Link with world on your doorstep, churches urged
-11/05/05
European churches have a major opportunity to express the welcoming embrace of the Gospel by working creatively alongside minority ethnic and migrant churches in their midst, a speaker at the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Greece said yesterday.
The Rev Darrell Jackson, who is researching mission trends across Europe — including the impact of the Global South — works for the Conference of European Churches (CEC). He was talking as part of the ësynaxisí programme of workshops and meeting spaces at the 600-strong, 105-nation assembly.
The Conference of European Churches (CEC) is a fellowship of 126 Orthodox, Protestant, and Old Catholic Churches along with 43 associated organizations from all countries on the European continent. CEC was founded in 1959 and has offices in Geneva, Brussels and Strasbourg.
Mr Jackson began by talking about the sad experience of African-Caribbean Methodists and Anglicans in Britain in the 1950s. They were advised by overwhelmingly white denominations that ìthey would not fit in hereî.
The culture of host churches across Europe has changed significantly in the intervening fifty years, said Mr Jackson. But today we still face stereotypes and misunderstandings of minority churches, and the tabloid media has whipped up fear against immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
In fact levels of inward migration per thousand are relatively low across Europe. Britain, where the recent general election campaign saw scaremongering by the major political parties, is eleventh out of the 25 European Union countries in terms of reception.
The numbers of immigrants coming to Britain in 2003, according to 2005 Eurostat data, are just 4.4 per thousand of population. As well as asylum seekers, that includes migration within Europe, people working or seeking work, and families re-uniting.
Into this situation, CWME participants were told, Christian communities and churches need to offer deeds of practical cooperation and friendship. Mr Jackson surveyed a number of innovative church programmes across Europe.
These ranged from KIT (Churches Integrated Together) in Denmark; ìunity in diversityî projects in France and elsewhere; migrant commissions attached to each of the Catholic bishopsí conferences; an eight-language Christian songbook in the Netherlands; networking among black majority churches in the UK; and pan-European work through CEC itself (the Churchesí Commission for Migrants) and the evangelical Lausanne Committee (Refugee Highway).
A representative of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC) told the gathering that their research had discovered 10,000 worshipping Africans, 6,000 Russians and 5,000 Romanians in Ireland.
Yet fewer than 20 churches associated with ICC have significant minority ethnic participation. There are still many bridges to build, he suggested.
CECís Darrell Jackson is seeking to map ecumenically a range of mission initiatives and opportunities across Europe. The aim is to enable and encourage further cooperation among Christians of different traditions.