs in our community, sharing the gospel at the same time and then making sure that we are open and receptive to when those people do come through the doors to come to worship, to come be part of our congregation.
Pastor Chris:And so with that people passion group, we have strived very hard to have it be where we come with ideas.
Pastor Chris:We don't do all of them because maybe we.
Pastor Chris:It's a good idea, but we ourselves are not passionate enough to take the reins, to build a team to make those things happen.
Pastor Chris:So we meet once a month and we've come up with ideas of a lot of different ministries that we do for our community.
Pastor Chris:And then three years ago, we started doing a demographic of our study of our community and our county and just noticed the second highest population in our county and community outside of Caucasians was Hispanics.
Pastor Chris:So then that led us to reach out to Pastor Pedro, our Iowa District west ministry at large missionary, and what can we do to serve them?
Pastor Chris:What might be some things?
Pastor Chris:And he said the best thing to do for that would be ESL classes.
Pastor Chris:And so with his help, we began our ESL classes and that began our ministry to Hispanics in our community, because.
Host:Every Hispanic and Latino community is different.
Host:Kind of.
Host:Tell us a makeup of your community.
Host:And Hartley, as we've gotten to know.
Pastor Chris:Them, a lot of our makeup of the community is families and migrant workers.
Pastor Chris:They're on visas, and in our area, they work quite a bit with animals.
Pastor Chris:So they were veterinarians or studying to become veterinarians in Mexico or whichever country they came from.
Pastor Chris:And so there are a wonderful number of jobs because so many people have hog buildings, other animals, things of that nature, and so they're able to work in that.
Pastor Chris:And then the other half of the community is kind of the skilled laborers that help with construction and other things like that.
Pastor Chris:That's been kind of the makeup of the Hispanic community for us and our community.
Host:So as you began working in this ministry, I'm curious, what were some of the unique challenges you faced and opportunities as you began working in that community in that context?
Pastor Chris:For me personally, my Spanish is limited to what is on a Mexican restaurant menu.
Pastor Chris:So that is a challenge.
Pastor Chris:I've grown in some of the words in Spanish and learning more of that.
Pastor Chris:Still not conversational, but I am to the point where getting pretty good, at least reading Spanish because of how we have our ESL classes set up.
Pastor Chris:And then the other challenge is just taking time and having the time to form the relationships with them, because the way our ESL classes start, we'll have 15, 20 students coming at the very beginning.
Pastor Chris:But whether it's jobs moving, they're getting moved somewhere else, that relationship ends.
Pastor Chris: And our classes go from: Pastor Chris:But those relationships then become really strong.
Host:I've led churches through change, and we brought into our congregation people who were not like us, from different countries.
Host:What things did your church have to overcome, or maybe tensions to deal with as you began to welcome a new group of people into your church body?
Pastor Chris:We haven't, to my knowledge, we haven't faced a whole lot of challenges or tensions.
Pastor Chris:I think part of it is trying to work very hard to overcome stereotypes and misconceptions.
Pastor Chris:But that can be with any demographic in any nationality, and anything of just having a caring heart.
Pastor Chris:And yes, we realize that there are stereotypes and there are misperceptions, but we can't judge everybody on that.
Pastor Chris:But so far, from what I've seen from my members, from all of our volunteers, as it's just been really welcoming.
Pastor Chris:And Google Translate has been a big help with that as well.
Pastor Chris:We're trying to rely on that less and less, but that's also more so for us because we're not learning as much Spanish as they are learning English.
Pastor Chris:So that's also a challenge.
Pastor Chris:But thankfully there are tools that do help with that.
Host:So you talked about you started ESL classes as an entry point.
Host:Are there other things that have jumped out from what you starting in that point, Other ministries you began that you saw really worked well in your church to connect even deeper with that community?
Pastor Chris:So far, ESL has been our main connection.
Pastor Chris:We have been hoping for some more connections, but at the same time, Pastor Pedro, surprisingly, is only one man and he's serving an entire district.
Pastor Chris:And so he's also balancing other ministries.
Pastor Chris:We do have one Bible study that does meet at home, that somebody from our class who has had some experience leading those things can teach that in the mother tongue.
Pastor Chris:So that's been neat to see that happen.
Pastor Chris:But when Pastor Pedro can, he will come and do some bilingual worship services.
Pastor Chris:He's especially done that when there's been baptisms, weddings, things of that nature.
Pastor Chris:And then part of it is us just being able to go and support that community and their traditions and how they celebrate birthdays and how they do quinceras, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, and other things like that, of, you know, being ready for those and doing those things.
Host:When my congregation started working with the Sudanese, wasn't Sudanese, actually, it was from.
Host:They weren't from Sudan.
Host:I'm trying to think where they were from now.
Pastor Chris:Eritreans?
Host:No, it was a different.
Host:Oh, Somalia.
Host:So we had some Somalian trans people coming from Milwaukee.
Host:One thing we noticed was we really needed to change our understanding of how we connect with them.
Host:So their needs were, because they were coming from a Muslim country, they didn't do pork.
Host:So it really kind of messed up the pork chop dinners.
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Host:But as you're working with Rock and Cross culturally, what are some really great new things that have come become part of your congregation because you welcome new people with a new culture and that you go, wow, that was kind of neat to learn that about a particular group.
Pastor Chris:The food is amazing because two or three times in our ESL sessions, we run them two weeks or 10 weeks at a time, two days a week.
Pastor Chris:And we do realize that it's in the evenings.
Pastor Chris:And so two or three times we try and do a kind of a potluck style meal just because sometimes they're coming right from work and hungry and things like that.
Pastor Chris:And Pastor Pedro and the ESL students are responsible for making authentic Mexican food.
Pastor Chris:I'm responsible for making gringo Mexican food.
Pastor Chris:So that way there's something for our ESL volunteers to eat if they're not going to be brave enough to try the authentic Mexican food.
Pastor Chris:But so far, everybody's been pretty good about trying it and learning the history behind it.
Pastor Chris:And oh, cow tongue is actually really good to eat.
Pastor Chris:So that's been eat.
Pastor Chris:Another thing that we've started is during Advent, a service called the posada, in which it's a way of retelling and celebrating Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem and the experience that they had, but doing it from that his Spanish cultural way in which they do that.
Pastor Chris:And so it's been neat.
Pastor Chris:We had maybe 35 at our first one, and we're hoping that that'll grow this year and incorporating that into the life of our congregation and what we do.
Host:So for a church that's starting to also realize that there are people in the community like Hispanics, what advice would you have for a church that's going, we want to do kind of what you're doing to connect with them.
Host:Are there any best practices that you've noticed that this is what we did?
Host:Well, these are things we may not do again?
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Pastor Chris:As far as, you know, best practices, make sure that the Gospel is part of anything that you're going to do.
Pastor Chris:So the way we structure our classes is, you know, we'll have, we call it the cafe.
Pastor Chris:We have that open for when our ESL students come to.
Pastor Chris:They need snacks, cookies.
Pastor Chris:Like I said, sometimes we have meals, but then after that beginning time of fellowship, we start all together as one big group and we learn.
Pastor Chris:The English speakers get taught how to pronounce words in Spanish of a Bible verse and a hymn.
Pastor Chris:Then likewise, we teach the Spanish speakers the English versions of those verses and the Bible verses, and then we sing and do that together.
Pastor Chris:So that's our main focus on sharing faith at that time.
Pastor Chris:And then we separate into our specific classes as far as what level they are at and what their needs are of helping them grow in their English.
Pastor Chris:And we try very hard to have one English speaking person as the primary teacher and one bilingual person to help just in case something's not communicating very clearly.
Pastor Chris:And I think that's been a big help because then we're not relying on the Google Translate, we're relying then on in person communication, relationship building through those roles.
Pastor Chris:Another Good practice is we offer daycare if it's needed.
Pastor Chris:And again, having one English speaker, but then also having someone who is bilingual because depending on when they've come to America and how long they've been here definitely shows the different level where the kids will be at in speaking English and things of that nature.
Pastor Chris:So some kids are going to be very fluent in it and others they're still learning.
Pastor Chris:And so it's good to have that and strive to have activities for each age level for childcare.
Pastor Chris:That's been a really good practice.
Pastor Chris:One thing that we won't do again is we started it and we only did it one day a week.
Pastor Chris:And.
Pastor Chris:And we got immediate feedback that that wasn't enough, that it needs to be two days a week at minimum.
Pastor Chris:We haven't gone to more than two days a week because it's been hard to have volunteer commitment for more than two days a week.
Pastor Chris:But going to two days a week from one day a week was instrumental, I think, in forming deeper relationships, but also having retention of students and having them come longer.
Host:So our partnership with Iowa District west and with Hartley has been phenomenal.
Host:How can we work together to support the broader community?
Host:As you look forward to what's next and how do you expand what you're.
Pastor Chris:Doing, it would be interesting to explore relationships just district wide, because as we've been doing this with Pastor Pedro, this is going into our third full year of doing it.
Pastor Chris:What would be ways in which we could multiply and replicate.
Pastor Chris:Pastor Pedro?
Pastor Chris:Because I think if we want to multiply, the success of ESL classes and even then, deepening relationships, more Bible studies, more worship services, we need more help.
Pastor Chris:Whether it's somebody that we're able to have bilingual, whether it's somebody from that culture that's coming in to help, because we just.
Pastor Chris:We need more.
Pastor Chris:And so it'd be interesting to explore ways of what that might look like, whether it's kind of regional missionaries at large, that two or three congregations, perhaps with some subsidizing of the district, can support that missionary in that region.
Pastor Chris:So that way we have more.
Pastor Chris:Because as of right now, we're just limited throughout our district as to how many ESL can be done the way it's being done now.
Host:You're right about that.
Host:I keep thinking myself if I could clone Pedro, but we're not into cloning.
Host:But yeah, because you're right.
Host:There's so many opportunities and there's so many places of.
Host:In our communities where we start to see an influx that, yeah, we had three or four more people who were able to do this on the ground.
Host:We could really connect even further with those, our new neighbors, because I think.
Pastor Chris:That'S held us back from doing more outside of the ESL classes because of Pastor Pedro's geographical location where he lives.
Pastor Chris:That's no fault of his own.
Pastor Chris:You know, he's two hours away.
Pastor Chris:He can't come up here five, six times a week.
Pastor Chris:And there are already some Spanish worship services.
Pastor Chris:There are already some Spanish Bible studies that were in place before he got into the district.
Pastor Chris:And you want to keep those going as well.
Pastor Chris:So there's just only so many miles a person can put on in one week.
Pastor Chris:So it'd be good to just dream and talk about and just see what congregations might be interested in doing something like that, where we could have that partnership in place to do this.
Pastor Chris:Because if you've ever heard Pastor Pedro speak, he likes to say, the Mexicans are coming.
Pastor Chris:Wait, no, they're already here.
Host:Exactly.
Host:And not just the Mexicans.
Host:Yes, right, right.
Host:But, yeah, no, you're phenomenally right about that.
Host:And it's so important.
Host:What we do is so rewarding to kind of see.
Host:Is there a particular story speaking of what you've experienced so far that stands out from your work in the community?
Host:That is just kind of a capsulation of, this is why we do this.
Pastor Chris:It's just been neat to see the growth and faith and then participation of our ESL students in worship, and then a few of those class members that have come back for every session, letting them take some ownership of it, too.
Pastor Chris:You know, hey, how.
Pastor Chris:How does this advertising look?
Pastor Chris:Does this sound right?
Pastor Chris:Or would you want to say it something differently?
Pastor Chris:Or letting them use their skills and their talents of.
Pastor Chris:Of doing that.
Pastor Chris:And once you form those relationships, they remain pretty loyal.
Pastor Chris:In our second session, we had a young couple that were not married, had two kids, and not only through the ESL classes, but then just meeting with them beforehand, sharing faith, and then meeting with them even more beyond that of sharing the richness of God's word.
Pastor Chris:I said, no, we want to get married.
Pastor Chris:We want to get our kids baptized.
Pastor Chris:We need to do these things.
Pastor Chris:And so the end of our class session, they wanted to have their wedding and have the kids baptized as part of that celebration.
Pastor Chris:And so we were able to do a worship service for them and then had a big meal afterwards.
Pastor Chris:And then we presented our awards for the students.
Pastor Chris:But to see the even more of the Hispanic community come to be part of that wedding and to be part of those Baptisms was really cool.
Pastor Chris:And as you'll hear me say, the food was awesome.
Pastor Chris:That's great because since we started doing this, we've had that wedding, those two children baptized.
Pastor Chris:We've had one other adult baptism, one other child baptism, one potential for another, two children's baptisms.
Pastor Chris:And then we've had one adult baptism and one reaffirmation of faith.
Pastor Chris:And so that's been neat to see, see that faith development.
Pastor Chris:And then one other thing I will share that was neat is our choir.
Pastor Chris:And then the Sunday school kids worked to learn to sing Jesus Loves Me in Spanish.
Pastor Chris:And then we invited the ESL class to come.
Pastor Chris:And so we sang Jesus Loved Me in English and Spanish during the church service.
Pastor Chris:And so that was neat to see.
Pastor Chris:And it was neat to see so many of the ESL students come that Sunday and be part of that because, oh, they're doing something in Spanish for us.
Pastor Chris:And so that was a neat aspect to our worship service as well.
Host:Wow, that's really.
Host:So how many people or new members have come out of the ministry you've done with Hispanics so far?
Pastor Chris:So baptized members, five or six.
Pastor Chris:And then we've had two communicant members.
Pastor Chris:And then we're constantly working on that, bringing them to that communicate membership and be part of the congregation in that way.
Pastor Chris:But we've also wrestled with, you know, without any more support and, you know, as we talked about before, a missionary at large, it's hard to maybe have two separate congregations, but we really don't want that.
Pastor Chris:It would be nice to have one congregation, but how do we support each other in our mother tongues and in our cultural uniquenesses and make them one?
Host:So, yeah, that has often been the question that I get from churches who are doing multi ethnic ministry is do we form a separate independent congregation or do we incorporate the people that are coming in into our congregation?
Host:And I give people the pros and cons and you know, the con.
Host:The pros are that they have more ownership.
Host:The.
Host:The cons are that you lose that connection.
Host:And usually the next generation, the generation after that are more Americanized and that need for that congregation to be a freestanding first language congregation diminishes.
Host:So those are always the challenges of what do we do from here to make sure that the ministry is and the people that are being served.
Host:So, yeah, yeah.
Host:So I love to ask my guest this question, Chris, and you get to, you get it too.
Host:What do you want your legacy to be?
Pastor Chris:I think of legacy different because I don't want to leave anything behind because one day it's all going to change anyways.
Pastor Chris:I truly just want to point people to eternal life, Jesus.
Pastor Chris:And whether that becomes a legacy or not, I don't, you know, the legacy is not the motivation.
Pastor Chris:What we are going to experience next, that's the motivation.
Pastor Chris:And so I guess if I had to say legacy they would be that is that people saw in me that I love the Lord and I wanted other people to love the Lord alongside me.
Host:That's a great one.
Host:That's kind of.
Host:I agree with you on that one.
Host:As we wrap up this conversation, are there a couple takeaways you want to leave with the audience or thoughts as they are considering or contemplating maybe doing a ministry similar to this?
Pastor Chris:I would just say explore it.
Pastor Chris:Form some sort of steering committee and explore it.
Pastor Chris:Because even if you don't end up doing a multi ethnic ministry, you might find yourself doing something.
Pastor Chris:And so you got to start somewhere and find what you are passionate about to then be able to do it.
Pastor Chris:Because ESL was not the first thing we came up with.
Pastor Chris:We started with doing trunk or treats, with doing a Veterans Day supper, with doing outdoor movie nights, with doing a lot of different things.
Pastor Chris:But then we ended up at esl.
Pastor Chris:And so it's still part of our whole repertoire of how we seek to serve our community, meet community needs and, and of that nature.
Pastor Chris:And the other offer I would throw out there is I am more than happy to talk with you about it.
Pastor Chris:Even more greater detail.
Pastor Chris:And I know Pastor Pedro would too because that's how other ESL classes have started at other congregations is okay, Chris, I need you to come to Carroll.
Pastor Chris:Why we need to talk about esl?
Pastor Chris:Cause I think we need to get another one going there.
Pastor Chris:Okay.
Host:So Chris, I'm curious.
Host:We talked about connecting with you on this.
Host:So one of the things where could people, if they want to know more about what you're doing, where can they find you on social media, a good email contact so they can reach out and say hey Chris, you seem like an expert in this.
Host:Give me some insights.
Pastor Chris:So we don't do a whole lot of stuff online.
Pastor Chris:We do have a church Facebook page, St Paul's Hartley LCMS on.
Pastor Chris:On Facebook where we will have some posts where we do do some advertisement.
Pastor Chris:But.
Pastor Chris:But we're trying to, we try to just be out in the community to recruit our people that way.
Pastor Chris:To get a hold of me directly.
Pastor Chris:My name Chris Nitzel.
Pastor Chris:The number one mail.com would be the best email to get a hold of me for more information, and I do have a personal Facebook page, but those would be the main ways.
Host:Well, Chris, thanks so much for what you do, and it's been a joy for me to partner with you guys.
Host:We talked about this, I think, maybe three years ago when I first got here about, hey, Keith, we got a lot of Hispanics moving to the neighborhood.
Host:What can we do?
Host:And it really kind of spurred us on to look at calling Pastor Lopez to be that person, to spearhead this, because we saw that there was so much potential in our communities if we had someone to kind of guide churches through that.
Host:So thank you for being one of our first experiments into this realm of connecting with people.
Host:And I just glad to see there's baptisms and the food is good and you can make a connection with people, because that's really what it's all about.
Pastor Chris:Right.
Pastor Chris:And we appreciate the district's help in this.
Pastor Chris:And like I said before, don't be afraid to start and try.
Host:Yeah.
Host:And fail, you know?
Pastor Chris:Yeah, exactly.
Host:I always said, I've learned a lot when I fail.
Pastor Chris:Keep learning and moving forward.
Pastor Chris:So that's what I've tried to tell my people.
Pastor Chris:I know Ernie Harwell from Detroit.
Pastor Chris:I used to listen to his broadcast, even though I'm not a Tigers fan, but just phenomenal speaker.
Pastor Chris:And he would always say, well, that batter struck out because he was doing a lot of excessive window shopping.
Pastor Chris:And so I converted that to say, I'd rather strike out swinging than strike out looking.
Host:Right.
Pastor Chris:So I would rather.
Pastor Chris:I would rather fail at least trying something than just sitting back and saying, well, our church closed, but we didn't really do anything to engage in the community or share the gospel and serve our community where we're at.
Host:Well, thanks so much again, Chris, for taking the time to kind of share with us in the district about what wonderful things God is doing through your congregation and through you as the leader of that congregation.
Pastor Chris:Yeah.
Pastor Chris:Well, thank you.
Pastor Chris:You upped my dad credibility this morning.
Host:Because you were doing a podcast.
Pastor Chris:Because I'm doing a podcast.
Pastor Chris:And not just any podcast, but with Pastor Haney nonetheless.
Host:There you go.
Pastor Chris:Because you did chapel at Iowa Great Lake Sluther in school yesterday.
Pastor Chris:And so last night when we were walking the dog, I asked my sixth grader, you, how was school?
Pastor Chris:How was chapel?
Pastor Chris:He's like, oh, chapel was great.
Pastor Chris:I can't remember the pastor's name.
Pastor Chris:Pastor.
Pastor Chris:Yeah, he was awesome.
Pastor Chris:I really enjoyed Chapel.
Pastor Chris:It really got me today.
Pastor Chris:And like, well, guess what?
Pastor Chris:What?
Pastor Chris:I get to be on his podcast tomorrow.
Pastor Chris:No way.
Host:Sometimes my biggest fans are younger, so.
Pastor Chris:Well, tell them good to know your audience.
Host:Tell them thank you for being there and being such a they were a great group to talk to.
Host:Obvious we talked about just talked about forgiveness and how often should we forgive.
Host:So it was a wonderful time to share that message of the gospel with them.
Pastor Chris:Well, if you want instant feedback, that's the first time I've ever heard him say it got me today.
Pastor Chris:I'm like, well, what do you mean by that?
Pastor Chris:He's like, it just hit home and resonated with how powerful forgiveness is.
Pastor Chris:So they were listening and they took it to heart.
Pastor Chris:Thank you for what you do and sharing that gospel with others as well.
Host:That's my pleasure.
Host:Well, Chris, again, thanks so much for being on and tell your son blessings on what he's doing.
Pastor Chris:I will do so.
