Reaching 2nd-gen Hispanics in South Florida
By Mickey Noah
Danny Egipciaco is a church planter catalyst in Miami. He is working with Hispanic as well as other language groups to start churches among the many people groups found in South Florida. Photo by Dale Stroud
Living and ministering in South Florida, Daniel “Danny” Egipciaco is one busy Southern Baptist missionary. Eighty-hour work weeks are common. In the South Florida area— including Miami—he estimates 96 percent of the population is lost or unchurched. So for a North American Mission Board missionary like Danny, the sky’s the limit.
As a 36-year-old national church planting missionary, Egipciaco knows that Florida already has almost 3,000 SBC congregations. But the Sunshine State boasts more than 18.5 million people, the second-largest state in the South Region. It needs many more churches.
Egipciaco can throw even more eye-popping statistics at you.
“Within a one-mile radius of my church, there are 30,000 people. Within a three-mile radius, there are 80,000 people. Within five miles, 240,000 people. We have only three Southern Baptist churches in a three mile area.
“In West Palm Beach, there are one million lost people,” Egipciaco continues. “We’d need 100 churches that would each hold 10,000 to reach that goal. Miami is two to three times bigger than West Palm. There are 600 SBC churches in all of South Florida but when you think about it, there’s 10 million people in the Miami area, that’s one church for every 16,500 people. We need to penetrate the culture through church planting. We need more churches, not less.”
Formerly with Apple, Inc., he was a bivocational pastor for many years, planting and serving as lead pastor at Relevant Church of Miami. Until his appointment as a NAMB national church planting missionary in 2008, he never drew a salary from a church or from NAMB.
“Miami is a unique place, and it has to do with language, culture, diversity and multi-nationalism. And it creates problems with how you do church,” said Egipciaco. Born into a Christian home and growing up in a Hispanic SBC church in Miami, he accepted Christ at 15. Egipciaco says he initially knew nothing about church planting.
“As a youth pastor at 25, I had to change everything. I helped start a new church but we were not reaching the community. At first, we were doing church in Spanish. Instead, we needed to connect with the growing second-generation Hispanics who spoke English. Second-gen Hispanics is one of the fastest growing people groups in South Florida and the United States.”
Now, his services are 90 percent in English, with translation in Spanish for older first-generation Hispanics.
“It’s a challenge to deal with all the Spanish cultures here in the Miami area, although what unites them is that the second-generation Hispanics generally speak English. At Relevant Church, we have Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, Columbians, Haitians, African Americans and Anglos.”
ON MISSION • Summer 2011 43
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