Migrants and the local Congregation. # 172. 17/09/2024
Out of Many, One People
Welcome. I hope you had a relaxing summer break. Meanwhile the pace of events relating to the church’s life is getting ever faster and will generate several blogs in the near future, including this one relating to the ‘Acts 11’ initiative. Maybe some of us will interact on line on September 26th.
Migrants and the local Congregation.
Thursday, 26th September sees the conference in Oxford ‘Witnessing for Christ in a New Age of Migration, featuring Professor Jehu Hanciles and Dr Harvey Kwiyani. It will launch the Acts 11 Centre for Global Migration and Christian Witness project of the Church Mission Society (CMS). It will be available on-line at www.churchmissionsociety.org/acts11.
It comes hot on the heels of the Pew Research Centre finding that worldwide 47% of migrants are Christians, totalling around 130 million people. So how do churches minister to and learn from migrants, encourage them in their witness to fellow migrants, and support them in mission to the long- established British population? What follows are my reflections about how local churches can positively respond to migrants in their communities (surely, now, almost every church in the country). It should be read in parallel with a previous blog on ‘Migrants as a Means of Grace’, blog # 164, 18/06/2024).
General considerations.
You only make first impressions once.
How churches have first responded to migrants has enduring consequences. It is widely recognised that the early response of the English churches to migrants from the Caribbean was usually racist and unwelcoming. In probably the earliest church response to migration (by quite some distance, I guess), Clifford Hill’s ‘West Indian Migrants and the London Churches’ (1963) documents the alarming drop from an estimated 69% church attendance in the Caribbean to 4% migrant attendance in London. (See the Appendix below for some of the other main emphases of Hill’s book). The consequences of that are still with us. There are still people around who can recall being asked to not return to the church. The Church of England’s central, but often still not specifically recognised failure as regards race, is its lack of effectiveness with the African Caribbean population. Whilst this is less the case with women and the elderly, the absence of men, and especially young men is one of the most glaring gaps in the church’s pastoral reach – underlined by the fact that we still do not have an African-Caribbean male bishop.
Since that disastrous start there has been an increase in our response to migrants, particularly with the speedy and positive response to those coming from Hong Kong. Though the class factor is also significant here. The positive national welcome to people from Hong Kong noted that they were mostly of well-educated and professional backgrounds, with much to offer to British society. By contrast the earlier largely artisan Caribbean migrants (as also those from Pakistan and Bangladesh) were a source of cheap labour, competing with the poor in Britain for housing and services.
In between, migration from Africa, which began to swell from the 1980s was received less coldly, partly because of an improving mind-set, but also because declining attendances meant that churches discriminated at their peril. Nonetheless the lack of cultural understanding by ministers, that Hill noted with Caribbean migrants, diminished African participation in the Church of England and culturally African churches flourished.
Being different can be good.
Clifford Hill positively affirmed ‘The church is without doubt, the largest and most effective organ for racial integration in the country’ (p 75). Whilst that optimism was often confounded, nonetheless our fundamental commitment to affirm the dignity and value of all and to extend the gospel’s welcome to all can offer a sharp contrast to the suspicion or coldness that migrants can encounter. Consequently, and given that a disproportionate number of migrants are Christians, then churches which are welcoming, informed and creative in their response to migrants can have a beneficial counter-cultural impact. The result is that people invite friends and relatives. (In my experience, sibling church attendance is particularly frequent amongst migrants). Understandably, given past failures, people are reluctant to visit churches if they are unsure of their welcome, and so attend diaspora churches. However those churches that are known and seen to be ethnically diverse benefit from the desire of migrants to attend ethnically inclusive churches.
Attend to who attends.
Like all other groups of people, migrants from similar backgrounds can show substantial differences. Generalised assumptions mis-lead. It can often be the case that migrants who attend our churches are untypical of the wider group that they are part of, particularly if that group is of other faith backgrounds. Several ‘Muslims’ attended the church where I was vicar (one whose name was Mohammed) but of untypical backgrounds, such as Ugandan or Trinidadian. People may join our churches precisely because they want to distance themselves from their background community. This, of course, is all to the good, as long as we don’t harbour false expectations about how typical they are, or how strong their links with their community. By contrast, the involvement of someone who is seen informally as a major player in that community can have significant knock-on effects.
What is needed for churches to minister effectively?
World-wide alertness.
Migrants come from places. Church leaders should have a background understanding of what is happening around the world so that migrants who move into the community will encounter some understanding of their background situations. When Tamil refugees moved into the parish where I was vicar, I already had – both through friends and awareness of world politics – a reasonable grasp of the issues behind the conflict in Sri Lanka. All church leaders ought to be ‘World Christians’, that is, people who are aware of what is happening around the world, in terms of both politics and Christian witness.
Migrants usually carry with them an intense awareness of what is happening in their country of origin, especially what is happening to their families, to whom they are often sending money. On one occasion during the intercessions, when people in our church were asked about topics for prayer, all the requests were about ‘back home’ situations, such as the suffering of the Yoruba minority in Cameroon. Intercessions ought to include prayer for areas that congregation members come from (blog # 102 10/01/2023 ‘An International Calendar’ suggests praying for particular countries at the time of their Independence Day). Also the possibilities of prayer groups for troubled areas of origin can also be an important way of offering support as well as increasing peoples’ sense of belonging to the church through gathering together.
Appreciation.
Almost by definition, migrants are people who have come seeking a better life. This may be escaping from persecution or turmoil, or simply because of a desire to get greater prosperity for their family, as well as a better education for their children, by deploying their gifts – in the early post-war period often through manual labour, subsequently increasingly through use of their skills and professional capabilities. The term ‘immigrant optimism’ has rightly been coined to express this energised anticipation of a better future; and also contrasts helpfully with he too-frequent perception of migrants as ‘huddled masses’ in need of pity and help, or, alternatively, as a drain on our resources.
In a previous blog I have written of migrants as archetypes of Christian faith, as those who model for us what it means to ‘have the heart of a stranger’ (‘Migrants as a Means of Grace’, noted above). More broadly, the experience of being a migrant frequently generates qualities of resilience and enterprise. The fabled ‘Polish plumber’ or Indian corner-shop owner speak of people bringing energy and initiative to our country that is badly needed. Such energies have been seen not least in Christian migrants. The extraordinary growth of the Nigerian-originated Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) is a clear example, not only contributing to the increased profile of Christian faith in this country (including footballers making the sign of the cross as they come onto the pitch) but also in service to those in need; for example the RCCG’s widespread provision of free Christmas lunches.
It is to the Church of England’s loss that it has so often been inert in not only not welcoming Christian migrants, but also not drawing their energies, hope and vision into its local congregations and ministry; though the upsurge in migrant background ordinands in the past few years is an encouraging change. Note also the disturbing fact that all but one of the Church of England’s minority background bishops are in fact migrants testifies to the weakness of our impact on the British-nurtured children of migrants.
The melding of ‘immigrant optimism’ with congregations marked by a strong, hopeful confidence in the transforming, regenerating power of the gospel has the potential to powerfully renew the life of the church.
Immersion.
For that to happen, churches need to be places where migrants become fully participative in congregational life, and that is a two-way process. In a society where they are often unappreciated migrants will only actively participate where, beyond a rather formal welcome, there is a desire by the church to immerse itself as best it can in the life and experience of migrant communities, both in terms of social and political issues and also distinctive cultures. It is important that church leaders set the tone in seeking to immerse themselves in the migrant culture.
Willie James Jennings writes of Pentecost that ‘the Spirit descended on the disciples and drove them into the languages of the world to enact the joining desired by the Father of Jesus for all people. This is the coming of the one new reality of kinship. This is not only the continuation of Jesus work of forming the new Israel in Israel but the full disclosure of the desire of Jesus for the entire world. This in effect, is the Creator reclaiming the world through communion’ (‘The Christian Imagination’, p 266). Nothing short of this passion for the ‘joining’ of all people will enable the church to discover the opportunities and blessings that migration brings. It will mean entering the world of migrants through giving but most especially receiving hospitality; of encountering new music, films, literature and especially food (an area especially prone to embarrassing pitfalls!)
Churches also need to be thoughtful and exploratory as regards different expressions of migrant participation – taking part in, or even organising complete services, and consider the appropriateness of migrant centred prayer groups, fellowships or regular services. (I discuss these possibilities in greater detail in my Grove booklet ‘Worship in a Multi-Ethnic Society’, W236, available from Grove Books.)
The possible permutations of migrant involvement in the worship, fellowship, leadership, mission and evangelism of the local church are endless. What is essential is a clear vision that such living together is central to God’s purposes for the church, and that we embrace it with joy and commitment. ‘Let all that you do be done in love’ (1 Cor 16:13).
Appendix: London Churches in the ‘Windrush’ era – some pointers from the 1963 book by Clifford Hill “West Indian Migrants and the London Churches”.
The book by Clifford Hill – a sociologist and Congregational minister who was based in Tottenham - gives both an interesting picture of the response of London churches just 16 years after the arrival of the ‘Windrush’ - and yet still has important, even unheeded, pointers to the church’s ministry today.
Hill’s summary runs: ‘The returns indicate that most churches are having very little success in reaching out to the newcomers around them; a fairly large number are having moderate success, and a very few are doing outstanding work’ (p 21). (Hill reckoned that statistics for the Caribbean indicated that 69% attended churches, set against 4% of migrants in London).
He recognised contextual factors that influenced this alarming decline:
* the irreligion of white neighbours and workmates (‘They laugh and sneer at any of them who are known to attend church. They poke fun at the West Indian who hums a hymn tune to himself at work’ p 35. One church member had the bible he was reading burned by his workmates).
* the discouragement of finding the churches scarcely attended (‘To find the churches in London not as full as their own is quite inexplicable to most West Indians’ p 69).
* the difficulty of continuing pastoral care for migrants who were still frequently changing accommodation.
* the problems for parents, especially single mothers, of not having the support of grandparents.
As regards the churches’ failure he points out: ‘The patronising attitude of so many English Christians towards West Indians has done more damage to the cause of racial integration than all the sneers and blasphemies of their English workmates in factory and workshop’ p 28). He was particularly concerned about the racism of young white people, and warned of ‘the criminal folly of dilatoriness’ in the churches’ response (p 49)
Even worse, ‘Stories abound in the West Indian community of being coldly received in some churches, and even of being frankly told that West Indians are not welcome. The newly arrived immigrant does not have to be in this country long before he hears “We West Indians are not wanted in the English churches”’
Whilst much has changed since Hill wrote, it is alarming that his advocacy of the way ahead has been so little attended to in the past sixty years: ‘Much more needs to be done in the field of training men who have charge of churches in areas where large numbers of West Indians have settled. It must be recognised that racial problems will occupy an increasing part of the Church’s ministry in these places. Ministers who are almost wholly ignorant of conditions of life, customs, family structure and religious practises in the West Indies cannot be expected to look after their West Indian parishioners’ needs. It is this ignorance on the part of both clergy and laity that is largely responsible for the Church’s failure to win the confidence of the immigrant population, and it is because of this, rather than because of any specific prejudice, that West Indians have felt unwelcome and out of place in the churches in Britain’ (p 79).