Information and resources from a variety of sources about this topical issue.

Statement re Evangelisation and Migration
'Mission and Migration' consideration from national evangelism officers
New Immigration: New Evangelisation

Statement re Evangelisation and Migration

The Four Nations Evangelisation Forum of CTBI/GMN met in Dublin 20th-21st November 2007 and considered a wide range of issues related to evangelisation and migration. We offer the following observations in the hope of helping churches in their response to the challenges and opportunities presented by migration:

• Many Christians coming to Britain bring a committed and fervent approach to evangelism which can bless and inform all churches.

• Whilst there are potential problems caused by a dominant host community evangelising a minority community, this should not preclude sensitive evangelisation.

• Any attempt at evangelisation which does not take seriously an engagement with the culture of the migrant communities is inadequate.

• A genuine offer of hospitality should always be the first point of meeting with migrant communities.

• We recognise the importance of working in partnership with those who work in areas of racial justice, community development and inclusivity as the churches serve migrant communities.

• We agreed that the 1989 San Antonio report sets a helpful theological framework: “We cannot point to any other way of salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God.” (I.iv.26, see Appendix C.1)

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'Mission and Migration' consideration from national evangelism officers

A report of the CTBI ‘Four Nations Forum for Evangelisation’ in Dublin 2007 which provides resource material, advice, web links and questions.

We hear new languages in our shops, see headlines in our newspapers, and watch national debates on television about migration. Recently national evangelism officers and several guests met for 24 hours to consider the ‘Mission Impact of Migration’.

Informed by Rev Darrel Jackson who is researching mission and migration across Europe for the World Council of Churches, members of the Forum shared their experience, knowledge and reflections on the subject, specifically in relation to evangelisation. This was mainly focussed on church life as many migrant workers come from Christian backgrounds, outreach projects and church planting/ Fresh Expressions.

John Stephens, Methodist Minister of the Dublin Central Mission, described the new life and vibrancy brought by new migrant members. The church had nearly closed, partly for poor parking, but then extended a welcome to people from overseas. Many did not have cars anyway, and the buses all lead to the city centre! They found a spiritual home in the congregation and brought friends. John first came to the city himself 25 years previously to start work with just a suitcase. Though just from Belfast he said his ministry has been shaped by that experience of being a migrant himself.

The current multi ethnic congregation is led by a multi ethic staff and leadership. 160 on Sunday mornings are served by 5 staff including a Sri Lankan minister and Argentinean administrator; while there are people from the Philippines, Korea, and Africa on the council.

Hospitality, relationships, practical and pastoral support have been key. They intentionally want to be God’s people together as a community, as this is how they have been called to be. John says other churches may well grow with ethnic congregations, with worship in their own language, but each church needs to find out the best way under God for them to grow. The multi ethnic congregation approach brings ‘many problems’ and a ‘wonderful blessing’ at the same time.

Another story was told about the ‘The Solid Rock’ church in Dublin by Jabulani Mwale. As well as a multicultural main congregation they have different Mission congregations e.g. Nigerian and Cameroon, and plans for many more. They run both models of united fellowship and diversity, which has led to considerable growth, as can be seen on their website www.thesolidrock.net.

The different stories led to a considered debate about the best model of mission, with the advantages and disadvantages both ways of having a diverse mix of people in one congregation, compared to specific language, age and cultural group, worshipping and reaching out to their own people groups.

The Forum discussed the much debated old premise of Donald McGavran that ‘people don’t like to become Christians by crossing cultural barriers’, and the relevance of research in to this in our own day. We hope our churches and councils will do more work and research in to this. 

Darrel Jackson observed that ‘when living in Hungary I was an ‘expatriate’; in the Isle of Man a ‘come over’ and in the Forest of Dean ‘from away’. There are different ways of describing the ‘the other’, and ‘migrant’: each word having a different connotation.

With this and many of the newspaper headline words like ‘waves’, ‘floods’, ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘sponging’ in mind, together with confusion in many minds over the closely related subject of asylum seekers, The Forum engaged with all issues from a positive perspective and noted the following points. They raise lots of questions for us all to consider further.

1. Migration movements are not new. They happened before, in and after biblical times
2. Jesus himself was a migrant and said that what we do for the least, we do for him.
3. One in Ten British people live abroad so there is ‘out’ migration as well as ‘in’. This trend has been for hundreds of years, especially from Ireland and Scotland to all parts of the world.
4. Ethnic congregations are not new either. Welsh and Swedish examples are well known.
5. However, studies in Spain and elsewhere show that people often lose their faith when they move, for many reasons.
6. A good missional framework for evangelisation is: ‘listen, serve, receive and share’. Another framework, is ‘observe, interpret, and make it happen’.
7. For worship, find times which fit best for the workers: in Ross on Wye an agricultural workers congregation meets in the evening, and in East Anglia a Baptist group meets midweek.
8. Recognise that some groups are ‘invisible to us’. A Community Education Officer asked if church building could be used for teaching Polish women living in hotel round the corner in this small town of 2k people.
9. Radio 4 reported on Roman Catholic Polish priests who serve congregations: some of which have been on our shores for decades. ‘Keeping the faith’ is part of our mission responsibility.
10. 50 years ago a work started with Asian migrants in Glasgow. This work continues at The Well. It is clearly evangelistic and welcomes 5k people through the door each year, including new migrant groups. This brings a new set of issues.   
11. We need to recognise and be sensitive to tensions which can exist between different cultural people groups, and not just between British and Irish to the new overseas migrant people.
12. Islam and Christianity are both evangelising communities
13. We need to give consideration now to what might happen if Turkey joins the EU and the next movement are from a more Muslim than Christian background, as is the current case.
14. Many new Christian converts are very keen to evangelise in the Britain and Ireland, believing that that is part of their call as Christians and a reason for being here, as we did when we went abroad in fulfilment of the Great Commission. Keith Barltrop’s paper explores this further.
15. The Solid Rock church in Dublin provided a bus for Asylum Seekers in a resettlement camp 15 miles to attend church. Many were found to be qualified medical staff. As always, we need to be careful about stereotyping people before we get to know them.
16. Nearly all Christian groups engaged in direct outreach and work with migrants and asylum seekers, naturally and subsequently get involved in issues of justice.
17. Although a Baptism certificate is helpful in an asylum seeker court case, however this has not been observed as common abuse of the church.
18. In East Anglia an outreach to Portuguese people through a café has drawn 10 new believers who have been recently baptised.
19. Statistics have shown that the fastest growing churches in London are the Black Majority and Ethnic groups. Learning from evangelists and pastors for migrant group congregations in network meetings is now taking place.
20. There is no ‘one answer fits all’ model in all circumstances: responses need to be based on need, cultural relevance, and a welcoming church prepared to change … and change again.
21. We do well to remind ourselves of lessons learnt in previous generations about indigenous leadership, as explored by missiologists like Roland Allen.
22. A good place for specific mission would be Victoria Coach station where many travel to and change, ‘without a friend in the world’. With no chapel on site could a Christian team work from a converted coach?
23. One model which can work well is to have Cell groups for individual ethnic identities and then for them all to join together in a central Celebration, shaped by what the Cell groups bring. Each Cell group can have its own relevant outreach programme.

Finally we concluded that:

1. Many Christians coming to Britain bring a committed and fervent approach to evangelism which can bless and inform all churches.
2. Whilst there are potential problems caused by a dominant host community evangelising a minority community, this should not preclude sensitive evangelisation.
3. Any attempt at evangelisation which does not take seriously an engagement with the culture of the migrant communities is inadequate.
4. A genuine offer of hospitality should always be the first point of meeting with migrant communities.
5. We recognise the importance of working in partnership with those who work in areas of racial justice, community development and exclusivity as the churches serve migrant communities.
6. We agreed that the 1989 San Antonio report sets a helpful theological framework: “We cannot point to any other way of salvation than Jesus Christ; at the same time we cannot set limits to the saving power of God.”

The Forum was further informed by the following resources:

We found a paper by Mgr Keith Barltrop of the Catholic Agency to Support Evangelisation particularly helpful, and reproduce it here in full (LINK).

We based our discussion on the CTBI booklet ‘Migration Principles’ CTBI 2007 which provides valuable guidelines for all churches.

The United Nations website has links to International Migration figure in 2006 (LINK)

The ‘Caleb Project’ have produced a book ‘The New Faces of Europe’ (www.calebproject.org) with the networks of Global Connection, Operation Mobilisation and Youth With A Mission.

For interfaith outreach, the Methodist church have produced ‘May I call you friend?’ available from www.mph.org.uk

The Baptist Union have a download resource on Migration with 10 principles available from www.baptist.org.uk

Alpha provide course material in Russian, Polish and Chinese, available from www.alpha.org

WycliffeUk have produced a website called www.jesusinmylanguage.org which provides sections of Mark’s Gospel in 70 languages. They plan to provide more.

A good book which explores the issues from a Christian Perspective is: ‘A Christian Perspective on a Polarised Debate’ by Nick Spencer. Paternoster 2004, with the Jubilee Centre, Cambridge.

A good general introduction is ‘International Migration: A very short Introduction’ by Khalid Koser in the Oxford University Press ‘Very Short Introductions’ series (OUP 2007)

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