“The Holy Spirit is bringing to us across the entire globe,” Fuller Theological Seminary Professor Charles Van Engen said earlier in the day. The closing session seemed tangible proof of the professor’s words.
Drawing more than 500 people over three days in late April, the summit was sponsored by the Ethnic America Network, a group of evangelical Christian leaders concerned with the challenges and opportunities of the mushrooming ethnic diversity in the United States. The network belongs to Mission America (MA), a broad coalition of evangelical churches and church organizations. It works with groups that “consider themselves immigrants,” according to Corkie Haan of MA.
“Our purpose was to get as many people working in the same area together so we could get to know each other,” said Nick Venditti, international director of the Des Moines, Iowa-based Institute of Theology by Extension and a member of the summit’s organizing committee.
“It’s to connect,” said Allen Belton, so “people know who is doing ethnic work and in a way that ethnics can relate. So many times, the intention is to get the word out, but it’s done in a fashion that is culturally insensitive.”
Belton, who is director of the Department of Urban and Global Mission at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle, cited a unique dimension of the summit: equipping evangelical workers for ministry who are themselves members of ethnic minority groups.
Russell Begaye, summit chairman and head of the multiethnic church-planting unit of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, said workers who are minorities don’t have to worry much about building cultural bridges. But within their own group, he said, they are often held to a difficult standard, with the community scrutinizing the slightest hypocrisy in these bearers of what is often an unusual message in their culture.
The summit’s numerous workshops were designed to provide help for ministries that meet the needs of ethnic groups. “It’s not just sharing God’s word with them; it’s friendship,” Don Apgar said of his work as a regional mobilizer with International Students Inc. (ISI).
Headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colorado, ISI matches international university students across the country with “friendship partners” recruited in evangelical churches near the students’ schools.
Asked how he felt about Christian attempts to evangelize ethnic populations, Orange County Muslim leader Hussam Ayloush said, “I don’t see a major problem if it comes with good intentions.” Hussam is executive director of the southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
For Fuller Seminary’s Van Engen, evangelicals must present the Christian church as an “embassy,” a safe haven where people of varied backgrounds put aside conflict, even if they don’t abandon their particularity. “This is not multiculturalism. This is not cultural relativism,” he said. “It’s a completely new reality.”
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Related Elsewhere
The Ethnic America Network site has information about the network, its sponsoring organizations, and its conferences.Ethnic Harvest has photos from the summit and loads of demographic information and other resources.
International Students Inc‘s site offers stories from students who’ve been in the program and other information about the organization.
Mission America has a bare-bones site.
