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Worship in Diverse Cross-Cultural Church

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Rev. Ken D. Fuquay is curating a series featuring an eclectic group of voices responding to the question, “Does church matter? And if it matters, how, and if it does not, why?” Some of the voices speak from the center of the PC(USA); others stand on the periphery. One or two of the voices come from other denominations while some speak to us from the wilderness and barren places. “To every age, Christ dies anew and is resurrected within the imagination of humans.” These voices are stirring up that imagination in their own way. May your imagination be stirred as you consider their insight. We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Gad Mpoyo

Since the 2016 election season, the topic of immigration has moved to the forefront of the national political debate as well as in the church. The changing demographic of the United States due to waves of migration is not longer an abstract phenomenon. The once majority culture is now becoming the minority culture.

As a pastor of Shalom International Ministry, a cross-cultural PC(USA) New Worshipping Community located in Clarkston, Georgia, a city once called by the New York Times “the most diverse square mile in the country,” I see this change in demographics and culture on a daily basis. For example, at Clarkston High School, students speak more than 77 languages; in my own context, 25 languages are spoken, and Shalom has members from 17 countries.

Photo from Shalom International Ministry Facebook page

People migrate for various reasons. For some, migration is driven by the search for better education. For others, migration provides oppressed peoples an opportunity to imagine a new future. As people migrate, they carry with them two forms of luggage. One is visible (i.e. suitcase or backpack), and the other is invisible. Inside this invisible luggage one will find culture, cuisine, language, fear, past trauma, and dreams, and interwoven throughout is their faith expressed in worship.

Clarkston is a microcosm of what America will look like in the coming years. This sounds like a very optimistic vision of a great future filled with unity in diversity, a future where everyone lives together in harmony. But it is worth pointing out that this new reality of diversity in culture and demographics poses new challenges not only in the political realm but also in our communities and churches.

When it comes to addressing issues of inclusiveness, power sharing, and justice, two questions arise in the church:

  • How can the church be church while offering worship that is authentic, contextual and just? By authentic, I mean true to our Judeo-Christian tradition; contextual, so that it reflects the reality of the people; and just, as it affirms the dignity and value of other human beings.
  • How can the worship and corporate life of our congregations be meaningful and inviting to people from diverse backgrounds and cultures, such as refugees or immigrants?

To address these questions, which are generated by the new reality of diversity in our communities and pews, and to live faithfully into our calling as the priesthood of all believers, there is a need for a paradigm shift in the way the majority culture relates to the minority cultures when it comes to worship.

A few years ago, I was approached by a Presbyterian minister whose church invested a lot of time and energy in welcoming and helping refugee families from Africa, including Congo. Her church responded to many needs of those refugee families, from buying furniture and kitchen utensils to tutoring the children, taking them to the social security office and medical appointments, orienting them to the new culture, and teaching the parents English, just to name a few. However, the minister and her congregation felt disappointed and could not understand why these families, though Christians, would neither attend the worship service nor participate in church activities. They would come to worship once or twice and then never came back. Since I come from the Democratic Republic of Congo and I work with refugee communities, this minister genuinely ask me to help her understand why there was lack of engagement from those refugee families.

On the one hand, I can empathize with this congregation. I can see the extent to which they invested resources in helping those families. On the other hand, the church’s encounters with the families seemed transactional rather than relational. They seemed to be driven by an expectation of some kind of return for their investment. Furthermore, there was a lack of understanding of the culture and notion of worship from the perspective of those refugee families.

Before jumping to conclusions and blaming the refugee families for not participating in worship, one needs to consider these questions: What is our worship planning process? Who is at the table? How did they get there? Who from our community is missing? Why are they missing? What power and cultural dynamics need to be reconsidered in order to reconceive worship planning in our own contexts as more than merely diverse but actually more just and equal?

As we reflect on these questions, I extend an invitation to each of us to take a deep breath, open our minds, eyes, and spirits, and put on the shoes of those refugee families – the ones who stopped attending services that were conducted in a language that was foreign to them; the ones who sat in pews attempting to follow a liturgy they could not understand. Who would want to continue coming to a service that does not speak to their own reality? As Jehu Hanciles once said, “Christ cannot be ‘the way’ if he does not know where you are coming from. Christ cannot be truth if he does not speak to your questions. Christ cannot be life if he does not know the circumstances you inhabit.” Is it not true that we, too, in our own contexts question why people do not come to church? I wonder if we are not falling into the same trap as it was in the case of my minister friend’s congregation.

As she and I continued the conversation, I expressed the need to understand worship from the African and, more specifically, the Congolese worldview. Worship among Congolese communities extends beyond the two or three hours that people gather. Worship is a way of life. This concept of worship is rooted in the African worldview, which states that there is little or no separation between the sacred and the secular. Based on this African worldview, to live is to worship, to worship is to live. Then, I expressed to her that if her congregation wants to be diverse, the leadership team would need to start inviting “the other” to the table in the planning process. Just as Christ welcome us all, no matter whether we come from the North, South, East, or West, so shall the table in our planning process be open to all. This is an act of justice.

I do not know how the conversation went between that congregation and those families, but this is a typical example that reminds us how the change in our demographics and culture affects our way of worship and pushes us to rethink the church’s call to be a priesthood of all believers. By welcoming everyone to the table, even the planning table, we see glimpses of the heavenly feast we will enjoy one day. In doing so, we are fulfilling God’s call to “make disciples of all nations.”

Resources
Elaine. Padilla; Peter C. Phan, contemporary Issues of Migration and Theology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan; 2013)

Woosung Calvin Choi, Preaching to Multiethnic Congregation: Positive marginality as a homiletical paradigm (New York: Peter Lang; 2015)


Gad Mpoyo is a founding pastor of Shalom International Ministry, a 1001 New Worshipping Community located in Clarkston GA. Shalom serves primarily immigrants and refugees from more than seven countries. He comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. His interest is on migration and how it is affecting the church.

Ministry at the Border

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Susan Young Thornton is curating a series highlighting ministry on the Pacific coast — a diverse, rapidly changing, and dizzyingly complex part of the country, and home to our upcoming 2019 National Gathering. We’ll hear from individuals serving in a variety of ministry settings about the struggles and blessings of living into God’s call on the West Coast. What is it really like to serve in this region? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Minda Schweizer

Abigail and Minda

Last week I accompanied my high school daughter to Tijuana. Abigail, a volunteer teacher with Little Brushstrokes, a program for refugee children, wanted to bring art to the migrant caravan children. And since she has been in Spanish immersion classes since elementary school, she could teach in Spanish.

Abigail talked with World Relief Southern California, a provider of immigrant legal services, and arranged for us to go to Tijuana with them. While World Relief provided asylum counsel to migrants, Abigail would do art with children waiting for their parents. I was Abigail’s assistant and got to witness first person the border situation; invaluable to me as founder of a non-profit called Home for Refugees which helps faith and community groups partner with refugee families to welcome, help resettle, and create new homes here in the United States.

The week before, we saw that tear gas had been used at a border demonstration and that the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry had been closed temporarily. Abigail and I wondered what it was going to be like.

  • Would we see crowds of migrants when we entered Tijuana?
  • Would we find space to set up our art class?
  • Would it be chaotic?

Our day was different than we imagined. When we walked over the PedWest pedestrian crossing with the World Relief legal representatives, fewer people than we expected occupied the square. The plaza was calm and orderly. Looking around, I noticed border guards set up about 100 feet from the entrance to the U.S. and in another corner a group of migrants listening to numbers being called out one at a time.

Jose Serrano, the director of Little Brushstrokes and Senior Legal Services Specialist of World Relief Southern California, pointed out what was going on around us. He said, “See that door over there to go back to the U.S? Legally anyone is able to go up to that that door and say ‘I’m afraid’ and ask for asylum.” Then he pointed out the border guards set up about 100 feet from that door and shared that the guards were checking IDs and allowing only people who are permitted to go into the U.S. past them. The guards directed the migrants to another part of the plaza where numbers were being called.

Jose explained that twice a day, morning and afternoon, 100 numbers are called out. Roughly 10 numbers represent a family group, which means about 20 families get called a day, allowing them to start the process of asking for asylum. Some days the number calling sessions are arbitrarily cancelled. That happened in the afternoon. Jose explained that the migrants themselves created this system. The migrants elect representatives from their group to organize the system and the number caller is a migrant. Seeing this, I wondered, “What is going on behind the scenes here?” “Is this arranged to get around the federal law that guarantees the right to seek asylum?”

I couldn’t dwell on speculating. Abigail and I had a job to do: making beaded bracelets with the migrant children. Jose told Abigail to set up next to the group of migrants listening for their numbers. As Abigail and I set up, Jose stood up on the curb to gather a crowd and to explain their rights as asylum-seekers and the procedure to follow to make a solid case for asylum. Sadly, most migrants don’t have the benefit of legal counsel before applying for asylum, which often results in not having the right paperwork and disqualifying them from passing the initial stages of seeking asylum. The World Relief legal representatives worked their way through the group hearing individual stories and giving counsel.

The children were happy to string bead bracelets. The potential craziness that Abigail and I wondered about never happened. The children were polite, taking turns picking out beads. Parents came over to see what was happening and got big smiles. Some of the parents sat with their kids and helped them finish their bracelets. One of the children said he made it for his mother and asked me to tie the bracelet on her wrist.

I have sometimes observed God’s tangible and loving presence in marginalized and vulnerable populations, those Christians are called to come alongside. I certainly felt that presence on this day. To be able to interact with the children and make bracelets with them was one meaningful and empowering way Abigail and I found to show our support to the migrants in Tijuana.


Minda Schweizer holds an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary and is the founder and president of Home for Refugees U.S.A. You can learn more about their work at https://www.homeforrefugeesusa.org

Thinking About Your Own Theology of Migration

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty

Theological perspectives are noticeably lacking in news reports and political debates about the Trump administration’s immigration policies even though many religious leaders and faith communities are inspiring non-violent demonstrations and advocating for a new, more robust sanctuary movement. Indeed, there is a deep well of resources to inspire faith-filled activism.

Two “must reads” remain easily accessible on my desk: Daniel G. Groody’s and Gioacchino Campese’s co-edited volume entitled A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration (Notre Dame, 2008) and Miguel de la Torre’s Trails of Hope and Terror: Testimonies on Immigration (Orbis, 2009).

Groody and Campese have assembled a vivifying collection of essays written by the world’s leading theological voices on economic migrants and refugees. Essays explore the basis for a theology migration in biblical stories and the traditions of the early church, attend to the politics of human rights, and imagine a constructive theology of migration. Groody is well-known for his work with migrants seeking to cross the U.S. Southern border. He has also collaborated with John Carlos Frye to produce films such as Dying to Live and One Body, One Border which partner well with A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey.

Another important book, Trails of Hope and Terror by de la Torre dispels the myths about migrants informing our contemporary politics of fear. Most important, de la Torre includes powerful testimonies given by people crossing the U.S. Southern border, border patrol officers, and ministers and activists carrying water out into the desert so people don’t die of thirst.

De la Torre also includes creative voices through poetry and songs. Corridos are Mexican ballads that convey news and can express the feelings of people who are oppressed by the most powerful. The excerpt below was translated from Spanish into English and originally written by a Salvadorian factory work about a Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.

“… he says that they are criminals.

But they only look for a decent job,

That in their country they have not found,

And without any apparent sense or reason,

Down the streets while in chains he paraded them”

(de la Torre, Trails of Hope and Terror, 130).

 These books will disturb your conscience and force you to confront the realities faced by economic migrants and refugees. Their stories will remain with you as you develop your own theology of migration and sense of God’s mission for the church today.


Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty is chair of the department of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky and member of the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky. The church’s role in addressing issues of social and economic justice has long been one of her principal concerns. She is author of Dorothy Day for Armchair Theologians (2014), Beyond the Social Maze: Exploring the Theological Ethics of Vida Dutton Scudder (2006), Reconciling Paul: A Contemporary Study of 2 Corinthians (2014-2015 Horizons Bible Study) and The Problem of Wealth: A Christian Response to the Culture of Affluence (forthcoming from Orbis in 2017).  She co-edited Prayers for the New Social Awakening (2008) with Christian Iosso and To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians (2008) with Rebecca Todd Peters. She is an alum of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (MDiv 1995) and Union Presbyterian Seminary (PhD, 2002). Elizabeth and her partner, Lee, make their home in the Highlands of Louisville with their two children, Garrison and Emme, and their dog, Bacsi.

2016 National Gathering Testimony: Alison Harrington

Rev. Alison J. Harrington currently serves Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson, Arizona. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from University of California at Berkeley and a Master of Divinity degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She has experience in community organizing against the prison industrial complex and as a prison chaplain. Alison has served the denomination as a Global Youth Intern to Ethiopia, a Young Adult Volunteer to Belfast Northern Ireland, and has traveled on peace and justice delegations to Chiapas, Colombia, and Cuba. She has been named one of Tucson’s 40 under 40, a Beatitudes Society Fellow, a recipient of the Beatitudes Society Brave Preacher Award, and one of 15 Faith Leaders to Watch in 2015 by the Center for American Progress.