In the fall of 2021, Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church (MABC) in Aurora faced two opportunities. First, its 50th anniversary was one year away. The 50th anniversary provided an opportunity to celebrate the past ministry of the church while also looking forward to how God could continue to bless the faithful ministry of MABC. Second, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, MABC faced an uncertain future. Many faithful members of the church decided to move away from Colorado in search of greater freedoms or to move closer to family. While the church would celebrate its 50th anniversary, I was not certain it would celebrate its 100th anniversary, or even its 75th, without a significant change in vision.
My name is Mark Spence and I have the privilege of serving as the Lead Pastor of what was once Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church. I started serving at MABC in the summer of 2016, meaning that in the fall of 2021, I was at the church for five years and this summer will mark nine years at the church. As pastor, I feel responsible for the health and future of the church even though I know Jesus will build his church and I am merely the under-shepherd of our Lord and Savior.
The weight of the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent departures from the church felt heavy. While I was responsible for neither scenarios, the only thing I knew I could do is seek the Lord for a fresh vision for His church. My hope, then and now, is that vision will allow the church to continue faithful gospel ministry in Aurora for the decades to come.
As the leadership team and I sought the Lord in the fall of 2021, we prayerfully decided to become one church in multiple languages. We decided this because our community is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual. According to census data provided by our wonderful partners at the North American Mission Board, we discovered that 40% the area around the church now speaks Spanish at home and an additional 20% is Latino but speaks English at home. In other words, we were entirely unequipped to reach 40% of our neighborhood and potentially up to 60% of our neighborhood may not be interested in attending MABC.
While the leadership team and I believed that becoming one church in multiple languages would help solve our inability to reach our neighborhood, we still had to convince others that this is the best route, too. First, we had to deal with the theological implications. Can a church really be one church in multiple languages meeting on the same campus, at the same time, but in different services? I am convinced that it is possible and not theologically objectionable.
There are those who would interrupt and contend that for a church to be a church, everyone must worship together at the same time. My response is simple. That was not the case for the first century church and therefore is not mandatory for my church. When Paul wrote a letter to the church at Ephesus, Rome, or Philippi, he wrote to a church that never gathered in a single location for worship. Instead, it was a series of house churches that met throughout those cities. It was logistically impossible, as well as entirely unsafe, for any one of those churches to meet in a single location, at a single time, every Sunday. Therefore, it is not mandatory for the church I pastor to do the same.
Having satisfied the theological concerns about a multi-service approach to a multi-lingual church, we then had to consider the logistics. My biggest concerns were finding the right pastor and convincing members of MABC of this vision. As it turned out, the second was more difficult than the first.
Convincing the church started with convincing the deacons and our committees. Thankfully, both those groups of lay-leaders bought into the vision early. Then it came time to convince the church. The convincing was not about reaching our neighborhood by becoming a multi-ethnic and multi-lingual church, but the costs associated with doing so.
The biggest emotional cost was the necessity to change the name of MABC. I believed this was a crucial step because translating Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church into another language is challenging. What is four words in English is six words in Spanish, and who knows how many words in other languages. After several meetings with church members, the church voted to become one church in many languages and to change the name.
Early on, the leadership decided to make the process as democratic as possible. We asked church members to submit new names with one caveat: the pastors would have veto power over any potential submission. After a few weeks of receiving names, including a few that spoke to the wisdom of that veto power, a leadership team of pastors and lay-leaders prayerfully reduced the names to three. The church then voted and the winner was the Avenue Church, which is far easier to translate into other languages. Now we needed to find the right pastor for this new work.
It was at the IHOP on Mississippi Avenue that NAMB’s own Jerico DeVeyra introduced me to Jose’ Quesada. Jose’ served, and still does serve, NAMB as a church planter who also recruits and trains other Latinos to plant churches in Colorado. After a healthy dialogue about the Avenue’s project, Pastor Jose’ surprised us both by putting his name into the hat to become the pastor of Iglesia Avenida. The Lord blessed us when He sent Pastor Jose’ our way.
After Pastor Jose’ joined our leadership team, we knew we needed to further refine our vision to become one church in multiple languages. How to accomplish it started with that conversation with Jerico at IHOP. Iglesia Avenida could be considered a satellite campus for the Avenue Church and Jose’ could receive NAMB funding as a church planter.
Now, I have a history of being a satellite campus pastor and some concerns about satellite campuses. One major concern centers around how many satellite campuses are expected to replicate the main campus. In my experience, the neighborhood I planted a satellite campus was distinct from the neighborhood of the main campus, and the mandate to replicate harmed our attempts to reach the new neighborhood. As a result of my experiences, I was committed to ensuring that Iglesia Avenida would not have to replicate the Avenue.
Instead, we developed three different lenses to understand how to plant different language “campuses” as a part of the Avenue Church. These three perspectives ensure doctrinal unity, leadership unity, and the ability to reach a new culture with the gospel. When starting and maintaining a new work, we speak of replication, integration, and customization.
Just like every satellite campus, there are aspects of the church that a new work must replicate. The first and most important is doctrine. We have to be unified around the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. We also have to agree with what doctrines we must agree on (using Mohler’s idea of theological triage), and what doctrines we are allowed to disagree upon and remain in partnership. For example, we can disagree on eschatology as long as we agree that Jesus will return. Doctrine is the most important but not the only point of agreement. We also have to share branding, name, mission, and vision. These are mandatory for the new language campus to replicate.
There also must be a point of integration. Pastors are integrated. A pastor at the Avenue is also a pastor of any other campus. The budget and calendar are integrated. Other leadership is integrated that includes committees and we hope, soon, deacons. Last, our age-graded ministries are integrated as preschoolers, kids, and students of Iglesia Avenia are integrated into those ministries of the Avenue Church. In short, to be a member of the Avenue Church is to be a member of Iglesia Avenida and vice-versa. This is how we integrate.
Last, there is also the importance of customization. Worship is cultural. While the truths of God’s Word are not cultural, some application certainly is cultural. If you do not agree, simply look at the differences between a majority culture worship service and an African-American worship service. They are different because of cultural differences, and the only way one is better than the other is if one is more biblical than the other. Therefore, there are aspects of Iglesia Avenida and of the Avenue Church that are different simply because our contexts are different, thus requiring customization.
The Lord has blessed the Avenue Church in many different ways. We have seen a record number of salvations and baptisms over the last few years. Iglesia Avenida blesses us by leading the Avenue Church in worship in an integrated worship service four to five times a year. We get a small taste of Revelation 7:14 when we gather and worship in two languages. The Lord has added another campus to the Avenue as we are now one church in three languages with the addition of a Kurdish congregation just this past May.
While becoming one church in many languages may not be for everyone, it may be what the Lord wants for your church. If you would like to learn more or have a conversation about starting a campus in another language, you can contact me at [email protected]. Or if you would like to learn how to support this work, we have a NAMB approved Spanish-speaking pastor looking for prayer and financial support, you can email me, too. Otherwise, thank you for supporting NAMB and its work through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.
Mark Spence is the Lead Pastor of The Avenue Church in Aurora, Colorado.
