Cinco de Mayo and the Great Commission Opportunity 1

Today is May 5–Cinco de Mayo.  This day commemorates May 5, 1862, when an outnumbered Mexican army won a victory over the French.  In light of this historic day, I wanted to take a moment to share with you some information regarding the Mexicans living in the United States.

The number of Mexicans who have migrated to the States, offer the Church a wonderful opportunity for Great Commission service.  Also, many of those who arrive as Kingdom citizens offer the Anglo majority Church (among others) a wonderful opportunity to train and partner with such brothers and sisters.  They need to be equipped and encouraged to take the gospel and plant churches across the world.  Many of the Hispanic peoples hold a key to entering into areas of the world and peoples where the Western Anglo is unwelcomed.

A related matter to keep in mind is that Mexico alone has many unreached people groups.  In 2009, I published a chapter in the book Missions from the Majority World: Progress, Challenges, and Case Studies (Wan and Pocock, eds.), in which I noted that the Global Research Department of the International Mission Board estimated that at that time 111 unreached peoples resided in Mexico.  And while not all of these peoples are Mexicans, they do share some commonalities with the Mexicans in general–if anything, at least geography.  Here alone is a great opportunity to be able to partner with returning Mexicans to carry the gospel to the unreached in Mexico.

As you read the following stats, prayerfully consider the missiological implications for your church today.  The Mexican potential for global Kingdom service has been–and will continue to be–very high for years to come.  It is unfortunate that most Anglo churches in the United States and Canada have yet to recognize what the Spirit has been doing among Mexicans.

Maybe this post will help bring attention to this and other matters.

(The following was taken from the U. S. Census Bureau’s Facts for Features.  You can read the full document HERE.)

31.7 million
Number of U.S. residents of Mexican origin in 2009. These residents constituted 10 percent of the nation’s total population and 66 percent of the Hispanic population.

52.4%
Percent of Mexican-origin people who were male.

19.6 million
Number of people of Mexican origin who lived in California (11.5 million) or Texas (8.04 million). People of Mexican origin made up nearly one-third of the residents of these two states.

25.6
Median age of people in the United States of Mexican descent. This compared with 36.8 years for the population as a whole.

1.5 million
Number of people of Mexican descent 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher. This included about 404,000 who had a graduate or professional degree.

34.7%
Among households where a householder was of Mexican origin, the percentage of married-couple families with own children younger than 18. For all households, the corresponding percentage was 21 percent.

4.2 people
Average size of families with a householder of Mexican origin. The average size of all families was 3.2 people.

15.8%
Percentage of employed civilians 16 and older of Mexican heritage who worked in managerial, professional or related occupations. In addition, 27 percent worked in service occupations; 21 percent in sales and office occupations; 15 percent in construction, extraction, maintenance and repair occupations; and 18 percent in production, transportation and material moving occupations.

$39,115
Median income in 2009 for households with a householder of Mexican origin. For the population as a whole, the corresponding amount was $50,221.

25.1%
Poverty rate in 2009 for all people of Mexican heritage. For the population as a whole, the corresponding rate was 14.3 percent.

69.0%
Percentage of civilians 16 and older of Mexican origin in the labor force. The percentage was 65 percent for the population as a whole. There were 14.5 million people of Mexican heritage in the labor force, comprising 9 percent of the total.

49.7%
Percentage of householders of Mexican origin in occupied housing units who owned the home in which they lived. This compared with 65.9 percent for the population as a whole.

11.4 million or 36.0%
Number and percentage of Mexican-origin people who were foreign-born; 2.6 million of them were naturalized citizens. Among the population as a whole, 12.5 percent were foreign-born.

76%
Percentage of Mexican-origin people who spoke a language other than English at home; among these people, 37 percent spoke English less than “very well.” Among the population as a whole, the corresponding figures were 20 percent and 9 percent, respectively.

$393.0 billion
The value of total goods traded between the United States and Mexico in 2010. Mexico was our nation’s third-leading trading partner, after Canada and China. The leading U.S. export commodity to Mexico in 2010 was unleaded gasoline ($5.9 billion); the leading U.S. import commodity from Mexico in 2010 was crude petroleum ($22.6 billion).

1.0 million
Number of firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007. They accounted for 45.8 percent of all Hispanic-owned firms. Mexicans led all Hispanic subgroups.

$155.5 billion
Sales and receipts for firms owned by people of Mexican origin in 2007, 45.1 percent of all Hispanic-owned firm receipts.

47.7%
Percentage increase in the number of businesses owned by people of Mexican origin between 2002 and 2007.

70.5%
Percent of all Mexican-owned U.S. businesses located in either California or Texas. California had the most Mexican-owned U.S. firms (36.1 percent), followed by Texas (34.4 percent) and Arizona (4.1 percent).

16.5%
Ratio of Mexican-owned firms to all firms in Texas, which led all states. New Mexico was next (15.1 percent), followed by California (10.9 percent), Arizona (8.6 percent) and Nevada (4.9 percent).

32.3%
Percentage of Mexican-owned U.S. firms in the construction and repair, maintenance, personal and laundry services sectors. Mexican-owned firms accounted for 5.1 percent of all U.S. businesses in these sectors.