10 years ago — October 2, 2006
Speaking at the meeting of the Presbyterian Global Fellowship, Lucas de Paiva Pina, a native of Brazil and now working with three presbyteries in
Atlanta reaching immigrant communities spoke about the need for the church to change. “To become partners with the global church, Presby-terians from North America need to ‘change the attitude of we-and-they. … 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. … We need to share power.”
Jose Carlos Pezini, a minister and a native of Brazil working for The Outreach Foundation, “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. … As 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.”
From “Global scope, homeland churches: PC(USA) faces immigrant issues” by Leslie Scanlon
