Where are the Second Generation Pastors?
by Executive Director John Yoder
One of the main points I’m driving home in this blog series is that second-generation immigrants are precisely the kind of instinctively cross-cultural believers needed to lead American churches into the future. During their childhood years they’ve learned to adapt to both their parents’ culture at home and American culture at school. They know how to relate to people of different cultures, generations and worldviews. Those whose families have lived in the U.S. for multiple generations struggle to develop this level of cross-cultural competence, as do first-generation immigrants. But the second generation fluidly function across cultures. As America becomes more multiethnic, they are ideal candidates for pastoral ministry.
But ministry possibilities for them are not many. Their amazing talents are being squandered. Let’s discuss why four common paths to ministry aren’t promising for them.
- Pastoral successor at a first-generation immigrant church. You might think that when a first-generation immigrant pastor retires, a younger pastor will take his place. Think again. Most first-generation churches are composed of adults who grew up overseas. They have styles of worship they’ve loved from childhood, and only someone who grew up in that setting can provide it for them. Typically their children don’t find that style of worship interesting, and leave the church when they become adults. It’s quite typical for a first-generation immigrant church to have only grey-haired people who continue to worship God as they did in their motherland. They regret that the church will die with them, but they would rather keep their style of worship and leadership intact than change to attract the second generation.
- Pastoral successor at an American church. The Bible schools of the Minneapolis area enroll plenty of second-generation immigrants. But few of them will ever pastor an American church. Whether an American church is primarily white or black, it is highly unlikely to seek as its next pastor a second-generation Mexican, Korean or Ugandan. You might think that a church will be open to them. But once it gets down to actually comparing candidates, there will always be a cultural insider who more naturally relates to the congregation.
- English-language service at a first-generation immigrant church. The average size of an immigrant church in Minnesota is 30, so most aren’t able to launch a second English-language service. But larger immigrant churches can. Specifically, in Korean and Chinese churches, first-generation pastors realize they have to provide an alternative service for their English-speaking adult children. Unfortunately, their motive typically isn’t to empower the next generation for leadership, but to prevent their exodus. The English-language pastor is often regarded as the associate pastor of the first-generation pastor, not a peer. The first-generation pastor is expected to mentor the associate, even though he does not understand American culture as well as they do. The reality is that they could mentor each other. Intergenerational conflict in such churches is an issue that never goes away.
- Independent second-generation church plant. There are churches launched from scratch by the second generation. Such churches worship exclusively in English. A few appeal to multiple cultures, while most appeal primarily to one meta-group such as Latinos, West Africans, East Asians or South Asians. Sadly, these churches are few in number. In the Minneapolis area there are over 200 Latino churches, most of which worship exclusively in Spanish. I know four who are bilingual, worshipping in both Spanish and English. I do not know of even one English-language second-generation Latino church in Minnesota. I know of one such second-generation African-background church, and a handful of Asian-background churches. As America becomes increasingly multicultural, I believe we must multiply such churches.
How can we increase the number of second-generation leaders who are empowered for ministry? In our next blog I will share some practical suggestions.
This blog is the fourth part of a series. You can learn more through our free online course Empowering the Second Generation, available at https://www.immigrantministry.com/secondgen.