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Churches of Cherokee Essay

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There are many challenges to ministry in today’s world and having a vital and relevant ministry is even harder. Churches across all denominations face drastic declines in both attendees and financial giving. With this as the background, it is imperative that vital ministries seek out opportunities to grow and engage groups and communities that have previously been overlooked, missed or not involved for other reasons including some theological reasons. With this idea and goal in mind, this essay sets out to examine and design a process by which the Churches of Cherokee, Oklahoma can successfully connect with and minster to the new Hispanic community in Cherokee. Using the pastoral cycle method, a process will be designed in this essay to …show more content…

Finally, action is the last step in the process before the process begins again. Action is the considered response from the organization to answer the need or experience that was discovered during the experience portion of the cycle. While on the surface this appears to be a simple four step process, however, when used to the fullest extent the cycle of examination never really stops, the ministry is always at one point or the other within the cycle. (1)
The context chosen for this essay is the intercultural needs of Cherokee, Oklahoma. The community of Cherokee is primarily a rural agricultural and ranching community. This community was settled during the Oklahoma land run of 1893 primarily by immigrants of German decent. (2) However, in the past two years the community has seen a population explosion due to the new oil production method called fracking. With this discovery more than three thousand oil field workers have moved into and around Alfalfa County and the city of Cherokee. While many of these workers return to homes on the weekend a large portion of those workers have moved their families into Cherokee and the surrounding communities. One of the primary ethnic groups represented in this group are Hispanic. One of the key issues facing the churches, social services and schools of Cherokee is language as this ethnic group is primarily Spanish speaking. Other issues include outreach

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