| Reinaldo Figueroa

According to Jonathan I. Grifths, the New Testament defnes preaching as a “public proclamation of God’s word.”33 In his study of the word proclamation in Greek, there are three terms for referring to gospel proclamation: “euangelizomai, katangello, and kerysso.”34 The usual English translation of these terms is “to preach” or “to proclaim.” Grifths argues that most of the time, the New Testament uses these words in direct reference to the public proclamation of God’s word.35 Thomas C. Oden argues, “Preaching is the most public of pastoral acts. The quality and depth of Christian discipleship in a congregation depend heavily upon it.”36 Preaching as performing public theology as a means of discipleship has only intensifed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where most of the local churches went public with their church services and pastoral sermons through social media. The public nature of preaching must inspire the local pastor to show how the gospel can engage the public context and challenge the things that prevent society’s fourishing.

Second, to be relevant to its audience, preaching must be contextual. Oden highlights that preaching “is a public exposition of Christian truth, addressed to the here-and-now community of faith, and to all who would hear it.”37 If preachers want to know the here-and-now, it is necessary to study current societal issues. As local theologians, we are “called to craft theology that is shaped for very particular communities of

33 Jonathan I. Grifths, Preaching in the New Testament: An Exegetical and BiblicalTheological Study, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2017), 17.

34 See for example: Matt. 11:5; Acts 8:4; Acts 17:3; 1 Co 9:14; Col 1:23; 2 Tim 4:2, Ibid.,

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35 Ibid. 33 faith.”38 Theology is not born out of a vacuum. Preaching must be shaped by biblical exegesis and the exegesis of the context. If we claim that our sermons are contextual, we must engage with what is happening in lo cotidiano. Contextual sermons do not look away from the Latino communities’ issues. formal education in some area, workshops or seminaries.”39 Usually, putting this in the context of preaching, this informal or formal training focuses heavily on exegeting the Scripture. Paul Hiebert points out the gap between our exegesis of Scripture and human contexts. Hiebert’s solution is that pastors need to exegete the human context as well. He argues, “We need to study social, cultural, psychological, and ecological systems in which humans live.”40 Studying these systems will help Latino/a pastors understand the broader cultural conversations taking place. Elizabeth Conde-Frazier calls for an ecological view of education, in which all the spheres of life are taken into account.41 Following her lead, I advocate for an ecological view of pastoring, where both the context of the Scripture and the human must be studied.

36 Thomas C. Oden, Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry, (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982), 127.

37 Oden, Pastoral Theology, 128.

Third, preaching today is both a local and a global act. Many local churches are connected to the digital world, which has expanded even more during COVID-19. Many of them are streaming their services through Facebook, YouTube, their websites, or any other platforms. So, even though a local pastor prepares a sermon for a specifc local church, if that sermon is streamed through social media, it can be seen or heard anywhere in the world. The boundaries between the local and the global are blurred, and local pastors need to be mindful of this digital reality and the impact that their sermons will have beyond the local church. Their sermons have a public impact far broader than even a decade ago.

However, knowing that preaching is a public act does not mean Latino/a pastors are engaging from the pulpit with public issues that afect Latinos/as in the US. As I mentioned earlier, one of the fndings from my own dissertation research shows this sad truth, at least with the pastors I spoke with. So, our fnal question is this: How can we, as Latino/a pastors, better wrestle with public issues like identity, migration status, and the politics of fear that concern the everyday lives of the people we serve?

One answer to this question rests in training. According to Juan Francisco Martínez, “Many of the Latino pastors have been formed in the practice of ministry, with some mentorship, 38 Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 39.

So, what kind of training enables Latino/a pastors to take such an ecological view, empowering them to step into the role of public theologians? Obviously, we cannot engage or speak of something that we do not know. Thankfully, we have ethnography, which is a simple tool to help us exegete the public context.42 This chapter is too short a place to fully explore ethnographic skills, but, briefy put, as ethnographers, Latino/a pastor theologians seek to listen, watch, and learn from the people and our context. Leonora Tubbs Tisdale mentions some practices that a pastor can perform to exegete our congregation, which are listening to the stories of our people, doing interviews, studying available archival material, and participating in events.43 We could add participating in social media, watching the news, and being immersed in our local communities to the list. We need to be aware of pressing public issues that afect our church members. We then need to train ourselves to analyze these issues with the view of facing them with our people, allowing our analysis to aid us in speaking the Gospel into these public issues.

39 Martínez, Walking with the People: Latino Ministry in the United States, 87.

40 Paul G. Hiebert, The Gospel in Human Context: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 12.

41 Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Atando Cabos: Latinxs Contributions to Theological Education, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans g, 2021), 96 – 102.

42 “Ethnography is defned as a way of immersing yourself in the life of a people in order to learn something about and from them.” Mary Clark Moschella, Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice: An Introduction, (Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, 2008), 4.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to teach the practicalities of ethnography here but done with a refective attitude and a posture of active listening, these simple practices can greatly add to our understanding of the contexts in which our people live and the issues they deal with. The point is that Latino/a Pentecostals local pastors can and must theologically engage the public issues surrounding Latino communities in the US from the pulpit. We have the tools available to us, and by employing them, our preaching, as a public discourse, will speak to the realities of the people and disciple them to think theologically about public issues. We must be intentional with engaging from the pulpit with public issues.

This chapter has argued the need for the Latino/a Pentecostal pastor to engage with public issues surrounding church members. I have argued that preaching is a task done every Sunday at the local church, and it is a public act. Then, I showed how preaching provides an opportunity to engage with public issues biblically and theologically. For instance, sermons need to have a section where we address every dimension of human society. Turning our attention now to the implications of this chapter, missiology helps us to see our pulpits with a missional purpose. We preach God’s word for the formation of disciples and the transformation of society. Preaching missiologically empowers and equips church members to take God’s mission into the world. We seek to share the word of God and mobilize God’s people to be society changers. The word of God is meant to transform not just us but also the world in which we live. We need to allow the missio Dei (mission of God)44 to infuence the shape of our sermons. One of the purposes of a sermon is for the church to practice what they learn. Then, sermons allow Christian believers to inform and form Christian believers to think theologically about society and their responsibilities as citizens.

Second, we need to incorporate the use of social sciences to build our sermons. Many local pastors have been training formally or informally on writing and delivering a sermon. The traditional training emphasizes the exegesis of scripture and sermon design. As has already been discussed, humans have spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical needs. The Scriptures can help us address all those human dimensions, but we need more. The social science disciplines can help to go deeper into the social dimension of humans. Let say, for example, if I am preaching on the issue of an undocumented immigrant, it is helpful to look at some statistics, what the immigrant law says, what a politician proposes in its political platform, or what are the current institutions that are working with the immigrant locally. These are ways in which we can disciple our members deeper and, at the same time, engage with society.

In sum, local pastors have the opportunity to disciple people to be a witness in society. Shaping a sermon missiologically means highlighting the importance of the church as an instrument of God’s mission, the witnessing of the gospel, and the transformation of society. Then, sermons must have a social dimension. In order to do that, we must embrace a holistic view of human beings and borrow social science tools and methods for the construction of our sermons.

44 This term “refers to the idea that mission fows out from the very being of God.” See, Al Tizon, Missional Preaching: Engage, Embrace, Transform, (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2012), 3.

This section ofers an outline of a thematic sermon that addresses undocumented immigration, as one of the issues at the forefront of the Latino community in the US. A few comments about the sermon outline are necessary: First, in the introduction, I bring a real story of a person dealing with this issue. This story helps us understand that we are dealing with real people and these issues are complex. In the frst and second sections, I dialogue with sources from the social sciences, especially immigration literature. The third section is devoted to looking at what the Scripture says on how Christians should respond to the documentation issue. The fourth section is where I make a space to address society directly, including Christians and non-Christians. Then, I conclude the sermon. I have in mind that this sermon will be to a local congregation and live on social media, so it is a wider public discourse than just a local congregation.

Topic: A Christian Response to Undocumented Scripture: Matthew 25:35

Main Idea: We have undocumented immigrants in the church and society. How do we, as Christians, respond theologically and practically toward the undocumented?

Introduction