Oscar I. Romo

American religious leader, theologian, and social reformer

• Born: January 29, 1929
• Birthplace: Lockhart, Texas
• Died: January 16, 2009
• Place of death: Cumming, Georgia

Romo served as the first Hispanic in an executive position in a Southern Baptist Convention program. During his twenty-five years as director of the Language Church Extension Division of the North American Mission Board (originally known as the Home Mission Board) in Atlanta, Georgia, Romo led the denomination to minister to 103 ethnic groups and 97 Native American Indian tribes with 98 languages represented. Under his guidance, the number of congregations ministering to non-English-speaking groups grew from less than a thousand to nine thousand. Romo also provided leadership to Baptists in Panama, Cuba, and American Samoa.

Early Life

Oscar Ishmael Romo (AHS-kahr IHSH-may-ehl ROH-moh), the youngest of five siblings and the only son, was born to Concepción Ortega and Ismael Romo in Lockhart, Texas, on January 29, 1929. Romo’s father was a blacksmith and grocer in the Mexican American community of Lockhart; his mother stayed at home, although she had been educated as a teacher in Mexico. The family included Romo’s maiden aunt, who had accompanied his mother from Mexico when the two sisters fled the Mexican Revolution. Romo’s parents had both been raised as Protestants.

In 1940, at the age of ten, Romo was invited to attend Vacation Bible School at the First Baptist Church in Lockhart and became the first Hispanic Baptist in Lockhart. The following year, the family moved to San Antonio, because Romo’s father had been taken to a hospital there after being kicked by a mule. As a young boy, Romo thought that the best way he could fight social injustice was to become a lawyer. However, it was during his junior high school years, while working in a grocery store that was visited repeatedly by his pastor, D. H. Roberts, that Romo realized he wanted to make the church his life. With Roberts’s help, Romo obtained a music scholarship and attended Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas. Romo had to work three jobs in Brownwood to make ends meet and send money home, but he was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1949.

After graduating with a B.A. in 1951, Romo studied at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, receiving his master’s of divinity in 1956. Eventually, Romo earned his doctor of ministries, multicultural and multilingual studies, from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, in 1982. Romo also was awarded many honorary doctoral degrees from universities in California, Missouri, and Texas. In June, 1956, Romo married Zoe Harmon, whom he had met while studying at the seminary. They adopted two children, Nelson and Miriam.

Life’s Work

While in Brownwood, Romo began pastoring churches and continued during his time at the seminary. As the pastor of a growing church, Romo knew the difficulties faced by a Mexican congregation trying to establish itself. When he requested a loan from the Baptist General Convention of Texas for his church and was turned down, it made him all the more determined to show the church leadership that Mexican Americans were worthy of the church’s trust and financial assistance. He eventually prevailed upon the leaders to grant a ninety-day loan, and the congregation repaid it in sixty-five days. This and other similar demonstrations of skill in bridging the gap between Hispanic congregants and the church leadership led to the establishment of the Latin American Loan Fund.

When he graduated from the seminary Romo was offered the position of associate in the Language Missions Department of the Texas Baptist Convention, and he moved to Dallas with his new bride. He served there until 1965. With his success in planting and growing Hispanic Baptist congregations in Texas, Romo became the first ethnic American to be asked to join the staff of the Home Mission Board in Atlanta, Georgia. He moved his family to Atlanta in 1965. Romo was an assistant secretary in the Language Missions Department of the Home Mission Board from 1965 to 1970. In 1971, he became the director of the Language Missions Division (formerly Department) and served in that capacity until 1989, when the scope of the program changed and he continued as director of the Language Church Extension Division until his retirement in 1994. After his first wife died, he married Merry Purvis, who had worked with him at the Home Mission Board. Upon retirement, he founded Mosaic Ministries, a nonprofit organization to assist evangelical denominations in their evangelization of ethnic America. Romo died of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2009.

Significance

Romo directed the first statewide Latin American Kindergarten Workshop, the first Latin American Baptist Youth Congress in 1965, and the first Catalytic Church Growth Conference in 1966. Romo contributed to several denominational publications, serving as editor of El Boletín Bautista, El Estandarte Bautista (Spanish edition of The Baptist Standard). He led in the establishment of theological training in Puerto Rico and the Ethnic Branch of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Miami. He worked with Australia and New Zealand to establish a ministry to ethnics. Romo initiated work among international seamen in fifty ports and founded the Southern Baptist Refugee Resettlement Office in 1975. He established Christian Ministries to the United Nations in New York in 1980 and worked with diplomats in Washington, D.C. A major focus of his work overseas was in the Baptist Church in Cuba from 1970 through 1990, when congregations grew in number from 68 to 105. Romo was honored by the Southern Baptist Hispanic Pastors Conference as Hispanic Baptist Statesman of the Century in August, 1992.

Bibliography

Romo, Oscar I. American Mosaic: Church Planting in Ethnic America. Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1993. Outlines the multitude of ethnic groups in the United States and how to meet their spiritual needs through the founding of churches specific to those needs.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Ministering with Hispanic Americans.” In Missions in the Mosaic, edited by M. Wendell Belew. Atlanta, Ga.: Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1974. Describes challenges in evangelizing Hispanic Americans.