Churches Reach Out As County Diversifies
Churches Reach Out As County Diversifies
New Congregations Entice Immigrants
By Patricia M. Murret
Gazette Staff Writer
Thursday, October 23, 2008; Page GZ05
Three years ago, José Mercado was a businessman attending Grace Community Church in Virginia, where he led a small Bible study group. He loved his church, but praying there did not always come naturally.
"The hardest thing for me to do in English is pray; it's extremely hard," Mercado said. "It's something that comes so deep from [within] you that your language just wants to be part of the flow of it."
So when church leaders approached him about a possible pastoral calling, the Puerto Rican-born Mercado said he would like to lead a church of Spanish-speakers.
Grace Community Church and Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, a congregation with more than 3,000 members on Muddy Branch Road, sponsored Mercado through pastoral college. Last month, the congregation helped him found Iglesia Gracia Soberana, a "church planting" three years in the making.
As Montgomery County's population changes, Christian churches are adding facilities and reaching out to the international community and immigrants in various ways, church leaders and observers said. According to 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the county's population is about 14 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian. An abundance of new faces from West Africa, South America, Asia and other parts of the world signifies for some a chance to spread the Gospel.
...
New Covenant Fellowship Church, a nondenominational evangelical Christian church on Waring Station Road in Germantown, was founded in fall 1990 to reach out to immigrant Koreans and the community at large. Nearly 20 years later, the church still holds services in Korean and English.
"Just like any other immigrants in the past, there's a language gap between the first generation, second generation, third generation and so forth," said Senior Pastor Jamie Kim. "But by providing different services in different languages, they can still come and share the common background that transcends language."
For many immigrants, the church becomes "almost like a community center," Kim said. "We not only keep our identity as Korean Americans, we can foster the sense of community where they can belong and kind of share common history, culture, background, tradition."
New Congregations Entice Immigrants
By Patricia M. Murret
Gazette Staff Writer
Thursday, October 23, 2008; Page GZ05
Three years ago, José Mercado was a businessman attending Grace Community Church in Virginia, where he led a small Bible study group. He loved his church, but praying there did not always come naturally.
"The hardest thing for me to do in English is pray; it's extremely hard," Mercado said. "It's something that comes so deep from [within] you that your language just wants to be part of the flow of it."
So when church leaders approached him about a possible pastoral calling, the Puerto Rican-born Mercado said he would like to lead a church of Spanish-speakers.
Grace Community Church and Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, a congregation with more than 3,000 members on Muddy Branch Road, sponsored Mercado through pastoral college. Last month, the congregation helped him found Iglesia Gracia Soberana, a "church planting" three years in the making.
As Montgomery County's population changes, Christian churches are adding facilities and reaching out to the international community and immigrants in various ways, church leaders and observers said. According to 2006 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the county's population is about 14 percent Hispanic and 13 percent Asian. An abundance of new faces from West Africa, South America, Asia and other parts of the world signifies for some a chance to spread the Gospel.
...
New Covenant Fellowship Church, a nondenominational evangelical Christian church on Waring Station Road in Germantown, was founded in fall 1990 to reach out to immigrant Koreans and the community at large. Nearly 20 years later, the church still holds services in Korean and English.
"Just like any other immigrants in the past, there's a language gap between the first generation, second generation, third generation and so forth," said Senior Pastor Jamie Kim. "But by providing different services in different languages, they can still come and share the common background that transcends language."
For many immigrants, the church becomes "almost like a community center," Kim said. "We not only keep our identity as Korean Americans, we can foster the sense of community where they can belong and kind of share common history, culture, background, tradition."
posted by Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian Church at
11:17 PM
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