Seminary Functions as a Spiritual United Nations

When the Rev. D. Kinoti Meme, a Methodist minister from Kenya, isn’t steeped in his PhD studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, he’s busy ministering to Chinese American youngsters at an Alhambra church.

That’s just the sort of cross-cultural opportunity Meme had prayed for before he came to study peacemaking at Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies. He was drawn not only by the interdenominational graduate training for evangelical clergy and leaders, but also by Southern California’s multiethnic mix.

“Only in L.A.,” Meme said of being a Kenyan teaching Chinese American children. “I thank God for the experience. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful.”

His service as a youth pastor at the First United Methodist Church of Alhambra has been a learning experience for Meme, a former World Vision community development worker in Nairobi who hopes to mediate international disputes when he returns to Kenya in three years or so.

The African pastor is sometimes at a loss as to how much authority he should assert when the Americanized Asian youngsters appear disrespectful or disruptive.

“In my culture, I could discipline them ... by having them out of the class,” said Meme. “However, in my current setting, I am not always sure what the parents’ response will be or whether or not this is acceptable. I am still learning appropriate discipline processes in the American culture and also Chinese ones.”

Meme and hundreds of other international scholars make the small evangelical seminary campus, a stone’s throw from Pasadena City Hall, at times seem like a spiritual United Nations.

Representing Africa, Latin America and Asia, where Evangelical and Pentacostal Christianity is experiencing fast growth, nearly 200 students from 30 countries are enrolled in Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies. International students account for 27% of the 4,000 students at the Fuller campus, which also includes the theology and psychology schools. The largest contingent of students is from South Korea. Other big groups are from Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Brazil and Mexico, representing more than 100 denominations, including some Roman Catholics.

The Rev. C. Douglas McConnell, the new dean of the School of Intercultural Studies and a former head of a worldwide Protestant mission society, said Fuller benefits by having such an international enrollment. A wide variety of delectable foods is offered at the annual international spring festival, students wear native costumes on special occasions, and classroom discussions are rich with examples from around the world.

“International students bring the uniqueness of their own worldview and help expose all the other students, including those from other countries, to the diversity of the world,” said McConnell, a former missionary who has worked in many parts of the world.

“As Christians, we believe that we are part of God’s family, and that is wonderfully brought home every time we meet together,” he said.

They may be students here, but most were already leaders back home.

For example, the Rev. Enock De Assis, former executive director of the Mission Board of Independent Presbyterian Church of Brazil, is working on a master’s degree in intercultural studies.

He also preaches to congregants of a Brazilian church he helped start in Los Angeles and counsels immigrants who need help. He is active in the work of the Presbyterian Church-USA, serving as vice moderator of a group that helps the denomination understand the “challenges and possibilities” of working among Portuguese-speaking groups.

Speaking engagements at churches of all denominations and sizes offer the ordained Presbyterian minister venues to inform Americans about the growth of Protestant churches in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.

“I feel very welcome here,” he said. But sometimes, he is struck by the “lack of information” about Brazil. “I was once asked if we had computers in Brazil,” De Assis said. Another time, he was asked if Rio de Janeiro was close to Brazil.

Alvin Tan, a Singaporean Evangelical missionary to Cambodia, came to work on a master’s degree in Christian leadership three months ago and is working to make contacts with local Cambodian churches and agencies. Over the past decade, the number of Protestants in overwhelmingly Buddhist Cambodia has grown, he said, from 1,000 to 100,000 -- still less than 1% of the population.

The large Cambodian community in Long Beach was an important consideration in his decision to come to Fuller.

He’s been attending the First Evangelical Church, an Asian American church in Glendale, with his wife and two children, and will begin teaching adult Sunday school. Each day in Los Angeles has been a learning experience for him.

“I just learned that California used to be part of Mexico,” Tan said. He was also surprised to learn of the long history of Asians in California, going back to the 19th century.

Such perspectives, he said, would be helpful in his work when he returns to Asia.

Until about 1960, the modern missionary movement was mainly one of white Western people from North America and Europe going to Asia, Africa and Latin America. But that is no longer the case. Non-Western people are working as Protestant missionaries all over the world -- in what has become an interracial and intercultural movement, experts say.

“The fastest growing edge of the missionary movements are non-Western,” said McConnell, an ordained Baptist minister and former director of Pioneers, a mission organization with 1,000 missionaries from many denominations and ethnic backgrounds serving in more than 50 countries.

Such changes led Fuller last year to drop the name of its School of World Mission because of the association of the word “mission” with colonialism in many parts of the world. The new name, the School of Intercultural Studies, was adopted.

The school’s premise is that its graduates must have insights into, among other things, history, anthropology, sociology and non-Christian religions.

“Our vision for the 21st century is to equip servant leaders who mobilize the global church for the mission of God,” said McConnell.