Transforming Evangelism with Immigrant Communities
Edited by
EUGENE CHO and SAMIRA IZADI PAGE
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
© 2021 Eugene Cho and Samira Izadi Page
All rights reserved
Published 2021
ISBN 978-0-8028-7865-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cho, Eugene, editor. | Page, Samira Izadi, editor.
Title: No longer strangers : transforming evangelism with immigrant communities / edited by Eugene Cho and Samira Izadi Page.
Description: Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A multi-perspective guide to doing the work of evangelism with immigrants and refugees in a way that is sensitive to the dynamics of differences in culture, race, and language”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020045491 | ISBN 9780802878656 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Church work with immigrants. | Church work with refugees. | Evangelistic work.
Classification: LCC BV639.I4 N6 2021 | DDC 269/.2086912—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045491
For everyone the gospel brings together—
may we no longer be strangers
Foreword by Ann Voskamp
1 Evangelism and the Way of the Cross
Andrew F. Bush
2 Evangelizing the Hurt and Trauma
Issam Smeir
3 Doing Evangelism as a Church
Laurie Beshore
Sandra Maria van Opstal
Jenny Yang
Torli H. Krua
7 The Great Concern + the Great Commandment = the Great Commission
K. J. Hill
Samira Izadi Page
Just on the edge of Jesus’s hometown of Capernaum stands a statue, and no one would be surprised if you miss it—I nearly walked right by it.
Because the statue isn’t of a lofty, neoclassical crowned figure, isn’t of a robed goddess with arm stretched out as a beacon of light, isn’t a patinated icon of particular optimism.
The statue is of a homeless figure sleeping on a park bench. Face and hands shrouded under a blanket pulled around him tight, the figure seems nameless—until you see his bare and uncovered feet that the blanket can’t reach.
The exposed feet of the homeless guy bear nail wounds.
The nameless man is the roofless Jesus.
I wanted to touch his feet.
I wanted to reach out and cover his feet, somehow offer the God-man some kind of shelter. To somehow warm the sojourner who pulled a thin cover up over himself with the cold reality that “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
The life of Jesus is the life of a wanderer.
I stood there, struck that the statue to honor the God of the universe right outside his hometown depicts a man who had no home. The guy who came to grant us liberty—and welcome us home—was in reality wandering without ...
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About No Longer Strangers: Transforming Evangelism with Immigrant CommunitiesWhat does evangelism look like at its best? Evangelism can hurt sometimes. Well-meaning Christians who welcome immigrants and refugees and share the gospel with them will often alienate the very people they are trying to serve through cultural misconceptions or insensitivity to their life experiences. In No Longer Strangers, diverse voices lay out a vision for a healthier evangelism that can honor the most vulnerable—many of whom have lived through trauma, oppression, persecution, and colonialism—while foregrounding gospel claims. With perspectives from immigrants and refugees, and pastors and theologians (some of whom are immigrants themselves), this book offers guidance for every church, missional institution, and individual Christian in navigating the power dynamics embedded in differences of culture, race, and language. Every contributor wholeheartedly affirms the goodness and importance of evangelism as part of Christian discipleship while guiding the reader away from the kind of evangelism that hurts, toward the kind of evangelism that heals. |
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