The World at Our Doorstep — Allen Roth — Ep. 090

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Alan Roth. We're in Brooklyn, New York City, and something, a phenomenon that feels like it's becoming even more common, is what we're going to call the world at our doorstep. Can you just kind of describe that phenomenon where you have all these different cultures and ethnic groups moving into America and specifically cities? Describe that and what is happening there. There are people from all over the world who are moving to our cities to get better jobs, to get education, to get away from political difficulties, from war, looking for a better life, just like our ancestors did several hundred years ago.

So it's nothing new. And typically they go to the cities because that's where their relatives are, or that's where the educational institutions are, the employment opportunities, and so on. So like never before, we have representatives of many unreached people groups around the world moving right into our own cities, right next door to us. Often we think of it as being in the big cities, but even in a city like Lancaster, for example, it's becoming very diverse. So when we say the world at our doorstep, we're talking about an immense missions opportunity. It's a gold mine right in our own country, right next door. We're here in Brooklyn and I'm just curious, can you give me an idea of the ethnic diversity that's around us right here?

Well, right in our own neighborhood, it's between 50 and 60 percent Hispanic of a variety of Hispanic backgrounds. We have a large contingent here from Guyana. They're Indian in ethnic origin who moved here when there was a Marxist government taking over in Guyana. And we have a lot of Caribbean people here as well: Trinidad, Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados. Just about two miles east of us here is a large Sikh community, the Sikh religion. Interesting. I think they say like 80,000 Sikhs. It's huge. That's bigger than a lot of smaller cities in America. Whoa.

Just a 20-minute walk from here, there's a Bengali Muslim community of 14,000 people. Wow. No church. I'm not aware of anybody that's focused on them. There may be, but I don't know them. In the Sikh community, I have not heard of anybody that is focusing on that community to try to win them to Christ. That's just right here, right at our doorstep, just a mile or two, about two miles west of us here is a huge Jewish community, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. When you walk there, they look at you because you're the outsider. Here in our neighborhood, there are very few white people. We're in the minority. And wherever you walk about, you can hear Spanish being spoken, engage people in Spanish.

So it's a wonderful, wonderful opportunity. Any idea how many different languages would be in this area? It's estimated there may be upwards of 800 languages spoken in this city. Like Brooklyn or New York City? No, New York City. 800 languages is a lot of languages. It is. Wow. So to reach these people, you don't need a visa. And now, since the nearby Bengali Muslim community is getting full, then they're starting to spill over into our community. So we have Bengali Muslim neighbors downstairs from us on the first floor. Half a block down is another Bengali Muslim family. A block away from us, a Bengali couple bought that store.

Another block and a half from us, I just discovered another Bengali household. So they're starting to come into our neighborhood as well. Great opportunities. One of the questions I'd have then, when you're looking at, so when people immigrate to a place like Brooklyn, say, they would tend to stay together in their same culture for, you know, like what you're saying, the Bengali community, for example, is going to stick together because of common language, common culture. So how do we try to enter that circle and become friends with them? Well, first I make the comment that these ethnic groups vary as to how much they stick together in a given community.

The Turks, for example, we have a team working with Turkish people. They scatter out. They don't cluster as much in one community. The Bengalis have a much tighter-knit community. But there are Bengalis, like our neighbors, say, "Oh, we don't want to live over there because everybody knows everybody's business." So they want to have a little more distance, a little more privacy. One of the things that we encourage people who want to focus on a specific people group, if they can go to that country for language study, six to twelve months, and get a feel for what the culture is like, and to focus on language learning. Because once you move here, it's really hard to get a good feel for what their home culture is like, because now it's intermingling with other cultures and with the big city.

It's also very difficult to focus on language learning here because you don't actually need it. When you move into or adjacent to an ethnic community, or you have chosen a people group that you're going to focus on, it can be really good to learn some language, or maybe you can set up language exchange, where you will share English, conversational English with them. They will share language with you.

As you begin to make friends, many of these cultures are very hospitable, and they'll invite you to their homes. Go. One of the great things about Christianity, we don't have to worry about rules for food. We can eat anything. If you're Jewish, or if you're Muslim, or if you're Hindu, then you have to be careful what you're going to eat. So when we host them in our homes, we have to be aware of those sensitivities.

Yeah, understanding their culture, where they're coming from. And that can't be terribly easy. It's not. And it becomes more complex here because it's all jumbled up with prevailing American culture. And so you don't always know for sure. And they don't always know for sure what's culture. Sometimes these ethnic groups will become more defensive when they move here because the parents want to conserve their culture and pass it on to their children. But their children are going to the public schools and are learning mainstream North American culture.

So then it becomes a challenge for the parents to know how they're going to transmit this to their children. But it's doable. One of the Bible passages that really speaks to this is Acts 17, where Paul is speaking on Mars Hill, and he says, "God has determined the seasons, the times, and the boundaries where people shall live for one purpose, that they may seek for him and grope for him and perhaps find him, for he is not far from any one of us." As Christians, we ought not to view the influx of immigrants as a threat.

This is a missions opportunity, a dream come true right on our own doorsteps. And God himself personally is involved in the movements of the people. Some of these countries, you cannot witness openly in their country. But here you can. So this is a great opportunity and a great responsibility for us too. Well, yeah, that's what I was wondering, because oftentimes we hear the other side of that, the doom and gloom of, "Oh no, all these people, you know, taking over our country and coming," whatever, that whole thing.

You're saying, "Okay, this is a huge opportunity, but at the same time, this is a big responsibility too. Like we need to be willing to step up to this challenge." What would you say to that attitude of, "Oh, this is terrible, all these immigrants, and keep them out"? I would say we'll leave that with the politicians.

They can work on that. In the meantime, let's look at it as a missions opportunity. And let's read again there in Acts 17, where Apostle Paul declares by the Spirit of God that God himself is involved in this, and he is orchestrating this. And it's for one reason. Now, these people come to our country not to find the gospel, not necessarily for religious freedom. They come looking for a better way of life. But God is in the midst of all of it, bringing them here. If he can't get us there to their countries, or if their countries won't allow us the freedom of religion like we allow them to have here, then he orchestrates political and economic affairs to bring them here, or to Canada, or to Europe, where Christians can reach them.

So then, if that's the case, should we not be sending people out of the country to foreign places? Should we just be going to the people that are coming here? Where's the place for that? We should do both. Do both. Okay. At the same time, God calls some people to move to another country to reach unreached people groups. And I think he'll call some people to reach the unreached people groups right within our own country.

And we have to do that. We get them coming and going. We've had interesting experiences of having a mission team in another country, befriending people, and then some of those very people move here to New York City, adjacent to where our own people are living. And we can pick it up and continue it on. People who come here from other countries often are going back to their own countries for vacations, or they're sending money back there, they're Skyping them, they're calling them.

And so what people find here that's good, they want to share with people back home. If we meet people from an ethnic group here and they're going back to their country and there are missionaries there, or a church is there, we can refer them there.

And if workers in other countries find people that are interested and they come here, we can pick up on that and continue the task forward. It's a both-and, not either-or. That's right. Now, one thing I would like to mention is that of those two options to approaches, the one that gets the least attention and the least support, ironically, are those that work with unreached people groups right here. Oh, wow. You wouldn't expect that. Yeah, no, I wouldn't. Years ago, I talked here in the city to a conservative Baptist missionary who had been working for years in Pakistan with Pashtun people.

And then because of health concerns, he had to come back here. He worked in New York City with exactly the same people group. But he said the moment they set foot in the United States, their support as missionaries took a nosedive. And I think maybe the reason for that is that people think of missions as being over there, out there. This is a Christian country, supposedly. And so there's not the same support. Maybe it's not as romantic. It's not as special. It's not as amazing, or the wow effect isn't the same. But it's still the same missionary task. And I would really like to alert our churches, look, be aware of the support needs for people working with unreached peoples right in our own countries.

Remember when Jesus was talking with a Samaritan woman, and he revealed himself to her as the Messiah, and she was so excited. And she went back to her town and told all her townspeople, "Look, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Maybe he's the Messiah." And the town was coming out to find this man, Jesus. And the disciples brought Jesus some food, and then Jesus said to the disciples, "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields. They're white and ready for harvest."

If those disciples would have looked up, what would they have seen? They would have seen Samaritans coming out of town to talk with Jesus. And they did. And then they said, "Won't you please stay with us?" And he stayed with them for two more days. They said, "Truly, we know that you are the Messiah that came to take away the sins of the world." They recognized it even before the Jewish people did. The Jewish people were looking at them as hard, as half-breeds, as heretics, despised, looked down on. Jesus says, "Look at them. They're a harvest that's white. And we ought to do the same in our own towns and cities."

Look. Look at the missions opportunity here in this country, in our cities and towns. Absolutely phenomenal. I don't know when in the history of this country and of Canada have we had missions opportunities so near, so large, so widespread, so extensive, so amazing.

And yet here we are concerned about, "Well, are they going to take over our country? What is this going to do to our country?" Well, let God take care of that. Let's do our part. The harvest is white. Yeah. Right next door. That's really powerful. I really hope this inspires some people to come and join the work you're doing here. And I might make one additional final comment. You know, this phenomenon is not just happening in New York City alone.

Seattle, Vancouver, BC, Toronto, Miami, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Chicago, on and on it goes, all across this country, near where we have settlements of our own people. It is truly amazing. There's the opportunity. Now who's going to respond, basically? That's exactly right.