A Book Is Coming!

     A couple of years ago I received a grant from the Louisville Institute to work on a project directed toward telling the story of the International Church in Europe with the end goal of inspiring congregations, especially in the US, to adopt a more welcoming posture when it comes to welcoming the stranger and the immigrant to our churches. On January 8, 2019 I received an email from Wipf and Stock Publishers with the subject headline: Offer of Publication: I Was A Stranger. It was a thrilling day for me and I'm excited to say that I am now in the final throes of getting the manuscript ready for publication. To say that there are a few things to do is an understatement but it's all very exciting and encouraging. This morning I signed the contract and the goal is have everything submitted by April 1. I hope it will be sooner but since we are leaving for Luxembourg on Monday and then spending a weekend in Paris and attending the International Pastors Conference in Egypt, I really won't have any time to work on the manuscript any further until mid-February. And then there are strict guidelines that I must meet for formatting before the document gets submitted for final typesetting and printing so while I'd like to see this all happen sooner, I also didn't want to put myself in a bind where I couldn't give this the attention I need to. I have no idea what the timeline for publication will actually be. Maybe it will be ready for you to include on your Christmas list next year!
     My working title is I Was A Stranger: The Church's Call to Offer Hospitality to the Foreigner and the Stranger. The publisher has the right to change that as they see fit and they are also responsible for the cover art. 

The slide I used in our final worship service at Immanuel International in 2014

     To (hopefully) whet your appetite for more, I include the preface here. I'm indebted to the churches where I did interviews, none more important in my life than Immanuel International in Stockholm, Sweden. To God be the glory. It's the movement of the Holy Spirit in my life that has enabled this work to now come to fruition. Stay tuned for more information as this process unfolds. I hope you enjoy the preface. 

On 4 different occasions I have packed up my life and moved to a foreign country. 5, if you count moving to rural Alaska as a foreign country, which in 1981 for a girl from Southern California, it certainly was.  Most of the time, I knew only a handful of people who were living in this foreign land that I was about to call home. In fact, as this manuscript is reaching completion, I am readying myself for foreign move number 6, this time to Luxembourg and the same truth remains: I know only a handful of people in this place I am about to call home. I am buoyed once again by the reality that an International church will be at the center of our life.

I am a social creature by nature, the very definition of what it means to be an extrovert. To live outside of a community that knew me well overwhelmed by feelings of isolation was pretty much the definition of a death sentence for me so I was always pretty hungry to find connection wherever I went. Being a person of faith, looking to the church to find community and acceptance and encouragement came naturally to me. One would think that the church would be rock solid in these areas but truth be told, even the church can fall woefully short of its calling to welcome the stranger. The old saying birds of a feather flock together proves to be true more often than not in the church. It’s kind of ironic. Many show up to church looking for connection and community, but sadly, once it’s found, the instinct can be to close off the opening for others to find the same. We love finding community but have a harder time leaving the community open to newcomers. We like the safeness of our established communities, especially ones that look like we do, act like we do, and fall in line with how we think. But the problem with the church operating out of this perspective is that it’s not what Christ ever intended for his church. Christ intends that his church be the place where the doors are wide and open, all the time, and as the biblical evidence will support, particularly for the stranger. In my opinion and through my experience, I believe it is possible that the greatest exhibition of the gospel comes through acts of hospitality.

I know what it feels like to be a stranger and a foreigner at the most visceral level. It is a place that leaves one vulnerable and lonely. The past 3 occasions that I moved to a foreign land and found myself in the stranger seat once again, I did so as a pastor called to lead an International congregation in Europe. Prior to my first call way back in 1998, I had only a small understanding of the role of hospitality in church ministry. But through the 16.5 years that I was privileged to lead, alongside my husband who was my co-pastor in that adventure, the congregation of Immanuel International in Stockholm, Sweden, I realized that a congregation that lacked hospitality and community was empty of all that God truly wanted for his church. An ability to welcome the stranger and embrace the foreigner became the life blood of our ministry and I have a deep desire to tell the story of what’s happening through various International churches in Europe in order to help other churches strengthen their ministry to the outsider.

Immanuelskyrkan in Stockholm, Sweden is a unique congregation. It is a Swedish church that belonged to the Svenska Missionförbundet denomination, which is a sister denomination of the Evangelical Covenant Church in North America. Immanuelskyrkan is now part of Equmenia Kyrkan, a denomination that formed out of a merger of the Svenska Missionförbundet, and the Baptist and Methodist churches in Sweden. Immanuelskyrkan is situated in the heart of Stockholm and over the years began outreach ministries to the Korean immigrant community and the International English speaking populations in Stockholm. The desire on the Swedish church's part was to provide places of worship and fellowship for these immigrant groups who were moving into Stockholm for whom worshipping in Swedish was increasingly difficult. From the onset, the desire on the part of Immanuelskyrkan was to be one church with three language groups. My husband had done his seminary internship with the International fellowship and had seen this model functioning. He had fallen in love with the fellowship and developed a longing to return one day. Prior to my attending seminary, I had lived in Colombia, South American and while I was not part of an International church while living there, I was privileged to experience local Colombian churches who increased my view of the world wide church. So when the lead pastor job at Immanuel International opened up in 1998, and my husband and I were called to be the lead pastors, we were thrilled with the possibility that awaited us. In our minds however, we thought we'd sign a three year contract, spend five years at the most living in Europe and then come back to the US to continue our “real life”. Well, that initial three year contract turned into almost seventeen years with this amazing congregation and opened up my heart, my mind and my eyes to a world of Christian ministry that had been previously hidden from me in my mono-cultural world.

I can honestly say that what sat at the heart of our ministry was hospitality, being a welcoming community, a place where strangers could be seen and heard and be called stranger no more. The International church in Europe has transformed my life and throughout this narrative you will hear stories of others whose lives have been shaped and touched by these congregations. Within the walls of these congregations are expatriates and refugees worshipping and praying together. The International church has welcomed wealthy top dogs of multi-national companies to break bread with newspaper delivery men and taxi cab drivers. At the foot of the cross of Christ we found level ground, each of us a lonely sojourner in need of community, a wayward sinner in need of a savior. All who joined us found the deepest level of community and unity with people who looked differently than we did, who grew up in different socio-economic situations than we did, who came from religious traditions that were different than our own. And the great surprise was that it was not a recipe for conflict but instead a place where deep and unexpected connections took place. The ultimate gift was living into our dream of becoming a place that reflected heaven itself.

So join me on a journey from being strangers to becoming friends to ultimately calling one another brother and sister because of the deep bond that we formed through the love of God in Christ. Discover how God’s word guides and directs us to welcome the stranger and embrace the foreigner. Listen to the story of the people of God and allow your heart to be changed to reflect God’s own heart for the foreigner and the stranger.

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The Grant

   I recently announced that I was thrilled to be a recipient of a pastoral study grant from the Louisville Institute. My topic will be 'Welcoming the Stranger: A Study of How the Church Can Provide A Place of Belonging for the Immigrant.'

This verse shapes the project in important ways.

   Since leaving Immanuel International in January of 2015, I have wanted to find a framework around which I could write about our time with that amazing congregation. While I was in Europe, I also had the rich opportunity to speak a few retreats with other International churches which allowed me to broaden my contact with the deep impact that these International churches were having on the foreigners and immigrants that were moving into their cities. I began to develop a theology of welcoming the stranger to understand more deeply God's heart for the foreigner in scripture. The Old Testament is full of narratives that reflect this deep concern and I felt compelled to flesh out the connection between developing a hospitality based ministry in order to help the foreigners among us (which at time, included me) find a place of belonging. The church should be the ultimate place of belonging and time and again I have seen the International church achieve this beyond race, culture, socio-economic status and many other things that often divide the US church.
   Because the grant is singularly focused on how our research can benefit the US church, my goal will be to take the stories of those in International churches, combine it with the theological implications of welcoming the stranger in scripture and hopefully come up with a compelling challenge for the US church to be more welcoming to those different than they are, especially immigrants who are often met with hostility in the society around them.
   So in addition to the theological study that I will be able to pursue, the grant will provide funds for me to return to Europe and conduct a series of interviews with church members in several of the International churches with whom I have had a relationship. Of course, Immanuel International will be the showcase but I look forward to having conversations with folks in London, Paris, Brussels, Luxembourg, Zurich, Lucerne, and Berlin. The timeline is not yet set.
   Other aspects of the study will include visits to some churches and institutions that are already doing significant work in this area in the US. Trips to Chicago and Seattle are included in my budget so I look forward to those conversations as well.
   I will travel to Louisville, Kentucky the first weekend in February for preliminary meetings with the grant providers. All recipients are invited for a weekend of orientation and planning. And as of yet, I've only received notification via email. Apparently more documents are coming via post. So I have a lot of questions as well but am deeply honored and thrilled to have this opportunity during this sabbatical season from church ministry.
   Thanks to all who helped me put the proposal together, writing recommendations, supporting my efforts and affirming my gifts. I look forward to sharing more and more as the project begins to take shape. In the meantime, let's all remember to look for ways to create a greater sense of hospitality to those lacking a sense of belonging, keep an eye open for those folks who live feeling like they are on the outside looking in to a dominant culture who often behave in hostile ways towards the stranger in their midst.