Skip to main content

Ministry to second-generation immigrants

This the last post in my series on immigrant ministry.

* * * * *

Second-generation immigrants - the children of those who migrated, or they were very young when they migrated - present their own challenges and opportunities. The same can be said for children of mixed marriages. While they grow up in Western culture, they may be subjected to surprisingly traditional expectations from their family. Kathleen Garces-Foley records how mixed marriages were a constant pastoral problem even at Evergreen church, California, a church that is purposefully multiethnic, and whose pastor has a mixed marriage. “Many of the young adults at Evergreen were raised with this double message: Be American in all areas of your life except family.” [Kathleen Garces-Foley, Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007: 113-4].

These children feel like they belong to neither the dominant culture nor their home culture. This could lead either to a sense of isolation and disconnectedness, or a genuine flexibility and ability to engage with both cultures. The question is how to encourage the later while avoiding the former.

In reply to a comment on a previous post, I said while we're free to create ethnic-specific churches, we're also free to deliberately create ethnically hetergenous churches. The best books on multi-ethnic churches I've found so far are:
  • Korie L. Edwards, The Elusive Dream: The Power of Race in Interracial Churches (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008);
  • Kathleen Garces-Foley, Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) and
  • Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (Downer's Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009).
I like Rah the best - he seems to come from the most conservative-Evangelical standpoint of the three.

Anyone else got any good resources to recommend? Also - any ideas on how we encourage second-generation immigrants to be be flexible, not disconnected?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The different distractions of secularity and spirituality

There has been a lot of discussion about the recent 'vibe shift' away from radical atheism back towards an openness to the supernatural. I don't think this new spirituality is necessarily an openness to the unique claims of Christ. It will more probably replace one set of commonly-accepted misunderstandings about Jesus with another.  Under radical atheism, people dismissed the Biblical claims about Jesus' resurrection because they 'knew' that it was impossible. Jesus hadn't really died. He just passed out (after being beaten and whipped and crucified) and then woke up in the tomb (and rolled away the stone himself and overcame several guards). Or the disciples hallucinated that they saw him (even though Jewish beliefs of the time didn't expect one person to rise possessing eternal life himself; they expected a general resurrection at the end of time - see John 11:24 ). Or something else.  The so-called 'explanations' of Jesus' non-resurrectio...
Post a Comment
Read more

A better understanding of nonbelief

The Nones Project is an ongoing study into the belief systems of people who call themselves non-religious. A few weeks ago one of the project leaders,  Ryan Burge  of Washington University,  posted some really interesting preliminary results  on his Substack.  1. We've probably heard of people who are spiritual but not religious (SBNRs). SBNRs were "the largest group of nones" in the sample. They believe in the supernatural realm but not necessarily in "a God." They are "deeply skeptical of religion but highly interested in spirituality," therefore individualistic and anti-institutional.  2. But this study differentiated SBNRs from people they called Nones In Name Only, NiNos. They different to SBNRs by being religious about their spiritual. They believe not just in the supernatural but in "God." And they tend to engage in traditional communal religious practices while SBNRs practice individualised eclectic bespoke spiritual practices. The s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wax and Wright on the definition of "mission"

Trevin Wax has written a clear, simple, and charitable introduction to a debate about the nature and boundaries of the kinds of Christian activities that validly should be called "mission." In brief:  Should we use a broad definition, where "mission" encompasses all the various purposes which God calls Christians and the church in general to perform, e.g. being ethical at work; general acts of care and charity; standing against systematic oppression and working towards justice instead? If so, "evangelism" is only one part of the church's mission - a central, necessary, and irreplaceable part, but only one part nonetheless. The latter kinds of activities don't save anyone for eternity, but they do genuine good in this world which please God. And that kind of good makes a real difference in many parts of the world which have not benefited from the kind of Christian moral transformation which the West benefited from - the kind of moral transformation...
Post a Comment
Read more