NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Take Home Life magazine, add a few spices and mix vigorously. Top it all off with prayers and garnish with some hard work.
In the end, you’ll have an enticing new treat in the form of La Familia Cristiana de Hoy, one of LifeWay Christian Resources’ newest magazines.
Oscar Fernandez, editor-in-chief in adult ministry publishing at LifeWay, said the magazine is a translation of Home Life, but with a special emphasis to address the needs of the growing Hispanic community living in America.
La Familia Cristiana de Hoy replaces El Hogar Cristiano and is being published quarterly, starting this invierno (winter). El Hogar Cristiano, which was published by another publishing company and distributed by LifeWay, has stopped production, Fernandez said.
To give the magazine that Hispanic flavor, translators from many Spanish-speaking countries and translators with diverse backgrounds will be used. The magazine will intentionally focus on the cultural problems Hispanics face in the United States, he said.
“[The goal] is to help the Hispanic Christian families in America. One of the challenges that we have is that the people we are targeting with this magazine come from different countries and sometimes it’s hard to switch between cultures.”
La Familia Cristiana de Hoy will help Hispanics by providing needed information on managing finances, discussing health issues and giving spiritual reassurance. The magazine’s main focus, as its title suggests, will be on the family, something the Hispanic culture values deeply.
“This is one of the most important moves we have made in the last seven to eight years to serve the Hispanic churches in America,” Fernandez said of LifeWay’s decision to publish the magazine. “This is the only magazine in Spanish that is family oriented. We have nothing else in the market.”
La Familia Cristiana de Hoy will tackle tough family issues such as marriage, divorce, abuse and drug addiction. By touching on these tough issues specifically geared toward the Hispanic community, Fernandez believes LifeWay is offering an important tool to churches.
“We are targeting people and most of them can’t read English,” he said. “This is who we’re trying to target and help. It’s an open door to churches for witnessing.”
Fernandez hopes to add some Hispanic writers and interviews with Hispanic families and pastors in the coming months.
For years, LifeWay had purchased El Hogar Cristiano from the Hispanic Publishing House for resale. When LifeWay placed an order for winter, the publishing house notified Fernandez they were no longer producing the magazine.
That’s when Fernandez began thinking about other ways to reach Hispanic readers.
“LifeWay Church Resources is focusing on customers. Our new reorganization is focusing on our churches. So, how in the world can we start a new reorganization and one month later tell our customer, ‘Listen, we don’t have any more of this magazine’?”
So Fernandez pursued production of his own Spanish magazine.
After a series of discussions with supervisors, editors and the magazine department, the idea for La Familia Cristiana de Hoy was born. The magazine idea received approval and the La Familia Cristiana de Hoy team then had 29 days to get a magazine ready for publication. They met the printing deadline and even printed 2,000 copies of the magazine as a promotion.
“I call this the miracle magazine,” he said. “This is the result of a lot of praying. It’s an old dream that’s coming true.”
Miracles aside, La Familia Cristiana de Hoy will be an important tool in helping Christians reach out to Hispanics, one of the fastest-growing groups in the United States. That, in the end, may turn out to be the recipe for success, he said.
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(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at https://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: LA FAMILIA CRISTIANA DE HOY.
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