How the Evangelical Waldensian Church in the Río de la Plata is Reinventing Itself Every Day
Until a few decades ago, the Waldensian Evangelical Church in the Río de la Plata was still essentially an immigration church, a transplant church, whose hallmark was its rural identity. The demographic change that moved the church from the countryside to the city center took place over at least five decades (from around 1960 to around 2010). Today, at least in demographic terms, that process is practically finished.
In the way we think and act, however, we still often function as if the rural church still existed. When our operating model of church life gives way, it is a kind of death and that can be painful, not without tensions and conflicts. In most cases, our congregations have understood that the challenges that God poses today have to do with the urban culture and not their geographical location.
In fact, nowadays urban culture extends everywhere with – nuances – including even small towns and rural areas. The rural family church has given way to a church where the individual’s personal decision to follow Christ is determinative, and not just the fact that one was born in a certain ethnic group or tradition. In this transition and change, openness to the social environment is the decisive factor that makes a church either thrive and grow or stagnate and die.
Put another way, the church is on the way. The challenge is great. The adventure of responding to Christ’s call in the cultural context in which we live is beautiful. From the future and from the margins of our society, God is calling us anew to the work of bringing the Gospel.