Foreign Missions: Next Door & Down the Street

Unparalleled immigration is redefining missions strategy while bringing new millions within earshot of the gospel.

Since the advent of the modern missionary movement, “overseas” has been a sacred word. To put it in the current vernacular, that’s where it’s been at in preoccupation, plan, and action.

But all that may be changing. With wave after wave of newcomers flooding our shores, America is now awash with missionary opportunities. Consequently, the time has come for some foreign mission agencies to reassess their own strategies—and even order a few of their troops home.

The Waves Of Change

Setting aside the celebration of our nation’s birth, the bicentennial year of 1976 may have been a watershed for Christian missions in America. Out of that year came a growing awareness of profound demographic changes—changes that would have an impact not only on the character of the nation, but on the mission of its churches as well.

In its February 20, 1978, issue, U.S. News and World Report devoted its cover story to the “new faces” within the United States. “Millions of newcomers—many from Latin America and the Orient—are bringing fresh ideas and flair to their new home,” the article read. And “the impact is only beginning to be felt.”

The article noted that during the previous decade, an estimated 10 million newcomers had arrived in this country, the majority from nations that once had little representation here. But because Congress removed immigration quotas that once discriminated against Third World countries, immigrants began flocking here from impoverished regions of Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The article concluded that since these newcomers were arriving at a time when the U.S. birth rate was falling sharply, their presence would be felt more than their numbers would suggest. As a result of the lower birth rate, immigrants—“400,000 legal ones plus estimates of up to 1 million entering illegally each year”—would account for well over a third of annual population growth.

This first wave of immigrants came predominantly from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In fact, in the 25 years from 1951 through America’s bicentennial in 1976, the number of emigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa increased from 11 to 89 percent. Meanwhile, emigration from Europe and the rest of the world decreased from 79 to 21 percent. What was particularly noteworthy for the church was that these “emigrant” nations were the same ones boasting the lion’s share of U.S. missionary activity.

A Second Tidal Wave

Following the millions of “early comers”—arriving before the end of America’s bicentennial and a momentary lull in immigration through 1978—came a second wave of newcomers. Another U.S. News and World Report cover story (July 9, 1979) said, “By year’s end, this country will have taken in almost 4.4 million immigrants and refugees since 1970. Yet the pressure to admit greater numbers grows daily.”

And with at least 10 million people uprooted by famine, poverty, war, and political repression, those pressures were enormous. For example, even after President Carter doubled the number of Indochinese admissions, they still crowded camps in Southeast Asia. In that same region, thousands of fleeing “boat people” were risking death at sea even while they were being shunted from port to port. Meanwhile, Soviet Jews were longing to immigrate to this country, and over a half-million jobless people from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean were illegally entering the U.S. each year, simply to find work.

“As it has for decades,” the article pointed out, “the search for economic prosperity remains the strongest magnet for both legal and illegal immigrants. Even menial jobs here pay as much as 10 times the rate in many underdeveloped countries—if work were available.”

Not so readily available, either, was the opportunity to learn useful skills. Consequently, in 1977 alone, 154,700 foreign students entered this country, which was an increase of 337 percent over 1960.

According to U.S. News, “efforts by thousands of foreign-born Americans to win admission for relatives” added to the overall pressures resulting from this burgeoning new wave of immigrants. Federal immigration policy gave such heavy preference to family members of Americans or resident aliens that an immigrant without any such kin stood little chance of admission.

The pressure of that family reunification policy was soon to drive the U.S. domestic refugee-resettlement program of the 1980s. It would compound the “new spurt” of immigrants in the late 1970s, and it would divert attention from the larger problem of undocumented aliens.

The 1980s: The Floodgates Open Wide

At the end of 1979, several factors combined to turn this second wave into a veritable torrent. By the end of 1979, there were still over 400,000 Indochinese refugees in camps overseas, though 80,700 had already come to the U.S. that year. By the end of 1980, however, another 166,700 would arrive, with 132,500 following in 1981. Thus, in just three years, 379,900 Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese were resettled in this country.

The second factor was a dramatic surge in Cuban/Haitian “entrants.” Three weeks after the Refugee Act of 1980 became effective, the “Mariel boat lift” had the Immigration and Naturalization Service and voluntary agencies dealing with nearly 130,000 Cubans. And between 1979 and 1983, some 35,000 to 40,000 Haitian boat people fled to the U.S. to escape similar repression and economic deprivation.

Likewise, El Salvador, ruled by a succession of dictatorial military regimes until late 1979, and embroiled in a civil war, found thousands within its own borders displaced. And by late 1983, between 200,000 and 250,000 Salvadorians would find their way into the U.S.

Guatemalans were also fleeing a parallel situation in their own country, with some 70,000 crossing the border into neighboring Mexico—and a large number of these coming to the U.S.

It is little wonder then that, when writing in the summer of 1983, Pat Taran of Church World Service felt compelled to say, “In the last several years, the arrival of Central American, Cuban, and Haitian refugees on our shores has transformed first asylum into a major national issue which will undoubtedly become even more important as the violence in the region increases.” The response of some churches in providing “sanctuary” for Salvadorian refugees bore out his prescience.

Reaching the “Moving Target”

In the next five years, we are going to witness this century’s greatest single mutation in the structure of missions. As a result, missions will no longer be viewed as something we simply do overseas, but something we do within-groups of unreached peoples, whether those groups are located in Singapore or Los Angeles.

To understand the dynamics of this new focus, we must understand the nature of unreached peoples. First, a people group is like a “moving target.” Wherever it is located, it is still the same group—the same target.

Second, the number of nations represented in America’s cities is staggering. Just in terms of language, in Los Angeles alone there are from 100 to 150 different language groups. That is a veritable Pentecost of nations at our doorstep.

Third, these peoples—many truly unreached—are crucial segments of overseas populations. Being away from their homeland, they are, much more sensitive and open to the gospel message.

Fourth, churches are crucial to this new emphasis. Many foreign missions have wanted to increase their work in the United States but have faced bristling opposition from their supporting churches. Unfortunately, many churches still think in terms of home and foreign mission fields, with home missions a lesser priority. Therefore, churches must be given a greatly expanded vision of what missions really is: the reaching of unreached peoples.

One final note. Down through U.S. history, there have always been periodic surges of immigrant populations. The recent surge is different only in degree, not in kind. But since it is such a large degree, the opportunities for missions are without precedent. I firmly believe God is sending these peoples to this country because we have not yet reached them on the mission field.

By Ralph Winter, general director of the U.S. Center for World Mission.

The Unreached, Invisible Peoples

An even stronger factor in the newcomer boom of the early 1980s, numerically speaking, was the influx of so-called invisible migrants. In a Special Report by that title for the 1979 Yearbook of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Robert Suro said the United States had lost control of its borders, noting, “Even though sneaking into the country can be a risky, even physically dangerous business, many enter and leave it as they wish.” He further likened U.S. immigration policy to a traffic cop who cannot control a busy intersection. “He blows his whistle and waves his arms like a windmill,” Suro said, “but no one pays attention. The drivers all come and go as they please.”

Harvest on Concrete

In light of the exponential growth of immigrant populations in cities here and around the world, it is imperative that missions develop a global strategy for dealing with the problems of urbanization.

Such a strategy should include missionary outreach, as it relates to the urban situation, and a plan for equipping pastors to deal with city problems. And with a holistic emphasis, it should also include practical social service areas, like housing, health care, transportation, and employment. Of course, essential to carrying out this strategy would be the recruiting and training of missionaries to handle the unique problems of an urban setting.

But to make such a plan work, mission groups must drop their individualistic approach and work together. The job is too big and too critical to go it alone.

Mission leaders must be visionaries—not reactionaries. All too often evangelical missions have simply reacted to the immediate, with no long-term planning. We need strategic visionaries, much like those at NASA who said they would put a man on the moon by the end of the sixties—and did.

If we are going to be successful, we must discover together a strategic vision for reaching today’s immigrant—today’s urban dweller.

By Glandion Carney, director of Christian Leadership Development for World Vision/U.S. Ministry Division.

People, Not Places

It may appear to be legitimate to shift some mission emphasis and even personnel stateside, yet any talk of pulling missionaries from Africa to reach recent African immigrants, for instance, is sure to meet resistance. Such an approach undermines the whole thought pattern of missions.

For nearly 200 years missions focus has been on geographical considerations. Look at all the mission boards with geographical locations in their names. Such names have always been appropriate to them because they felt called to a specific part of the world. Also consider the continued division of home and foreign missions. Again, the dichotomy is caused by geographical considerations. It is a “sending” mentality.

Certainly this sending approach is based on the Lord’s mandate to start in Jerusalem and go to the uttermost parts of the world. Today we have come very close to doing this. But there are gigantic blocks of people who have not been effectively reached with the gospel.

Fortunately, in the last ten years there has been a greater emphasis on reaching unreached blocks of people, or people groups. Since Lausanne ’74, we have been talking about hidden people, frontier people, and unreached people. Whether those people are in Bangkok, Bombay, Los Angeles, or Miami, we are discovering our responsibility to reach them with the gospel. So if people from mission field “X” suddenly show up on our doorstep, we are now realizing our call to minister to them. I believe missions are slowly waking up to this idea of people groups. But in terms of strategy and policy, it will take a long time to catch up to the current need.

By David Howard, general director, World Evangelical Fellowship.

I remember reading that report and asking myself whether, if the U.S. could not or would not police its borders, it was likely that its churches and mission agencies—home and foreign—would respond positively to these “invisible” aliens. Would they not become the lepers of American society? And what of the countless other newcomers: Could or would churches and missions agencies keep up with their evangelization in the 1980s? Obviously, the changing pattern of immigration was begging for a major overhaul of mission strategy.

Change Of Face—And Heart

Millions of strange new faces began appearing on the streets of American cities, collectively changing the face of the nation itself. But who in the church really noticed? Unseen or unheeded, the fields at home were long since “white unto harvest.” Yet right down to the end of the 1970s, few missions leaders really knew what was going on. The “invisible migrants” took no pains to hide, yet it seemed few missions took pains to seek.

There were home missions, to be sure. Yet only a few were equipped to meet the communication and cultural needs of these “hidden” peoples. Moreover, many of these agencies were (and are) oriented around an almost total fixation on traditional target groups: American Indians, Eskimos, blacks, migrant workers, Jews, Cajuns, mountain people, French Canadians, and various cult groups.

As for the foreign missions groups, they were—even in 1976—unduly transfixed on those great congresses of a decade earlier: the Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission held in Wheaton and the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin. From these conclaves came a powerful missionary impetus, to be sure, with the massive Billy Graham campaigns and the challenge by Campus Crusade for Christ to win the world further fanning the flames of worldwide evangelism.

Cross-cultural Vision and Challenge

Foreign missions agencies are, in fact, actively responding to the immigrant situation. Close to a majority of the church-planting missions in IFMA (Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association) have some kind of immigrant ministry.

For instance, CAM International, formerly Central American Mission, opened a new field about three years ago in the southwestern United States. Further, International Missions, in cooperation with other mission groups, is working extensively with Muslims and Hindus in the greater New York City area.

With that said, I must add that I am not convinced foreign missions are primarily responsible for dealing with the immigrant influx. I believe the responsibility rests mainly with the local church and U.S.-based mission efforts.

Here, again, churches and local missions are responding in many ways. This just does not get highlighted, because these efforts often take place at the local, noncoordinated level. Many congregations have taken it upon themselves to bring immigrant families under their watchcare. And it is in the Christian home where the love of Christ is best demonstrated.

In terms of coordinated effort, there is room for improvement. There simply needs to be more crossover among churches, mission training schools, and mission groups. Specifically, missions ought to be prepared to offer their expertise in language and in cultural adaptation.

The whole evangelical church must seize the opportunity before it. In terms of foreign missions, a great number of new workers are needed as post-World War II missionaries begin retirement. And then, in view of the influx, a greater vision for working cross-culturally is absolutely essential.

By Edwin “Jack” Frizen, executive director of Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association.

But among U.S. missionary leaders, there was little or no awareness of the profound demographic shifts taking place in their own back yard. An example of this was a report prepared for the International Conference on World Evangelization at Lausanne in July 1974. It made only one comment regarding the changing face of America: that “some ethnic units” and “migrants” were “unreached peoples.” Ironically, the report claimed to be a summary of available information for those not familiar with the status of Christianity in the United States.

Still, the “back yard” missionary spirit was not entirely nonexistent. David Sanchez of the Southern Baptist Convention, for example, reported that the SBC already had 1,000 missionaries working under their Home Mission Board among 33 different language groups. These included not only the “earliest inhabitants” (American Indians) and other, relatively static, groups, but the most recent arrivals as well.

Getting the World View

Foreign missions have to balance what needs to be done here with what still needs to be done worldwide. Before initiating any plan of action, there must be careful analysis of the worldwide picture.

One important question to ask is, “Are there already natural channels for responding?” In some instances, the answer is yes. A good case in point would be the Christian and Missionary Alliance. With many of its missionaries forced out of Southeast Asia, the Alliance has channeled large numbers of its returned personnel into stateside ministries with Asian refugees.

Another strategy question is “How well established is the national church?” If there is a firmly established national church, then there is certainly the possibility of bringing missionaries from there to work here.

In a situation where there is a strong overseas church, there is also the possibility of bringing national church leaders stateside to work within their given ethnic community. And in some cases, this approach has been effective. The Korean church, for example, sends many Korean ministers here to pastor Korean congregations.

Finally, and most important, “How would increased ministry to these newcomers positively impact worldwide missions?” In terms of long-term planning, I believe increased ministry would be important in two ways: First, immigrants tend to keep communications “bridges” back to their homeland. If these immigrants can come to know the Lord, they can “bridge” the gospel back home. This idea is extremely important when considering the so-called closed countries.

Second, I could see stateside ethnic churches becoming sending bodies. Since a given ethnic group is most responsive to its own people, such an outreach could be strategic in the world missions effort.

By Wade Coggins, executive director of Evangelical Foreign Missions Association.

On the interdenominational side, two erstwhile “foreign” agencies were in the vanguard. My office was located down the street from the Latin America Mission, so its president, Clayton Berg, and I often shared not only what our individual research was turning up on immigration, but the last word on what our organizations were doing about it. I was not surprised, then, when Clayton publicly announced in late 1977 that the LAM stood ready to launch a comprehensive effort of ministry to U.S. Hispanics.

At the same time, Worldteam had begun planting churches among Haitian “boat people” in Miami. And a few other agencies were contemplating similar ventures. The beginnings of a new missionary spirit of ’76 were on the way!

The Game Plan

“Let’s suppose,” I once asked a group of missions executives, “that all 37,000 missionaries now serving overseas were brought back to America. Each of them would have 40 newcomers to reach in this year’s crop alone—and even more in years to come.”

Such a move would be drastic, to be sure. The current lack of missions personnel and the difficulty of attracting (or diverting) foreign missions dollars for work here in the States are ongoing, “nature-of-the-beast” kinds of problems. Moreover, for some foreign missions groups to shift their focus completely may be organizationally out of the question.

But clearly, a new pattern for missions—foreign and home—must be considered in the wake of burgeoning immigration. Missions agencies could form joint task forces; freely interchange intercultural expertise; come to the aid of churches baffled by strange accents, customs, and languages; help to abort the out-migration of Christian churches from the inner city; follow its own progeny to this country and support their indigenous ministries; freely redeploy missionaries at home and abroad; and involve themselves more deeply with intercultural training.

As for the local church, it too must come to grips with its own responsibility in reaching out to the world at its doorstep. And facilitating that outreach could be still another agenda item for all mission agencies. Migrating peoples are especially receptive to the gospel, the missiologists tell us—and more so when the homeless ones are looking not only for real compassion, but for new roots as well. Given a loving Christian family and church to sponsor them, is it any less wonder that they are now swelling the ranks of ethnic and American churches across the country?

Sadly, some continue to miss this opportunity simply for lack of vision. “We’ve been working among Hispanics for over 40 years,” a home mission leader told me proudly—completely missing the shattering impact of recent immigration on his organizational planning, personnel requirements, and the like. Almost as tragic were those missionary leaders who, like the Master, saw the multitudes, had compassion on them, but—unlike the Master—had to walk away, saying, “I would if I could but I can’t.” Whether under personal or organizational constraints, their number was legion.

Surely God is not limited to our lack of vision or courage. He has his own contingency plans. Nevertheless, the church must not be crippled by a missions mindset locked in yesterday’s thinking. We must, instead, take advantage of what God has wrought in this mighty movement of peoples, and fulfill Christ’s own call to reach the world in his name and make disciples of every nation.

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