Jai Prakash Masih is pastor of Asian Mennonite Community Church, a Central District Conference congregation in Aurora, Ill., made up mostly of immigrants from northern India. Before moving to the Chicago area, he was pastor of a congregation in Kusmunda, India. Masih said his congregation consists entirely of immigrants, most of whom are separated from much of the mainstream immigration debate since they largely are not affected by issues of documentation. Still, he sees a disconnect between the immigrant and the wider churches and suggests one place to begin to understand immigration in today’s United States is to gain a historical and missiological perspective.

First of all, we have to see immigration in the context of world history. Immigration and migration is not a new thing. It has been happening in the world since time began.

Urban Connections - March 2008 1. On our street: Who are we? -- As we think about migration to the country we call home, we often miss a key part of the question  who do we define as we? 2. Immigration: God’s plan – J.P. Masih, an Indian pastor in Chicago, offers historical, missiological and present-day perspectives on immigration, from his own experience leading an immigrant congregation. 3. Out of sight, still in mind – Many issues relating to immigration remain hidden from the public eye, even if they are very present to those dealing directly with the subject. Two friends and fellow Damascus Road anti-racism trainers, Felipe Hinojosa and Regina Shands Stoltzfus, recently engaged each other on some of those hidden issues over e-mail. 4. Christ's call: Help the immigrants – Many members of Iglesia Unido de Avivamiento in Brooklyn, N.Y., were leaving or losing their jobs for fear of deportation. When pastor Nicolas Angustia considered his options and the call of Christ, his solution seemed obvious – the church should help its members gain documentation. 5. For true immigration information, run to the border – The economic interconnections between the U.S. and Mexico by trade agreements and government policies affect urban areas in profound, though not particularly healthy, ways. The people of God living in cities that reflect these economic interconnections must learn about immigration, border issues and trade. 6. Immigration resources available – If your congregation is interested in further exploring issues of immigration, from any side of the border, there are many available resources to explore. 7. Urban briefs: News from your street – News on immigration issues from across the church.

In the Middle Ages, there was lots of immigration as a result of revolution. It caused new trade, new boundaries, new definitions of how to understand their worlds. Many of the immigrations followed the advancements of Alexander the Great, the Persians, different tribes and historical dynasties.

When most people moved from England and Europe into the Americas and Africa and other places, they moved for economic reasons. Today, also, immigrants move for economic and political reasons. They move to try to make more money, to have better lives.

But we must also look at immigration in terms of God’s mission. Missiologically, God has always moved people for His purposes.

In fact, God made immigration.

Look at Genesis 11 (scattering the residents of Babel, leading up to the time of Abraham’s call and journey). The immigration of the Israelites into Egypt was for economics. God wanted to preserve the Israelites during the famine.

God moved missionaries. He moved his prophets north and south, from Israel and Judah to Judah and Israel and back again. Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra and others were prophets used and moved by God.

Jesus’ disciples traveled. Thomas traveled all the way to India.

Think of what happened in the Russian revolution, which is part of our own Anabaptist history. God moved groups of people to Russia, to Central America, to Canada.

Today, in the post-missionary era, God is moving people from one continent to the other whether we like it or not. But we don’t see what is happening. We only see the political and economic viewpoints and then we get confused about which issues are important and how to see God’s presence in immigration.

The Indian immigration is mostly high-middle-class people with education, people who are successful back home in India and successful here. In the midst of those economic movements, religious realities have flowed through. Hinduism has now come to the West in a new package, spreading its wings. Hindus are using the same techniques Christian missionaries have used in the past to advance their religion, but the Western Christian church is not doing the same for the incoming immigrants.

A business executive once told me that the church in the West has failed to take advantage of the opportunities that come with immigration. As a church, we did not like that people from other countries were coming and living here.

They came anyway.

The economy brought them. The system brought them. The church is called to serve its people, wherever they are, as God’s people. But when they came, they did not find a welcoming arm in the church – I hear many people saying that.

Of course some people found welcome. They speak well of those pastors who welcomed them and they have done wonderful things. But those examples are few.

The larger church must make a commitment to understand the whole question of immigration – the realities and facts that are there. Rather than try to understand it by looking from the outside, get inside some of these immigrant groups. Be with them. Move among them.

Starting work among immigrant people and supporting work that is already ongoing would be a good effort. Church planting is a very difficult, very demanding job. A lot of our missional approach as a church is like a program – this action should take this amount of time. If we don’t see results by then, we stop. Planting, and working with immigrant groups, is not always this simple.

Our church plant has seven or eight families in church. They live far away from each other and attendance is not always good. Our strength is in our house fellowships, where we come together as like-minded believers who eat, worship and invite our neighbors in. We share the gospel message with these friends.

The biggest challenge is how to raise enough support to pay all the bills and still allow for a dignified existence. We, the Mennonites in the U.S., claim to be a missional church, but our church-planting budgets across the church do not show that reality. Our budgets show where the church’s commitment is, in general.

Church planting is not our first love and priority. Our priorities may be reconciliation and peacemaking, but that reconciliation does not necessarily involve preaching the gospel with the intention to draw people to making a decision for Christ. Many people think leading people into conversion is entering into their territory and forcing them somewhere. Those people who only recently became Christians often say that no one before had told them intelligently about the gospel. That’s the reality that people want to know the truth.

Christ did not say to go into the world peacemaking; He said go preaching the gospel.

Lack of money means we are a non-entity, insignificant, with limited resources, but when people move from one place to the other, their minds and hearts are much more open than if they have stayed in one place. Hundreds of people have come here and become stronger Christians than they might have had they remained in their homes.

Many urban pastors already know some of these realities and we do meet together from time to time. But we must have a broader understanding of immigration and its place in missiological history and God’s wishes to help us connect and pray for each other.

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