Of Spanish and the Spirit

By Jonathan Kindberg

Our usual Sunday community dinners at Briar Street have been anything but usual. Each week we are excited to see what surprises the Lord will bring through our neighbors. This last week found us after dinner sitting in a circle in our living room with notebooks and pens in hand learning Spanish from Gerardo. We should have seen it coming when Gerardo, one of our Mexican neighbors, walked in for dinner carrying two plastic bags full of classroom supplies. He had markers (which later turned our living room windows into art canvasses thanks to one of the kids), notebooks, pencils and a large piece of foam board which he converted into a make-shift white board. It was quite amazing to see how much ingenuity and planning he had put into this.

At Briar Street as we prepare to launch weekly services hopefully by the end of the summer we have begun to study together the book of Acts with some of our neighbors. One of the first things we realized is that it is the Holy Spirit who really plants a church. In one sense, for any of us to call ourselves “church planters” is a bit presumptuous. It’s kind of like someone claiming they can make babies all on their own. We were also surprised to see that one of the first ways the Holy Spirit reveals his power is by giving the disciples the ability to speak in other languages. The book of Acts begins with this statement in 1:8:  “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses.” This power is then demonstrated through the reversal of the tower of Babel and the ability the disciples have to be witnesses in many different languages. It seems, then, that learning another language (such as Spanish) is an activity very in step with the workings of the Spirit.
Many churches in an attempt to reach out to their diverse community begin ESL (english as a second language ) classes. We are talking about eventually doing so ourselves as well at Briar Street Anglican Church. But I think it is worth noting that we began our ministry at Briar Street not by teaching English, but rather by putting ourselves under Gerardo’s teaching and learning Spanish. I think this makes the Holy Spirit smile.