Immigrant churches and their mission: A comparative study of the mission practices among the Chinese, Hispanic, and African immigrant churches in New York City

详细信息   

• 作者：Wang ; Chin T.
• 学历：Doctor
• 年：2013
• 关键词：Philosophy ; religion and theology ; Social sciences
• 导师：Priest, Robert J.
• 毕业院校：Trinity International University
• Department：Intercultural Studies
• 专业：African American Studies;Religion;Black studies;Asian American Studies;Ethnic studies;Hispanic American studies
• ISBN：9781303303500
• CBH：3590565
• Country：USA
• 语种：English
• FileSize：4534070
• Pages：263

文摘

Post-1965 Christian immigrants and their churches have brought ethnic diversity and spiritual energy to the Christian churches in many American cities. Some people believe that these immigrant churches have high potential for contributing to missionary work while others are skeptical, believing that most of them are only serving their own communities without much to offer in global mission. This dissertation is a study of the Chinese, Hispanic, and African immigrant churches in New York City, and an analysis of their mission practices. Mixed methods with both quantitative and qualitative approaches are used for this research. They include a questionnaire survey on the status of these immigrant churches. The survey focuses on five aspects of these churches: (1) church profile; (2) church leaders; (3) church members; (4) church cultural expressions; and (5) philosophy of ministry for missions. The same survey also includes questions on the mission practices of the churches. These practices are researched with additional interviews in six areas: (1) founding history; (2) evangelism; (3) community outreach; (4) short-term missions; (5) church planting; and (6) missionary support and recruitment. The study shows that the ethnic context is the key to determining how different groups develop their mission practices. While Chinese churches emphasize ministry to Chinese people globally, the Hispanic churches focus on serving the urban community. The African churches on the other hand are beginning to develop local cross-cultural evangelistic ministries with the intention to change the religious landscape of America. Among all the mission practices, the study also identifies cross-cultural ministry as the major challenge to overcome. Finally the interviews show that the majority of the immigrant pastors put their hope in the future generations for a more active involvement in global mission. The research offers many comparisons among the churches of the three communities. It concludes that the churches are highly evangelistic and mission oriented and each group offers a distinctive contribution to the missionary work of the global church.