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.

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/

Click here for video: Suburb in Wealthy Illinois County Sees Unexpected Rise in Poverty on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

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.

One of the most exciting initiatives has been the formation of a residents’ council made up of leaders from the Burmese, Iranian, Turkish and other communities present in the neighborhood whose purpose is to work together as residents for the betterment of their community. At an initial meeting, commenting on what they liked about living at Wheaton Square one resident that “when I open my door I see all the smiles of people who know me. It’s like being a part of a big family.” God is truly at work in and among this remarkable family from all aover the world that is Wheaton Square.

BUT MEMBERS OF GOD’S OWN HOUSEHOLD. Ephesians 2:19

In DuPage County, nearly all of us come from an immigrant background. This point was driven home at the opening night of this year’s Mission On Your Doorstep conference. Stephen Bauman, World Relief’s new president and CEO, asked everyone in the room to stand up who had been born in a different country. Then he asked those whose parents or grandparents had been born in another country to stand. By this point the majority of the room was standing. Then he asked those whose ancestors at some point were immigrants to stand. Everyone in the room stood save one woman, an American Indian, who received applause and a strong recognition from everyone in the room. It was a powerful moment of realization that despite our various backgrounds we are all brought together as members of God’s family.

When asked what they most enjoyed about the conference, most attendees commented on the powerful times of worship and the greater ethnic and racial diversity present. On Friday night Sergio Villanueva and the worship team from Iglesia del Pueblo, led in worship through music playing weaving in traditional South American instruments and rhythms with contemporary worship music. Paul Moshesh, from a South African background and the pastor of Arbol de Vida, a Hispanic congregation in Warrenville, IL, kicked off Saturday morning of the conference with a dramatic rendition through music and dance of the dry bones passage in Ezekiel 37.

Of the 440 conference attendees, approximately 100 were from an ethnic minority background including Asian Indians, Liberians, Koreans, Peruvians and Nigerians. The Hispanic Community Track had an especially strong attendance and powerful times of discussion on how to reach those both within and outside of their cultural community. We are grateful for this amazing tapestry of God’s people representing his borderless kingdom.

Attendees representing over 100 churches and agencies came from 11 different states: as far away as New York and as close as Michigan. Many came to partner with others working on caring for refugees and immigrants and the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.

For more conference resources see:  www.missiononyourdoorstep.com

A NEW DREAM from UnDocumented.tv on Vimeo.

From the immigrant churches and church leaders in our network we hear over and over how this issue impacts every aspect of their ministries. There is not a day that goes by in which they aren’t confronted with the implication for their church members of a broken immigration system. For many primarily Anglo churches we have heard questions and concerns as to how they are to respond Biblically. For these reasons Mosaic decided to co-host, along with World Relief and the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) Welcoming the Stranger: A Church Leaders’ Conversation on Immigration a forum on the issue of immigration.

These were some of the comments from the 180 participants representing over 70 churches in DuPage County and greater Chicagoland following the event: “I’ve learned a lot about how to refute misinformation and stereotypes in a loving, Biblical way.” “The lunch experience was terrific. I wish more people could experience a meal with such a family.”

For two months leading up to the conference, a team made up of pastors and leaders from 13 churches and organizations met, planned and prayed for this event with the hopes that this day would help educate the church of DuPage County and greater Chicagoland regarding the realities and plight of the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country.

The goals for the event were to: 1) Help leaders think about the issue of immigration as a Christian 2) Provide helpful Immigration facts and context in a fair, accurate and balanced manner 3) Introduce leaders to immigrants and their stories 4) Equip leaders with the tools to discuss this issue at their church.

Based on feedback from the forum, for the 180 attendees of Welcoming the Stranger, this event effectively helped leaders think of immigration as a Christian and provided them with helpful overview of the current immigration context in the Unites States. This event was especially meaningful and powerful for those individuals who were a part of the nine groups who were able to have lunch with immigrant families in their homes. They commented over and over how important this part of the day was. Many tears were spilled as fathers, mothers, pastors, and parishioners at local churches, shared how our broken immigration system has impacted their day to day lives.

Overall, the responses were overwhelmingly positive for the day: 22 leaders requested assistance from the planning team in taking specific steps on this issue and 36 leaders plan to address this issue at their church through a sermon or class. We praise the Lord for the work he is doing in drawing together his church for the sake of the most vulnerable in our community.

Those of us on the planning team were blown away by how God answered so many of our prayers for the conference. In numbers we had 41 churches, 16 agencies and over 300 attendees on Saturday. Amazing! This almost doubled our attendance from last year. Also of significance was the presence of a group of Spanish speaking leaders from our county. This was our first year offering a workshop track in Spanish and translating the plenary speakers. Next year we hope to bolster this track for the sake of deeper partnership with the Hispanic church. More and more we are seeing God bring the Church of DuPage county together around His mission to the most vulnerable in our midst.

On Friday, at the pre-conference church leader’s forum entitled Kingdom Mosaic, Dr. Rah led a round-table discussion for over 65 church leaders on the subject of collaboration across racial/ethnic lines, with an almost even distribution of Anglo and immigrant/ethnic minority leaders. Again, we were blown away by God’s work in bringing his church together. Leader after leader commented how the most powerful part of this forum was hearing each other’s stories and the relationships that were built around dinner.

Re:defining Neighborly Love was the theme of this year’s conference. For so many of us, love has been a shallow word, devoid of much meaning. This year both Noel Castellanos and Dr. Rah, as well as the workshop presenters, challenged us to embrace a deeper and wider vision of what it means to love our neighbor in DuPage County. Noel spoke of five key Biblical components of love: incarnation, proclamation/formation, compassion, restoration and confrontation. He said that we as Evangelicals have been quite good at the first three, but haven’t done so well at restoration and confrontation. Many of us were challenged by his words.

God did a powerful work this weekend. Already we are hearing stories of how individuals and churches are hoping to implement what they have learned. Praise the Lord! Many models, methods and ideas on how to best love our neighbors were presented by our team of workshop presenters. In the next few weeks we will be posting here on CauseUp these recordings so that you can
share them with others at your church.