New fellowship formed to meet needs of Middle Eastern Christians

 Headed by Georges Bitar, a pastor in Lebanon for 20-plus years, the Tucson, Ariz.-based fellowship is a joint effort of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.’s Office of Middle Eastern Ministries in the USA, the synod, and presbytery.
 “We learned that there are enough Arab-speaking people there to start a fellowship,” said Amgad Beblawi, the PC(USA)’s associate for Middle Eastern Ministries in the USA. The synod and presbytery “both were very interested and eager to reach out to the populations there, and they were willing to put in some resources.”
 Beblawi’s office matched those resources and has provided other essentials, including Arabic Bibles and hymnals. The office also has helped train Bitar and connect him with other Middle Eastern pastors in the U.S.
 Jan DeVries, synod executive and stated clerk of the Synod of the Southwest, said a Tucson community member first brought the area’s “invisible population” of Middle Eastern Christians and their need for a fellowship to the synod’s attention. The worshippers were scattered in various congregations in the area, she said.
 “There aren’t any other Middle Eastern Christian churches or fellowships in our presbytery … of any denomination,” said Jon Ashley, pastor of Tortolita Church in Tucson and moderator of the mission through new church development committee of Presbytery de Cristo. “It’s really an underserved population.”
 “We think there are 5,000 or more immigrants and refugees from the Middle East in Tucson and they really are not being reached at all,” he said.
 The new PC(USA) fellowship nests in Northminster Church, where Bitar expects to pastor “as many as the Lord gives us.”
 As the fellowship develops, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis, and Egyptians will help make up the body, unified under a familiar language and culture, he said.
 An Arabic-speaking fellowship is critical for those who aren’t comfortable with English, especially older people, Bitar said, who came to the states in June 2007.
“They cannot cope very well with the English church and they need someone here to work with them in their own language,” he said.
 Even those who do know English well, “when it comes to worship they are used to worshipping in their mother tongue,” said Beblawi, whose office is tasked with starting fellowships just like the one in Tucson. “They are most comfortable praying in Arabic,” and church also “is a place where they have fellowship,” he added.
 Beblawi noted about 15 percent of Arab immigrants come from Protestant backgrounds and specifically look for Reformed churches when they leave the Middle East.
 Bitar said a key component of the fellowship also is reaching those who aren’t necessarily familiar with church and Christianity. “The call of Jesus Christ is the first in all our lives,” he said. “We are really responding to his call that he wanted us to be here and doing this for his own glory.”
 DeVries said the fellowship is being monitored over the next year to see how things develop and the potential for building it. The hope also is to bring in Presbytery of Grand Canyon, which has a Middle Eastern fellowship already operating in Phoenix but without a pastor, she said. This new fellowship is “really a remarkable sign of how broad the church of Jesus Christ is,” said DeVries. “It’s turned out to be a wonderful undertaking.”