One Message, Many Languages: Maranatha Chapel, Evergreen Park, IL

For the host and hosted church relationships initiative of  Mission On Our Doorsteps I interviewed Pastor Doug Banks of Maranatha Chapel in Evergreen Park, IL. Maranatha is a fascinating case study of a congregation in touch with it’s changing community and that does multi-ethnic ministry excellently.  It is, I think, a vision of what the Church will inevitably increasingly look like in North America.

Maranatha Chapel at a Glance:

Vision: One Message/Many Languages

-Congregations:

• English (multi-ethnic: 50% white, 10% African, 15% African American, 20% Hispanic, 5% Filipino). 150 ASA at 10AM
• Spanish: 125 ASA at 12noon
• Arabic: 60 ASA at 3PM
• Messianic Jewish: 30 ASA on Fridays at 7:30PM

Finances and Leadership: One budget, one board, one senior pastor, one youth pastor, one worship pastor, one Christian education director, 3 ethnic specific pastors (Spanish, Arabic, Jewish).

-Denomination: Assemblies of God

History:

In the year 1999 Maranatha Chapel was looking for a new senior pastor and was considering hiring Doug Banks, a returning Assemblies of God missionary in Mexico. When it was time for a congregational vote Doug told the congregation “I would like this congregation to reflect the demographics of the community that we live in. If you don’t want to move in this direction don’t vote for me.” Doug received 99% of the vote of the then primarily Caucasian congregation, although there was some fear as to what this new direction for the church would entail.

In speaking with some SIM missionaries who were a part of the congregation he realized the need for some early cross-cultural “wins” to dispel the fears that were present and to help the folks get a taste for multi-cultural ministry. Two events were organized.

The first entailed a multi-church worship service during the Christmas season in which several ethnic congregations joined with Maranatha for a simple one hour service, with each congregation getting 15 minutes to present 2 songs in their own language and then in English to share the significance of Christmas in their own country and culture. A French speaking Haitian, a Hispanic and a Arabic congregation participated. The event was to start at 6PM and at a quarter to 6 the only ones present were the Caucasians from Maranatha who started getting nervous that no one else was going to show up. At five to six the Haitians showed up. At five minutes after six the Arabs showed up and then at 6:15 the Hispanics showed up. After the service there was a potluck and opportunity for everyone to fellowship and get to know each other. The second easy “win” involved partnering with a local organization to welcome Chinese university students by having families in the church adopt them and then invite them to a special church service in which they were prayed for. For many of the Chinese this was their first time in an American home, even though they had been in the US for several years already, and the first time they visited an American church. For the Maranatha members as well as the students it was a powerful experience. Both of these events helped to dispel the fear and clear the path towards becoming a more diverse church.

That year 2001 they began a Spanish speaking service and the next year an Arabic speaking service, less than a year after 9/11.

For a time there was an African service in English, but with an “African flair” but soon these members asked to be integrated to the main English service which they did. The latest addition is a Messianic Jewish Shabbat service on Friday evenings.

How does this congregation handle some of the most common hurdles in doing multi-cultural ministry under the same roof? What have been some of the necessary ingredients and components of this successful model?

Leadership:

“It’s all in the leaders” says Pastor Doug referring to this model of multi-ethnic church. At Maranatha there is one leadership board that is diverse and is comprised of leaders from each of the congregations. Pastor Doug says this was never “mandated” or “forced” but came into being naturally. Doug is the senior pastor for the whole church, while each language specific congregation having a leader. There is also one youth pastor who serves the whole church and one worship pastor who acts as a coach for each of the language

specific worship teams. The leadership team meets weekly for prayer, vision and planning. “This model of church is a lot of work and requires a lot of meetings” to keep things flowing smoothly. Maranatha is also unusual in that they have grown their own leaders from within. They have even sent out leaders to help start or lead other congregations. One of the Arab leaders is now in Jordan leading an Arabic church and an early Hispanic leader is now leading a Hispanic congregation in another neighborhood of Chicago.

Finances:

There is one budget for the whole church. “This takes a huge burden off of the congregations and frees them up to focus on their strengths: reaching their own people groups” says Pastor Doug.

Children and Youth:

On Sunday each congregation has its own Sunday school classes led by their own team of leaders and volunteers. The importance of this was an early lesson that Doug learned. Initially there was a caucasian children’s pastor that was leading the Sunday school for each group, but this inhibited the growth and potential of each congregation. Once they were each required to step-up and provide their volunteers and leaders things became much more healthy. On Tuesday evenings (“Mega Ministry Tuesdays”) there is one youth and children’s program that incorporates the students from all of the congregations and those of families that are in the ESL outreach program. Many of the older 2^nd generation immigrants from each of the congregations have now begun to migrate over to the English speaking service which has become increasingly multi-ethnic. “At first some of the parents were uncomfortable with this, but we told them ‘it’s the same church’ it’s just a service at a different time.”

Mission/Outreach:

The ESL outreach is a key component of the church and a key way new families are integrated into the various congregations. It also helps the church “keep a pulse on the community” and on what new people groups are moving in, whether Lithuanians, French Speaking Africans or Polish people.

Because of their multicultural ministry Maranatha’s local ministry has had global impact. Chinese doctors coming to their ESL program have returned to China. One of their Arab leaders is now pastoring a church in Jordan.

In reaching out to a local densely Hispanic neighborhood, the Hispanic congregation encountered many Caucasians and English speakers and so now are partnering with the English congregation of Maranatha to reach out. They have made teams of 3 in which each team has a man, a woman and an English speaker.

Balancing Unity and Diversity:

In general Maranatha seems to have done a remarkable job in balancing unity and diversity: unity but not uniformity and diversity but not disparity.

On the “mega-Tuesdays” there is “big synergy” by being all together in the same place and time. Besides the ESL outreach and the youth and children programming there is the International School of Ministry curriculum, a Bible study curriculum that is in 60 different languages. Each congregation has a study on Tuesday nights using this curriculum. “One time a week we are learning the same thing but each in their own language.”

Gifted Cross-Cultural Facilitators:

Key to the Arabic Ministry has been a SIM missionary couple that are gifted in crossing cultures and facilitating connections. Over the years they have acted as a sounding board to Pastor Doug and have helped bridge the Arabic cultural differences and conflicts that have arisen. Though they have never had an official pastoral role they have functioned as “strategic leaders for the whole church” and Arabic ministry in particular.

A Theology of Hospitality Applied to Host and Hosted Churches: Receiving the Gift of the Other

“I realized that we’ve been thinking as a host church that we are the ones doing ‘them’ a favor by letting them use our building, but we haven’t realized that we are also benefitting and being blessed by having them with us.” -Host church leader

“We live in a constant state of supervision. We are afraid that if we make one little mistake we will get kicked out of the building.” -Immigrant church leader

Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for he is going to say, “I came as a guest, and you received me.” Rule of St. Benedict

“After 30 days a guest becomes family.”  Arab proverb

Over the next 3 years the Mission On Our Doorsteps movement is focusing on 4 key initiatives in which we hope to spark transformation: immigration, human trafficking, generational issues in immigrant churches and host and hosted church relationships.  At the last conference I was privileged to help facilitate the host and hosted church relationship track and to listen in on what became a fascinating and engaging time of conversation and honest dialog between immigrant church leaders and predominantly Anglo church leaders who are hosting immigrant churches in their buildings. The theme of hospitality was one of the topics which arose in the midst of these conversations.

In the West we Anglos have generally lost the virtue of hospitality, a virtue highly valued and deeply practiced in much of the rest of the cultures of the world. Eating together in someone else’s home or simply drinking together an evening cup of coffee, a daily experience in the Global South, is becoming a rare thing in the dominant culture in North America. When hospitality is practiced, we have watered it down and made it “soft sweet kindness, tea parties, bland conversations and a general atmosphere of coziness” to those who are like us, as Henri Nouwen says in his book “Reaching Out.” We have forgotten the risky, costly nature of hospitality as a welcoming in of the stranger and hospitality to the other as a two way exchange in which the guest is receiving the gifts of the host and the host is giving room for the expression and reception of the gifts of the guests. Hospitality as mutual exchange and enrichment.

Christine Pohl in her work “Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition” states:  “I believe that hospitality…means to give of yourself…(in) other types of services you can give of your talents or…skills or…resources…The tasks aren’t what hospitality is  about, hospitality is giving of yourself.  If hospitality involves sharing your life and sharing in the lives of others, guests/strangers are not first defined by their need.  Lives and resources are much more complexly intertwined, and roles are much less predictable” (p. 72).

What would it look like if this kind of radical hospitality were to permeate the church today? How would our buildings be used differently? What if we all, Anglo and minority church leaders, began to see the “other” as a blessing to be received rather than a danger to be avoided? How would our relationships look with those whom we shared building space with? What if we began to see “the guest as a guest of God,” as a middle-eastern proverb states? I think this would radically change the conversation and nature of host and hosted church relationships and the face of the church today.

Immigrant Pastor Highlight: Lian Sian Mung

Chicago Zomi Community Church began as a community meal for Zomi Burmese, a specific ethnic group and language within Burma, in the Chicagoland area in 2008. After this meal, the group collectively decided to begin meeting occasionally throughout the year for other cultural events and get-togethers. In June of 2009 the group began meeting for worship services twice a month, cramming 30 to 40 people into a small apartment at the Wheaton Square Apartments for worship and studying of the scriptures. Eventually Church of the Great Shepherd opened their doors to them where they currently now meet regularly on Sunday afternoons at 2:30pm.

Pastor Lian Sian Mung is currently finishing his Ph.D. in Old Testament at TrinityEvangelical Divinity School. He says his greatest desire for the congregation is that everyone have a transforming, personal relationship with Christ and be equipped to reach out to Burmese Buddhists in Chicagoland (currently there are more than 1000 Burmese Buddhists in the Chicagoland area] and in Myanmar. Currently the congregation now runs from 50 to 60, sometimes even up to 100 people, forcing them to look for a new space to meet in as they have outgrown the space where Church of the Great Shepherd meets.

Immigrant Pastor Highlight: Hesham Shehab

Pastor Hesham Shehab, originally from Lebanon, is the pastor of Salam Christian Fellowship which meets at Peace Lutheran Church in Lombard, IL Saturdays at noon.

Hesham tells how he began his ministry to Muslims in Chicagoland: “Just around Easter 2007, I bumped into a woman from Palestine in the streets of Wheaton who [had] lived most of her life in Lebanon. She was like the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well who connected Jesus with her whole town. She introduced me to the Arab neighborhood of Chicago.” Two months later he started an Arabic Bible study in a Wheaton apartment. That summer he witnessed seven baptisms of people from Iraq and Iran and then that fall started Salam Christian Fellowship.

Salam Arabic Church is now a broad evangelistic ministry to Middle Eastern immigrants in the greater Chicagoland area. Attendees experience a unique Arabic seeker-friendly church that preaches Christ crucified and contextualizes the Gospel of Jesus to those from an Islamic culture.

To learn more about Hesham’s own testimony see this video clip here:http://youtu.be/O225ekmvvLs

For more information on Pastor Hesham’s ministry see: http://clmma.org/

December Immigrant Pastor Highlight: Yenner Wuanti

Each month here on the Mosaic blog, we will be highlighting the life and ministry of an immigrant pastor in DuPage County. This month we are highlighting the ministry and work of Pastor Yenner Wuanti. Pastor Yenner is the pastor and founder of Liberian Christian Fellowship, which meets in the College Church commons in Wheaton on Sunday evenings at 7PM.

As a strongly apostolic leader, Pastor Yenner has started 3 Liberian congregations in the last several years. In addition to his congregation  in Wheaton, he has started congregations in Muscatine, IA, Rock Island, IL and is currently  in the process of starting a fourth congregation.

Having experienced the tribal divisions that sparked the Liberian civil war, Pastor Yenner often speaks of the re-conciliatory power of the Gospel and his congregations now include Liberians from previously enemy tribal groups.

Currently Pastor Yenner serves as a member of the Mosaic Operations Team and is passionate for bringing together the Church in DuPage County.

To financially support the work of Pastor Yenner (an InFaith missionary here in the U.S.)  and of Liberian ministry in our community click here.