How to Meet the Needs of Immigrants, with a Bonus

by Bill Lottis

The ethnic and cultural face of North America has changed drastically over the few years. Although that’s been happening steadily ever since the first Europeans steeped ashore, the change has been particularly dramatic in the last two decades.

The ethnic and cultural face of North America has changed drastically over the few years. Although that’s been happening steadily ever since the first Europeans steeped ashore, the change has been particularly dramatic in the last two decades.

For example, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service calculates that between 1820 and 1987, some 36,811,000 Europeans settled in the U.S., compared to 5,141,000 Asians and 11,049,000 Latin Americans. But in 1987 alone, 265,000 Latin American immigrants and 248,300 Asian immigrants came to the U.S., compared to 68,000 Europeans.

Many of these new arrivals are fleeing political and economic disasters. Many of them come from countries where missionaries are working.

These immigrants represent two kinds of need. Some immigrant communities have no churches and virtually no evangelical witness. Their plight calls for effective cross-cultural church planting. But some of the new immigrants move into young ethnic churches that need sensitive help nurture. At both levels, mission agencies have the opportunity and the obligation to do much more than they have been doing in the past.

Following are two ideas that I think would not only help to evangelize and disciple immigrants, but at the same time would benefit both first-term missionaries and furlough and retired missionaries. That’s what I call the bonus of ministering to immigrants.

CANDIDATE TRAINING
Ethnic communities are ideal classrooms in which missionary candidates can learn principles of cross-cultural work. In spite of that, mission agencies for the most part continue to limit specialized candidate training to a week or two at mission headquarters. Often, they send new missionaries to the field with little or no cross-cultural or linguistic experience among the people whom they will serve. They often make field assignments based on general impressions, rather than on sound evaluation of prior practical work experience.

In addition, new missionaries often are thrust into new fields without adequate supervision. They get minimal help during a time of difficult adjustment. Language-learning typically takes place in a sterile environment, rather than among people in the host culture.

There are some bright spots in the picture that represent changes for the better. (See the following examples of Missionary Internship and International Missions.—Eds.) But my thesis is that we must now take advantage of stepping-stones to cultural discovery and language learning that are available among immigrants in North America.

Many ethnic churches are open to the idea of having future missionaries on their staffs. They are willing to fit these interns into the life and ministry of the church and to help them learn the language the culture. Mission agencies must the initiative to find such churches.

These internships could last a few months to a year. Perhaps they could be coordinated among several missions. Mission agencies could provide supplemental lectures and feedback sessions with their candidates.

This kind of prefield training would greatly ease adjustment to the missionary’s new field, particularly if his or her internship could be arranged within the language and culture.

Let me suggest a few benefits:

•Less time needed for language learning after arrival on the field. The new missionary would become productive much faster.

•Less culture shock and the likelihood of fewer first-term dropouts.

•Better assignment as a result of observing the intern in a cross-cultural ministry. This is especially helpful for those contemplating service on a church-planting team.

•Prayer support from a new group of people in the ethnic churches, who are knowledgeable and concerned about the needs of those back home.

•Greater confidence as new missionaries begin their careers.

•Increased competence during deputation, which conceivably could shorten deputation time.

•In short, the new missionary would hit the field in fighting trim, familiar with the conditions and needs of the people, and able to move directly into effective ministry. At the same time, mission agencies would be providing strong support for evangelism and church-planting among the thousands of immigrants pouring into the United States and Canada.

LEADERSHIP FOR ETHNIC CHURCHES
The second need among immigrants that mission agencies need to so something about is nurture and training. As new ethnic churches spring up, they need leaders and pastoral training. They could grow faster and deeper with help from experienced church planters and teachers who have previously served overseas in the same cultures.

Too often our missionaries stick to their home churches when they are on furlough or on extended leave. They fail to see the significant opportunities all around them.

In Chicago, Moody Bible Institute deploys many students to ethnic churches. One of them includes five ethnic congregations. All of them could benefit from the service of experienced missionaries. Filipino, Hispanic, and Asian churches in Chicago need missionary help. The same could be said of other major urban areas across Canada and the U.S.

Part of our problem in meeting this need is our historic home-foreign dichotomy. Many missionaries fail to see how God has brought the mission field, so to speak, to their own backyards. Our so-called "receiving" nations are now becoming "sending" nations as the churches mature and develop their own missionary vision.

It is interesting that while many of the world’s so-called hard-to-reach people attract growing missionary concern, some of these same people elicit no concern whatsoever when they land in North America. Take the Sikhs the Iranians, for example. Christians generally are unaware of how many of them are being reached for Christ in North America.

In Richmond, British Colombia, for example, there’s a new congregation of first-generation Christians called the Hindi Punjabi Gospel Chapel. The whole ministry is in Hindi. Most of believers have cut off from their extended families because of commitment to Christ. This church is open to help from others, because there are an estimated 60,000 Asian Indians within a 10-mile radius of the church.

This kind of church growth could be multiplied many times over, if mission agencies put major thought and effort to the so-called "home fields," which in reality are the old foreign fields brought to our doorstep.

Knowing something of the history of responsive people around the world, I can’t help but believe that these immigrants—caught in the midst of sudden change, unsatisfied with the status quo, innovative and ambitious to adapt— represent a vital and responsible segment of the world’s unreached who could be reached by those who know their language and culture. It’s time that we find out.

MISSIONARY INTERNSHIP’S URBAN ETHNIC INTERNSHIP
1. Program in Language Acquisition Techniques. This two-week program focuses on (1) how non-English sounds are made and how to hear them, and (2) techniques that a learner can use to learn a language on his own, or to supplement a language school program. In both, the learner takes the initiative.

2. Pre-field Orientation. This three-week program focuses on how to enter another culture and how to become an effective communicator in that society. It deals with culture shock, adaptation to a culture, understanding what happens as you adjust, building interpersonal relationships, and issues missionaries face as they move cross-culturally. Students do more than hear about these things, they experience them and learn how to adapt, with field trips and simulations.

Students live and in the unfamiliar multi-cultural environment of Detroit. Teams work with ethnic churches in the city, doing both evangelism discipleship. They see how urban ministry works and learn a number of viable alternatives for effective service.

Missionary Internship staff encourage each intern to develop evangelism as a lifestyle. Interns get individual counsel from staff. Programs run seven to 14 weeks, depending on the time of year, and can be extended to nine months.

(Brad Sternberg, program coordinator, Missionary Internship, Box 457, Farmington, Mich. 43332.)

INTERNATIONAL MISSIONS
International Missions operates two programs in New York City that offer training in Muslim or Hindu evangelism. The six-week sessions include 90 hours each of class-work, study, and outreach. Students earn a grade, which is based on a detailed reporting system and the supervision of their teachers.

Students begin their outreach on the second day and continue to integrate classroom and personal study with what they learn on the streets from their exposure to Hindus and Muslims.

All teachers are experienced missionaries. Four times at least they go with the students on outreach.

Teams vary from four to 16. Each one is assigned to a local church and has a missionary leader. Team members eat, study, and sleep in the church. They invite Muslims and Hindus to attend services with them.

Team members work in pairs — a man and a woman — to meet Hindus and Muslims. CM average, each student contacts 24 people (a contact is defined as at least a 25-minute visit). Of course, many visits are repeats in homes or other cross-cultural settings.

Some schools give credit for this training.

(International Missions, Box 14866, Reading, Pa. 19612.)

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