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Javier and Annette Mondragon figured out a few years back that they were made for each other. But you might also say they were made for the challenge they’ve taken on in Fort Wayne.
Both ordained pastors in the Church of the Nazarene, an evangelical Protestant denomination, the Mondragons are bringing new life to a vacant church building on Fort Wayne’s south side by developing a bilingual, multicultural congregation that matches the neighborhood mix of Hispanics, blacks and whites.
Javier, 27, who grew up in Mexico, and Annette, 25, born in Laredo, Texas, of first-generation Mexican immigrant pastors, are fluent in English and Spanish – she a little more in English, he a little more in Spanish.
“So, when I preach my sermon in Spanish, she stands to my right or my left and translates,” says Javier with a smile, recalling how he asked Annette after she met his family why she’d been so quiet.
“I was quiet because I wasn’t sure I wanted them to know that my Spanish wasn’t that good,” she replied.
But time has remedied that, and now the two don’t want even a perceived language barrier to keep anyone away from worshipping at Grace Point South at 5100 Gaywood Drive, just north of Pettit Avenue.
Everything, including hymns, Scripture readings, sermons and prayers, is in English and Spanish. Help comes in the form of a big screen that features both languages, often side by side.
“Sometimes in families, the older generation speaks Spanish, and the children go to school and talk English with their friends,” Javier Mondragon says. “Now they can come to church together.”
The congregation is an outreach of Grace Point Church of the Nazarene, 8611 Mayhew Road, where the Mondragons also lead a ministry to Hispanics, Pastor Chuck Sunberg says.
About 40 members of the church agreed to join the Mondragons in starting the new congregation in a church building that had sat vacant for several months. Grace Point North helps support the new church financially as well as spiritually, he says.
“Last Sunday’s service we had 69 people,” Javier Mondragon says. About 40 percent were Hispanic, 40 percent were white and the rest were black. “This is exactly what we wanted,” he says.
The congregation, which has been meeting since Nov. 11, plans a dedication service at Easter, after some building repairs are made, and Javier Mondragon said he hopes more musicians volunteer to assist with services.
Graduates of Seminario Nazareno Mexicano in Baja, Mexico, the Mondragons came to Fort Wayne after Annette’s father, Carlos Sol, a Nazarene pastor in Springdale, Ark., was asked to head the denomination’s Hispanic ministries in northern Indiana. Annette’s mother, Edna Sol, is also a Nazarene pastor.
The Mondragons had no guarantee of a ministry when they decided to move but soon were working with Grace Point, where they serve about 40 people with a Wednesday night prayer meeting and a Saturday night bilingual worship service.
Sunberg explains several things came together to prompt the partnership.
“We wanted to expand our North campus, and about the same time, this church (on Gaywood) became available, and it was about the same square footage. So it was almost like the Lord said, ‘Why don’t we do this instead of that,’ ” he says.
He calls Javier Mondragon “very conscientious and personable.”
Sunberg says: “I think he is a great pastor. He has incredible insights into people’s needs.”
Javier Mondragon says another pastor tried to develop an urban ministry, New Vision Church of the Nazarene, at the Gaywood Drive building but did not succeed.
The new congregation has been trying to connect with its neighborhood by sponsoring a weekly free dinner, Bible study and basketball recreation time for kids and teens at 5:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The program is called 2:42 after Acts 2:42, which says early Christians came together to study, pray and break bread together.
Last week, chili and cornbread were on the menu, and Annette Mondragon was doing some of the cooking.
“I think when we look back at our Bible, when we see what the first churches were about, it wasn’t so ritualistic,” she says. “It was more getting together and having fellowship and getting to know one another, and what better way to do that than food?”
Stirring a fragrant pot of chili, Heather Turner, 18, a student at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, says she has an interest in Mexican culture, having gone of mission trips to Mexico five times. “It’s very welcoming to all sorts of people, not just Hispanic people,” Turner says about the congregation.
Javier Mondragon says that he believes all are called to be one in Christ and that he knows the difference faith can make.
The youngest of six children, Mondragon came to live with his brother and sister in Arkansas two years after his mother died in 1997. He had already dropped out of school and had been using drugs in his hometown south of Mexico City since he was 14. His dad had left the family shortly after he was born.
He became a Christian after his brother took him to a Christian mariachi concert.
A pastor started talking about allowing Christ to come into your life and change it, and “I felt he was talking just to me though there were other people around,” he says. “I came up front and accepted Christ into my heart right then. I didn’t change right away. But little by little I changed.”
Javier met Annette and her family when he went to their church, and by 18, he felt God was calling him to minister to others. The two were married in 2002 and entered seminary in 2003.
“I understand a lot about younger people, the struggles they have,” Javier Mondragon says, adding he sees a lot of his past in his current surroundings.
“We want to change this area,” he says. “We want to make an impact.”
rsalter@jg.net
