In 2025, Obra Hispana launched an ambitious initiative: 25:5, a call to plant 25 churches in 5 years. This bold vision reflects a Spirit-led commitment to multiplication, equipping new leaders, and birthing innovative communities of faith that respond to urgent needs across the diverse cultural contexts of Hispanic/Latino ministries. We are grateful that Disciples Church Extension Fund’s New Church Ministry has embraced this vision and joined in full partnership to support it.
The initiative is rooted in biblical principles of discipleship and multiplication. Jesus’ method was multiplication, making disciples who make disciples, planting churches, and raising leaders who raise leaders. Guided by Matthew 28 and Ephesians 4, this effort is not about preserving tradition, but about cultivating a Spirit-led movement that reflects the Kin-dom of God across generations, cultures, and regions. The future of the Church is diverse and multicultural, and the Hispanic church is already positioned to lead this shift, having lived multicultural realities for decades within the Spanish-speaking church in the United States.
Why now? New places of worship are urgently needed. Our communities are growing, yet traditional models often fall short of reaching those hungry for belonging and transformation. A 2023 Barna study revealed that 73% of Gen Z want to change the world, and 61% want to be part of a community that fights for justice. Yet only 29% believe the church is that place. This initiative seeks to directly close that gap.
The work is underway. The next step is a Spanish-speaking, culturally relevant Church Planting Academy, held from September 24–27, 2025, in Kansas City, MO. Thirty-two planters will gather for discernment, capacity building, and innovative learning. Together, they will envision new and traditional church models: neighborhood-rooted congregations, house churches, bilingual/multilingual expressions, digital communities, and justice-driven missional collectives.
This is the right time. God is calling us not to preservation but to multiplication, to the planting of churches that will carry the gospel with power, relevance, and prophetic witness into the next generation and beyond.
An excerpt of this blog post also appeared in the September 2025 issue of our ministry’s newsletter, the New Church Know-It-All.
