PHOENIX (BP)–Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham met with members of the National Hispanic Advisory Council June 14 to encourage the work of pastors, denominational workers and church leaders in the Hispanic community.
The council is the consulting arm of the National Fellowship of Hispanic Southern Baptist Churches, a group that also met prior to the SBC annual meeting June 17-18 in Phoenix.
Graham told the group that Hispanic work is, and has been, important to him. He credited international evangelist Rudy Hernandez, past present of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and now an SBTC consultant for Hispanic ministry in the state, with teaching him about ethnic ministry.
“My friend Rudy Hernandez has been a positive influence in helping me to understand Hispanics,” Graham said.
Moises Rodriguez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Fort Worth, Texas, and acting president of the council, said the original purpose of the group was to facilitate and assess “Hispanic growth and activity and bring this analysis to the SBC [entities].”
In order to better enhance the relationship between the National Fellowship of Hispanic Southern Baptist Churches and Southern Baptist Convention entities, Rodriguez said the council was being dissolved and that an internal commission of the NFHSBC would be created for research and development.
The council named Daniel Sanchez, a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and director of the Scarborough Institute, to head up the new effort.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: PRESIDENTS TOGETHER.
