John de Los Santos, Pastor for English Ministry at Toronto Chinese Bible Church, was part of the panel at the Inter-Generational Diaspora Seminar, co-hosted by Vision Ministries Canada and the Canadian Bible Society in late September. It was a chance for first and second generation diaspora church leaders to gather together, from a range of ethnically diverse churches.
And guess what? Whether it’s the Chinese church or the Persian church or the Eritrean or Nigerian church – everyone is dealing with the same issue: How do we connect and work together in ministry as different generations of immigrant church congregations? It can feel isolating but when you’re in a room full of other people with different backgrounds and yet are dealing with the same issue, somehow it helps. Among first generation church leaders and parents, there’s a strong will to protect and to preserve one’s culture. Culture and language and church are often intertwined.
For the youth or second generation diaspora church leaders, they struggle to know how to swim in two streams. They face a different problem than their parents. They’re not sure just where they fit in. They sometimes see culture taking a precedence over the gospel and wonder how to allow a gospel culture to prevail, while honouring each other and the mother culture.
John says it really comes down to learning to live the gospel in a pluralistic and multicultural society. From their school and university experience, the youth often have wide circles of friends that span various cultures and ethnicity groups. They don’t want to be exclusive to their culture and they deeply desire their coming together as the church to be focused on Jesus, not culture.
This is what the youth bring – the desire to make something new together as the church in Canada. They imagine something multiculturally diverse that speaks of the redemptive narrative of gospel. They want Jesus as the center. They want the family of God to be big and to cross cultural and ethnic boundaries. This is the Spirit of God at work.