ATLANTA — What does it mean for an established church, in which tradition is revered, to see the world changing all around it?
What can a mostly-white church do to be truly welcoming to those of other cultures and other colors — to share power and faith with those who speak many languages and have their own ways of doing things?
Those are hard questions for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a denomination that is more than 92 percent white and has been losing both numbers and influence for a long time. But some Presbyterians are exploring exactly those questions — are excited about what could be and at the same time somewhat apprehensive about the challenges.
“There are all kinds of people from all over the world right here in small-town America, and we don’t know how to deal with that,” said Tracie Mayes Stewart, director of Christian education at First Church in Statesville, N.C.
“We are really trying to figure out how we do this and why we do this. How are we faithful in this new reality?”
And some immigrants are just as excited about the possibilities for evangelism in the United States — knowing, in part, how much they have to offer, and wanting to find a church where they are appreciated for exactly who they are.
Lucas de Paiva Pina, a native of Brazil, now works with three presbyteries in Georgia, doing outreach work among immigrant groups — he’s already interacting with 36 different groups and “it’s growing very fast,” he said at the Presbyterian Global Fellowship meeting in Atlanta.
But Pina did not flinch in describing some of the changes he believes the PC(USA) must make to reach and include new arrivals.
To become partners with the global church, Presbyterians from North America need to “change the attitude of we-and-they,” Pina said. “We need to understand that in Christ, we are brother and sister. We are a family with different languages, different colors, different cultures, but we are from the same family, saved by the same Savior.”
For U.S. Presbyterians, that means, “We need to share power,” Pina said. Don’t think of immigrants as children, with thoughts such as:, “They don’t know how to do church, we need to teach them everything,” he said. Or, “once in a while, we’re going to ask them what they think.”
Instead, Pina said, consider the immigrants’ realities.
He told of immigrant pastors who may have difficulty getting their credentials recognized by the PC(USA). They are often part-time tentmakers, working another job or two in construction or cleaning. They work all day, go home, take a shower, and go out to care for the people from their worshipping community — even though many make no salary as a pastor at all.
Pina told of the difficulty he’s had in finding space in some established PC(USA) churches for those immigrant fellowships. He’s asked, for example, “Can the fellowship use the church after 1 p.m. on Sundays?”
The answer: Let’s form a committee, a task force. We need to ask the session. Let’s decide later.
Pina responds, “Are you using the room? No. Is anybody there? No. Why can’t we use the room?”
He told the fellowship: “We need to be flexible. And I know that’s very, very, very hard for a Presbyterian.”
Congregations also are learning to think creatively about what the needs are — prompted, in part, by the changes in their own memberships and in the demographics of the neighborhoods around them.
“In Nashville, where you think there are no Arabs, there are about 5,000,” said Joseph Faragalla, (profile link), a native of Egypt who works for The Outreach Foundation organizing ministry among Arabic-speaking people.
In Minnesota, Hope Church (www.hope-pc.org/) in Richfield — a first-ring suburb near Minneapolis — is exploring options with Oliver Church, a city congregation in a changing neighborhood. Oliver has fewer than 100 Anglo members left, and “I’d bet most of them are over 70,” said Judie Ritchie, the associate pastor for spiritual care and mission support at Hope church.
But the Oliver congregation does include a vibrant group of Christians from Laos. As Hope and Oliver discuss the possibility of combining forces, Hope sees the possibility of becoming “kind of immediately bicultural,” Ritchie said. And some Hispanics have shown interest in using the Oliver building.
In all this, “what’s been amazing is that this presbytery, which has not been known in the past for anything very creative or coloring outside the lines, has been very flexible,” Ritchie said. “That’s exactly the kind of attitude we need in the whole denomination.”
José Carlos Pezini, (profile link) a minister and a native of Brazil, works for The Outreach Foundation as a missionary to Portuguese-speaking people in the United States.
One of the best approaches in these times of new realities, he said, is an Anglo congregation deciding to build a relationship with an immigrant fellowship — to take some steps of welcome and see where they might lead. Worship with the immigrant group, Pezini suggested — sing and dance together, share some meals. Get involved in a ministry project or Vacation Bible School together, have a picnic, celebrate a holiday or special event.
“There is a lot of opportunity around,” Pezini said. “I think you can identify a group close to your door.”
When he wants to find the Brazilians, he drives around looking for Brazilian restaurants or stores. When he locates the Brazilians, he works to identify prayer groups, house churches, and Bible studies.
That’s a starting point — but building deeper connections requires work, commitment, and flexibility.
Pezini and others said white Americans need to understand that their sense of what is “normal” — of the way things ought to be — is shaped in part by their own culture. Some Presbyterians are put off if the worship is louder or longer than they’re used to, if they don’t understand the language, if those sharing the church kitchen cook new kinds of foods whose distinctive odors wander down the halls.
Anglos tend to think linearly, “They go straight to the point,” said Pezini, who’s done doctoral work on the difference between Latin Americans and North Americans. Many Latin Americans and Africans are more indirect, he said — they may be more inclined to start a gathering by inquiring about people’s families and lives than by moving efficiently to the business at hand
Faragalla said Arabs tend to talk loudly and exuberantly when they meet, and when they gather for a meeting the first hour will focus on family and friendships, even in business meetings.
Recent immigrants also may have mixed feelings, he said, about how much they want to integrate into American culture.
Some immigrants don’t have visas. With their status in danger, they may be suspicious about forming relationships with those they don’t know. They understand that some Americans think of Arabs as terrorists — they don’t take being welcome for granted (although Faragalla said: “You just invite a Muslim into your home and that will melt their hearts.”)
Many are thrilled to be in the United States, but also miss the sounds and smells and connections of home.
Pezini described that sense of living in two worlds this way. “After 10 years, I feel I am not Brazilian anymore. But I never became American,” adding, “Who am I? It’s really complex.”
As the immigrants are trying to figure out how they fit in a new land, those who came before them are trying to figure out how to connect with people with whom they may not share the same language or culture.
Stewart, for example, lives in a part of North Carolina that has seen an influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants — an estimated 30,000 in her area, she said. And it’s not only Hispanics — when Stewart and her husband, a new church development pastor, bought a home in a new subdivision, they found immigrants living all around them.
“Across the street is a lady from Ecuador,” Stewart said in an interview. “Our back-door neighbor is from Japan. We have another family from Honduras, another from India … it’s just funny to think of that in small-town North Carolina. My kids think it’s great.”
So how is she responding?
With old-fashioned Southern hospitality.
“I’m going to start inviting people over for dinner, seeing if they’re interested in coming to my husband’s church,” Stewart said. “We have a big Halloween party and that seems like a great outreach. Just open up the doors.”
At the same time, however, she acknowledges that many congregations aren’t sure exactly what to do — and may not be ready for change. As Stewart puts it, “we are very 11 o’clock people,” used to worshipping at a particular time on Sunday morning in a particular way.
“It’s a whole new world,” Stewart said. “How do you respond when people are coming from so many places with so many different experiences?
But she is a Calvinist — and she has faith.
“It’s up to God to really bring people into relationship with Him,” Stewart said. “Then all we have to do is love people the way that Jesus loved and make them feel welcome and accepted. And trust that even if there are more differences than you think, they can be used by the Holy Spirit.”
