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Immigrants Called ‘Ripe Harvest Field’ for Churches

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Times Religion Writer

Church bodies with the best chances of attracting immigrant adherents are those that start new congregations expressly for them, do not insist that the ethnic pastors be seminary-educated and are open to displays of “the supernatural,” the first National Convocation on Evangelizing Ethnic America was told this week in Houston.

Communities of newly arrived immigrants are especially “ripe harvest fields” and they are receptive to a church that believes in spirits and healing, said the speaker, C. Peter Wagner, a convocation vice chairman and a church growth authority from Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Missions in Pasadena.

“The world of the supernatural with demons and angels, visions and dreams, is much more real to them than to many of us,” Wagner said.

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Wagner contended that “secular humanism” has dulled belief in the supernatural in most of American culture, but that this is not the case with many ethnic cultures.

“Power to heal the sick and cast out demons is a formidable asset in communicating the gospel cross-culturally,” Wagner asserted.

Without urging all Protestants to become Pentecostal healers and exorcists, Wagner suggested that an especially successful ministry among ethnics would “allow the power of God to be demonstrated among them in supernatural ways, not for the sake of being spectacular, but because it is a New Testament way of encouraging the message of the Gospel to be heard and accepted.”

Four-Day Meeting

The four-day meeting used as models for energetic church expansion the Southern Baptist Convention and the Church of the Nazarene, which are not Pentecostal churches, and the Assemblies of God, which are. About 700 people registered for the convocation, which drew support in one form or another from 39 denominations, according to a spokesman.

Both mainline and evangelical Protestant churches, as well as Roman Catholic churches in many urban dioceses, have increasingly sought to make places for Latino, Asian and other language groups in their denominations.

But this week’s meeting may have been the first high-level conference of mainly conservative Protestant specialists to acknowledge the depth of the population shifts and to design strategy for turning “unevangelized” ethnic families into Christians.

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Members of other faiths were also considered for evangelization: nominal Catholics among Spanish-speaking residents, native Americans whose religion is usually a part of their cultural heritage, plus Muslims and Hindus (whose numbers in the United States were estimated by Wagner to be 3 million and 2.4 million respectively).

Racial Prejudice

Wagner’s opening night address on Monday touched briefly on racial prejudice and discrimination.

“The ethnics we are attempting to evangelize are often victims of injustices, and these must not be tolerated,” Wagner said. Christian love will help break down barriers of discrimination, he declared. “We may not assume, however, that racism will disappear by itself. We must work at it.”

Wagner spoke primarily on how to implement the saying attributed to the resurrected Jesus by the Gospel of Matthew to make disciples of “all nations,” or panta ta ethne in Greek. Asserting that the 1960s’ civil rights movement permanently changed America’s self-image from an assimilationist to a pluralistic society, Wagner said the former American “melting pot” has become a “stew pot” in which each ingredient retains its flavor while contributing to the whole.

Wagner called the establishment, or “planting,” of new churches “the single most effective evangelistic (method) known under heaven.” He said his own church, Lake Avenue Congregational Church in Pasadena, now has Chinese, Indonesian, Latino, Filipino and Korean congregations on its grounds. More than a third of all new Assemblies of God churches started in the last few years are ethnic congregations, Wagner said.

No ‘Superimposed’ Standards

But standards usually required by Anglo denominations should not be “superimposed” on the new immigrant churches, he advised. “Denominations which require college and seminary for ordination will not be able to move ahead rapidly in planting churches in most ethnic groups,” Wagner said.

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The Fuller professor also urged the convocation participants to focus on evangelizing new arrivals to the United States, who “are frequently much more ready to accept the Gospel than long-term residents.” While not ignoring the more resistant, long-term residents, Wagner said, “We nevertheless should give a high priority to the receptive, the ripe harvest fields.”

Predominantly Anglo denominations need to be helpful without being paternalistic, he said.

The Christian Reformed Church, a traditionally Dutch denomination, now has churches worshiping in 11 different languages, Wagner said. “If the present trends continued,” he added, “by the year 2000 there will be more Orientals than Dutch in Christian Reformed Churches across the U.S.A.”

Southern California “superchurches” next century will come in more colors than black and white. Some Korean and other ethnic churches may join the present lineup, which would include the largely white Crystal Cathedral and Calvary Chapel in Orange County, Los Angeles’ largely black Crenshaw Christian Center and three predominantly white churches in the San Fernando Valley--Grace Community Church, Church on the Way and Van Nuys First Baptist.

The rapid success of Kwang Shin (David) Kim was cited by C. Peter Wagner in his address to the National Convocation on Evangelizing Ethnic America.

Kim, converted in 1978, decided to leave his business as a landscape architect and study at Biola University’s Talbot Seminary in La Mirada and begin a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Norwalk, according to Wagner.

“The church grew rapidly and leased an entire unused high school campus. They are already nearly filling the 2,000-seat auditorium on Sunday, and Kim’s goal is to have 7,000 members by 1988,” Wagner said. “Their missions budget is now approaching half a million dollars.

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“They have already established Filipino and Cambodian congregations as well as an Anglo congregation,” Wagner said. “The Korean church pays the Anglo pastor’s salary!”

The Southern California District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has voted to move its offices to Orange County and turn its longtime headquarters building near East Los Angeles into an ethnic lay leadership training center.

The district convention last weekend also elected the Rev. Loren T. Kramer, pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Goleta, to succeed the Rev. Arnold G. Kuntz as district president.

The adoption of a resolution to establish a multicultural center at the present district headquarters at 5400 E. Pomona Blvd. followed a discussion of the influx of ethnic populations into Southern California. The German-heritage church has made some mistakes in the past by being insensitive to different ethnic needs, said the Rev. Robert Holst, coordinator of cross-cultural ministries at Christ College, Irvine.

The Missouri Synod Lutheran college in Irvine is considered the most likely site for the district’s new headquarters.

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