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The Catholics and the megachurches have little choice but to adapt. By the year 2050, Latinos will make up nearly a third of the U.S. population. By then, the first-generation iglesias like El Calvario and La Roca will be third-generation churches. If they follow even part of New Life's path, their pastors will be preaching in English and merging their new strain of Protestantism with the largely white evangelical mainstream. Warren realized years ago--thanks to his ministry's location in Southern California--that the Latino influx meant he could not stand still. Over the past decade, he has helped launch 35 Spanish-speaking congregations in Orange County alone. "The greatest growth of all is coming in the Pentecostal or charismatic churches," he says. "It is the untold story."
The U.S.--and the entire Latino world--is changing. The rock on which God is building his Latino church all over America is a blacktop parking lot in suburban Maryland and a low-income high school in Illinois. Right now, they may be hard to find. But as Jesus teaches in Matthew, May they who have eyes see.