“When you die, your epithet
will say, ‘He was way ahead of his time, so no one understood him,’” was
something one of my church elders once told me.
With his hand literally on
the small of my back ushering me out of his office, the district supervisor
said, “Brother, I’m a church planter. I have no idea what you’re talking
about.”
The year was 1987. I’d just
left my engineering job to become the full-time pastor of the Fellowship of
Iranian Christians, the first Iranian Christian organization in the US. An
organization I’d founded and been pastoring bi-vocationally for the prior ten
years.
Here I was an Iranian Muslim
background believer (MBB) with no background or education in pastoring, let
alone, a church consisting of first generation Iranian MBBs and Jewish
immigrants. I was desperately in need of help, guidance and support, so I went
to see my denomination’s overseer.
After the initial pleasantry,
this is how our conversation followed:
Supervisor
asked, “Tell me about your church.”
“Well,
they’re not churches in a traditional sense. We have 3 house fellowships that
meet in the evenings during the week.”
“Are
you looking for a building?”
“No!”
“How
come?”
“A
church like ours is only good for one generation. The second generation Iranian
Christians will be too Americanized to attend a Farsi speaking church. I
believe it works better if the first generation Iranian Christians meet at
homes during the week and on Sundays attend English-speaking churches.
This was over 30 years ago.
There was no Barna Group around. What I
knew was a gut level intuition. Some might even say it was a “prophetic
proclamation”.
What I didn’t know at the
time was how very few people knew anything about the challenges that a group
like ours was facing. Unfortunately, my American born monoculture supervisor was
not among the few. In fact, I don’t believe he knew anything about other
cultures let alone Iranian culture. So, he got up from behind his desk and
escorted me out.
By nature, most Iranians
assimilate quickly into other cultures. In fact, some of the Iranian leaders
have accused their own people of being like chameleons, changing colors at a
drop of a hat. For the majority of us, this has made it possible to survive and
succeed without having to rely on our own community.
As it may, this gift, or
curse of assimilation has made the US Iranians the third most educated minority
group, and one of the most successful ethnic groups. In less than 40 years, we
have accomplished what many other ethnic groups have not been able to achieve
in 100 years. A few years ago, when my cousin graduated from the USC School of
Dentistry, out of the 100 graduates, 30 of them were Iranians.
More than 30 years ago, I
encouraged my Iranian fellowship/church members to take their kids to English
speaking churches, so they can be discipled in English. Some did and some
didn’t. Of those who did listen to me, most their children (my own included)
are still walking with the Lord. However, majority of those kids whose parents
insisted that, “We are Iranians and we do things the Iranian way” have walked
away from the faith.
The same outcome is taking
place in many Farsi-only speaking churches in America. The attendance is
getting lower and lower—the first generation has either started to attend
English-speaking churches, or is simply dying out. And as I mentioned, the
second generation has either walked away from the church, or is also attending
English-speaking churches. In fact, I dare to say that there are more Iranian
Christians attending English-speaking churches than there are those attending
Farsi-speaking churches.
The Iranian churches that
are growing are the ones that understood my predictions and are now having
bilingual services—a service in Farsi to take care of the parents and new
immigrants, and one in English reaching out to the second generation.
Let me conclude this blog by
issuing two challenges:
First to the English-speaking
pastors:
From all I have seen, heard
and studied, church attendance among English-speaking Americans is in decline. One
of the most effective ways to keep the church alive is to reach out to immigrants.
Many years ago, I developed
a simple outline of how this can be achieved, but there haven’t been too many
pastors willing to implement the system at their churches. Maybe the time has
finally arrived? Maybe now, as a matter of survival and desperation, the
American church needs to shift her paradigm by realizing our nation IS the
greatest mission field God has given us.
Second, to the Iranian pastors:
Face reality! You are not in
Iran anymore. The Iranians in America are different than the ones in Iran. Rebuking
and shaming our young ones for their lack of ability to speak Farsi will only
push them farther away from the church.
Like the sons of Issachar, (I
Chronicles 12:32) understand the times and
contextualize your approach in evangelism and discipleship. If you’re not
capable of teaching in English, train some of your young members who are fluent
in English to do so. This way, our second generation, who is teachable if they
could understand the language, will not feel abandoned by the church.
PS. For many valid reasons today,
I’m much more open to having a church building, but I still believe in the
above principles when it comes to the second generation.
