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Of the 2.8 million people who live in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., more than a half-million have immigrated, most since 1966. That’s about one out of every six people in the metro area—20 years ago the figure was about one in 20 people. By far, ethnic immigrants are the fastest-growing segment of the area’s population. The Twin Cities has the largest concentration of Hmong people outside of Asia, and the largest US concentration of Somalians and Oromo (an Ethiopian people group), the second largest concentration of Liberians and Tibetan Buddhists in the US.

That’s why World Relief [worldrelief.org], aid arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, has a presence there. World Relief Twin Cities director Carl Nelson spoke to World Pulse copy editor Deann Alford about ethnic ministry and the Twin Cities Ethnic Partnership [TCEP].

Q: Why are the varied ethnic communities in the United States important in the overall scope of world evangelism? A changing paradigm in world missions is working with indigenous leadership of various people groups to plant churches and evangelize, rather than being dominated by Western Christians going to other countries doing evangelism and planting churches. The stategic opportunity that exists in the US today is that many people groups represented here have access to our resources, seminaries and congregations. Many of them have the potential to return to serve their people groups more effectively. They are received as equals, with no language barrier or cultural barrier.

One of the potential difficulties when Western churches send missionaries is that it can become patronizing—we are simply bringing our religion to them. When a national from their own culture evangelizes, it is accepted on a much more equal plane.

Q: Does this mean Westerners shouldn’t do missions? No. There’s clearly a need for a Western church and missionaries to be involved in world evangelism. For example, World Relief might use a medical physician from the West to provide technical expertise to support healthcare instructors who are national staff.

Q: Tell us about TCEP. We work with about 21 church partners, five parachurch and a couple of Christian colleges. The idea is to be a networking point, a partnership of people engaged in ethnic and immigrant ministry as a city, and to build bridges between established American congregations and new ethnic churches. TCEP was founded to begin outreach efforts to people groups where there is no established church, to provide training, information and equipping for people wanting to get involved in ethnic ministry. It aims to be a mobilizing force for ethnic ministry. At the center of intersecting circles of ministry is TCEP, a committee of American-born and foreign-born Christian leaders. They’re bringing together people, experiences and culture from both sides.

Q: Do you consider TCEP as a model for other American cities with ethnic populations? We hope so. We would like to see this model of partnership between established evangelical churches working alongside emerging churches replicated in other American cities. An advantage we have in the Twin Cities is there is a core of evangelical church leaders across denominations who are willing to work together. This spring the Ethnic Workers’ Summit brought together people around a common cause that helped establish even more relationships. World Relief would like to see that we use the ability to cross denominations to get people to rally around the cause of ethnic ministry.

Q: What was the role of the recent Ethnic Workers’ Summit [ethnic america.com] in the Twin Cities in developing TCEP? A year ago during summit planning, several committee members began thinking about how to sustain an effort and put legs to the concept after the summit. In June 2002, 25 missions pastors and church leaders got together and said, “Could we do something tighter that’s greater as a whole than what we’re doing individually?” That was the energy and drive behind this.

Over the next several months, the Ethnic Workers’ Summit was the jumping-off point. Many of us wondered, “What are we going to do? Let’s make sure we’re about impact, outreach and ministry rather than create more bureaucracy.” We had the goals, objectives and concept together in January.

Q: What are TCEP’s objectives? First, education. Several seminars and consultations are planned and are being spearheaded by a particular partner within TCEP, but TCEP is providing a network to help sponsor it. One seminar on Somali ministry was held in September in the Twin Cities. TCEP helped spread the word, informing and inviting people to the seminar.

Q: What were some of your concerns that led to the creation of TCEP? Many times a group or a congregation will charge ahead with a new ministry initiative and not consult the indigenous Christian leaders who are already doing ministry. They leapfrog over other Christian brothers and sisters. The goal is to identify people and ministries already ministering among people groups and work alongside them rather than charging ahead with initiatives that ignore people who are already doing them.

Q: What should American churches know about ethnic ministries? The fastest-growing segment in our population are immigrants and ethnic people groups. The American church is not adequately prepared to reach out and minister to these new populations. If our churches are to continue growing, we have a window of opportunity now to begin ministering to the needs of these families in our community. If we fail to reach out to this population, the church will not continue to grow.