The Nations Have Come To Us – Columbia Metro Connection – Episode #015

Welcome back to the Columbia Metro Connection, a podcast where you can go to get valuable, relevant, and quality resources for you and your congregation.
 
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     The Columbia Metro Connection is sponsored and supported by the Columbia Metro Baptist Association and the almost 100 family churches that support the ministry of the CMBA.
 
Hosts for this week’s episode are George Bullard, the Director of Missions, Strategic Leadership Coach and Lead Missiologist at Columbia Metro Baptist Association and Chris Reinolds, Lead Pastor a Killian Baptist Church.
 
Joining us this week is Alan Cross, a missional strategist, President of Community Development Initiatives, and voice at the Evangelical Immigration Table.  Alan’s ministry focus is helping to connect people’s orthodoxy with tangible orthopraxy, in that he seeks to help communities, churches, businesses, organizations, and individuals grow and develop in ways that facilitate human flourishing by developing creative partnerships to bring spiritual, social, and economic transformation to communities around the world.
 
Highlights
 
The context for ministry in America is heavily affected by this conflict of race, ethnicity, and who’s from where; so it seems like planting the cross [of Jesus Christ] somewhere in the middle of that is a pretty good way from people to hear about Jesus.
 
The big question that I had to come to grips with was how do we turn away from inside ourselves to our neighbors of different backgrounds and cultures.
 
When you talk about immigrants and refugees there is a tendency to frame your view on the view of your favorite political commentator.  The question is, “What does the Bible say?
 
There is a difference between the role of the church and the role of the state.  As Christ-followers we must understand our role in the issue of immigration is to represent the heart of God to the state.
 
The caravan immigrants are coming with the intention of claiming asylum, which is a legal way of coming to the United States.
 
As Christ followers, the church should be welcoming the stranger and the sojourner.
 
I’m against immigration, but once they’re here, as the church, what should we do?
 

Resources:

Twitter:  @AlanLCross

Email:  Across@cdionline.org

About the author 

Kyndra Bremer