PHOTO - Fernandez,_Al_2012x600I have been asked on several occasions, why is it necessary to plant churches in South Florida? The rational is that South Florida is in the south region of the United States, which is considered the Bible belt. Dr. Kevin Ezell, President of the North American Mission Board has publically stated that “South Florida’s population resembles the northeast region more than that of the southeast region of the United States”. As a native of South Florida, I thoroughly agree with Dr. Ezell’s assessment of this region.

In the 1950’s, South Florida was more in line with southern culture. A 1960’s phenomena that happened 90 miles from Key West was the catalyst of changing the face of Southeast Florida. In 1959 Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. By 1965 the freedom flights from Cuba began where eventually 265,000 migrated into Miami-Dade County.  The 1980’s brought another 130,000 Cubans through the Federal Mandated Mariel Boat Lift. Between 1972 and 1981 more than 55,000 Haitian “boat people” arrived in Florida, about 85 percent of these people settled in Miami. During this period of time, there was also much racial unrest in the African American community and Miami became known as “paradise lost”.

In 1992 hurricane Andrew set into motion the complete change of South Florida from a southern culture region to a multi-cultural diverse environment. Thousands upon thousands of displaced individuals left Miami-Dade and populated Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Today, Miami is the epicenter of the region where many people from other nationalities land and eventually move north pursuing the American dream.

Even though Southern Baptist have always had a presence in South Florida, today that presence is almost not visible. If the undocumented population is factored in there is nearly seven million people living between Miami, Broward and Palm Beach Counties. Most of the established churches are located in the eastern part, the coastal area of the region. Yet the population growth expansion has been towards the western part of these counties. Within the southeast region, there are only eleven large Southern Baptist churches, three in Miami-Dade, five in Broward and two in West Palm Beach. There are only a handful of churches in the two to three hundred attendance range. The vast majority are churches run 80 people and under in attendance on Sunday mornings.

There is a need today to plant Gospel preaching but culturally relevant churches in South Florida. There are three types of churches that need to be planted throughout Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties;

First, there is a huge need to plant, English speaking, multi-cultural churches. In South Florida, the Anglo-Saxon population is decreasing but the English speaking multi-cultural population is increasing. These churches need to be planted by church planters that are committed to staffing their churches with leaders that represent their diverse communities. People of all racial and ethnic background live in the same neighborhoods. Their children attend school and play in the City parks together. It makes no sense to have Sunday morning segregated when the rest of their lives are spent together living in harmony with people from other ethnicities.

Second, there is a need to plant second-generation Hispanic and Haitian churches. These types of churches for the most parts need to be started within existing Hispanic and Haitian established churches. It is a fact that many of the Hispanic and Haitian churches are losing the second generation because of disconnect in language comprehension and cultural identity. Many of these young people who leave their churches never attend church anywhere else. There needs to be an intentional effort to reach out to this displaced generation.

Thirdly there still a great need to start first generation churches. South Florida is still the gateway from Latin America and the Caribbean. There is demographic evidence of other people groups also moving into this area of the State. In Broward County alone there is a growing segment of the population that is from Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds.

With this three-prong approach, Southern Baptist can reach out to a population that is 95% un-churched and has no knowledge of who Jesus Christ is. It is my desire that every adult, youth, and child have the opportunity at least once in their lifetime to hear the Gospel message explained in a manner that is culturally relevant but Biblically grounded. In the book of Acts, we see that God used church planting to advance the Gospel in an environment that is very similar to that of South Florida. Starting new churches is the only proven way that transformation can occur in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties.

ADALBERTO FERNANDEZ, JR. serves as the Lead Strategist for the Florida Baptist Convention. He is also the team strategist for Urban Impact Ministries. This group seeks to unify church planting efforts—including African-American, Anglo, and language—into a single administrative unit identified as the Church Planting Group. These efforts include the enlistment, training, coaching and assessing of new church planters. The lead strategist is responsible for the overall program, calendar and budget planning within the group.