Easter Vigil service at St. James Episcopal Church in Las Cruces, New Mexico. April 4, 2026. Photo: St. James Episcopal Church/Facebook
[Episcopal News Service] In Las Cruces, New Mexico, a city that’s more than 60% Latino, only a few Protestant churches offer Spanish-language worship services.
When in December St. James Episcopal Church began engaging in Latino outreach, its attendance went from 70 to over 150 members, including pledging families with small children. Several of St. James’ new members who were recently baptized are in the process of becoming confirmed in The Episcopal Church. Attendance and membership continue to grow.
The growth started with casual conversations in the Latino community, said the Rev. Peter Schmitt, who became St. James’ rector in December.
“St. James was already involved with supporting the local elementary school with financial and food distribution support, so I started connecting with the students’ parents, who are mostly Latino. Then I started wearing my collar while going to the different cafés, bakeries, restaurants and other businesses that are owned by Latinos … and started talking to the locals in Spanish and inviting them to a ‘misa’ (Spanish for ‘Mass’) at St. James,” Schmitt, who grew up in Puerto Rico, told Episcopal News Service. “This kind of connection is allowing the church to grow in ways that it hasn’t seen before.”
Las Cruces, which is about 45 miles north of the El Paso-Juárez border between the United States and Mexico, has a population of about 117,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Last month, St. James began holding Sunday afternoon worship services in Spanish, which Schmitt said are growing in attendance every week. Schmitt has also added the Spanish Gospel readings into the church bulletin and now recites the Eucharistic prayers in both English and Spanish during the two Sunday morning worship services.
St. James stopped offering Sunday school five years ago because there weren’t enough children attending services. The church now plans to offer bilingual Sunday school classes in the fall because many new church members are small children, and their parents have expressed interest in enrolling them.
“The growing number of children at church has really caught us off guard in the best way,” Manny Terrazas, senior warden of St. James, told ENS. For example, “we had planned an Easter egg hunt after the Easter service and prepared for two or three or four kids. Over 20 kids showed up. We’ve never seen that before, other than maybe years and years ago when we still had a Sunday school.”
Several physical changes also are attributed to the recent growth at St. James, which, established in 1875, is one of New Mexico’s oldest Episcopal congregations and the oldest non-Catholic church in the state’s southern region. After a majority of the congregation approved the change, the pews in the chancel area were moved to the old parish hall and replaced with wooden chairs to expand the space’s capacity. The extra space has allowed St. James to grow its music ministry with a full choir and instrumentalists and to hold weekly Taizé prayer services.
Schmitt’s arrival at St. James came as the congregation was preparing to install a new organ, financed with tens of thousands of dollars raised last year by the congregation. The organ was installed on Ash Wednesday in February.
“This project was years in the making by our dedicated congregation and donors, and all the hard work is just now coming to fruition,” Terrazas said.
The church celebrated the organ’s installation with its first Evensong service.
With the added space and growing music ministry, Schmitt said he plans to invite New Mexico State University’s music department to hold recitals and concerts at St. James and, he hopes, build a new relationship with students. New Mexico State doesn’t have an Episcopal ministry, though St. James sits just outside the university’s campus.
“It would be another opportunity to open the church community to the wider community of Las Cruces,” Schmitt said.
Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn, who will visit St. James on April 26, told ENS in a phone interview that Schmitt’s inclination to “not sit in his church office and wait for the people to come,” combined with St. James having a “warm and welcoming” congregation, is helping the parish find people who have a “hunger for The Episcopal Church’s mission of inclusion.
“It’s got to not just be the priest who goes out and is welcoming. When people come to the church, they’ve got to be embraced also. That’s one thing about the laypeople at St. James – they have big hearts and they’re a joyful bunch,” Hunn said. “I’ve been so grateful for the faithfulness of the congregation moving through this transition … It’s a wonderful congregation, and I’m excited to see what is to come.”
All the changes St. James’ congregation has been experiencing since December have come with “some” resistance, according to Terrazas and Schmitt, but church leaders have worked to maintain transparency and open conversation with the congregation. Schmitt, for example, held several listening sessions before most of the congregation OK’d moving the pews.
“Change is always difficult, but I think people are getting used to it. They understand what Fr. Peter is doing with these new approaches to ministry,” Terrazas said.
Schmitt’s not out of ideas of how to continue expanding St. James’ presence in Las Cruces. One idea, he said, is to host a family festival later this year and give visitors information about worship services, Sunday school and outreach ministries.
“The people of St. James have deep roots tied to this community, and many of our parishioners had parents and grandparents who were members here. They’re very passionate about seeing their church thrive,” Schmitt said.
Terrazas, who’s been a member of St. James for more than 45 years, concurred.
“I’m so excited about the church’s future. I’m in love with the church again,” Terrazas said. “St. James is vibrant and alive again, and you can really feel it when you step foot in the church.”
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.