Growing together: Inspiring intercultural church communities

Our congregation has become increasingly diverse in recent years. We are blessed to have members from or with family links to Zimbabwe, Nigeria, China and India, worshipping alongside those native to Northern Ireland. This growing diversity reflects not only the changing demographics of our city, but also the welcoming and inclusive spirit of our church family.

Embracing an intercultural vision has had a profoundly positive impact on our congregation. It has enriched our worship experience, deepened our sense of community, and allowed us to better reflect the unity and diversity of the Body of Christ. Cultural expressions such as music, dance and prayer from different nations have brought new energy and joy to our services. It has also fostered mutual learning, respect and spiritual growth as we celebrate the ways God is at work.

Intercultural ministry at the corps is visible and active. We intentionally create space for different cultural expressions in our worship and events. For example, our African group often leads Sunday services, bringing vibrant music, expressive praise and dynamic preaching that resonates across cultural boundaries.

We encourage participation from all backgrounds and aim to build relationships that go beyond Sunday fellowship. Our popular Global Praise meetings often include food, music and traditions from the various cultures represented, helping build a stronger and more unified community. We see intercultural ministry not as a programme, but as a way of life where everyone has something valuable to contribute and where Christ is glorified through our diversity.

Reginald Vellem

The corps family has, for many years, been diverse in nature, something that has continued to grow in more recent years. The impact of having an intercultural focus has made us become more aware and appreciative of those who make up our congregation and how we can learn and listen to different cultural practices, ways of worshipping and lived experiences.

In a recent intercultural Sunday celebration, the corps responded using different coloured and patterned material in creating a tapestry – a visual reminder that is hung in our entrance of how unique we all are and what a beautiful, albeit messy, community we can be when we all take our place and are woven together.

We sit down monthly and share a corps meal together where we welcome people to bring foods that they would eat at home, which results in a great, diverse feast! We are also trying to be conscious in promoting diversity within our corps by making sure our leadership team has diverse voices, the images and videos we use in gathered worship are diverse and ensuring our Sunday welcome team is representative of the church, as well as seeking opportunities to use different songs with heritage in the countries represented in our corps.

These are just small steps as we continue on our journey to live out the values of intercultural ministry where all are valued and belong.

Captain Rachel Dunham

Situated in Hackney, Clapton Salvation Army is a reflection of the surrounding community, with a congregation made up of all walks of life – a wide spread of ages, ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds. Who you find in the church on a Sunday is who you would find on the street any day of the week!

What I really love about our church is that everyone is invited to participate and get involved. From the youngest to the oldest, we recognise that everyone has something to offer – a story, a skill, a smile. The congregation value each other and look out for one another. We celebrate with each other, pray with each other and are like family to one another.

The leadership of our church is also representative of this intercultural ethos, and our leadership team is made up of different backgrounds, skills, and experiences and expectations of church life. Underlying everything is an unwavering commitment to loving one another and welcoming the whosoever.

We are often challenged to consider who in our community might be marginalised and how we can share God’s loving welcome with them.

Clapton loves to celebrate. It’s an opportunity to share in traditional food, music, clothing, customs and, above all, to enjoy and embrace the diversity of our church. At Clapton, everyone is invited to the table. Clapton is family.

Helen Pegram

Grays has grown exponentially over the past three years, and we have responded to the growing diversity of our congregation accordingly. In 2020, our church was predominantly white British, with a handful of children and young people in an otherwise older congregation. By the work of the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer and a vision for radical welcome, we are now a multi‑ethnic, multi‑generational church with nine different nationalities, and a third of our church is under 25.

Intercultural ministry has been an organic change in our corps, since those who have joined us in recent years have wanted to get involved in the daily life of the church. There are no barriers to anyone joining our choir or band, participating in our worship or serving in our community programme. Our corps has had to change because our people have changed.

Leading up to our 140th anniversary celebrations last year, we preached about how God is transformational, relational and welcoming, and how that translates to our life as a church living with arms wide open. Yes, we have had to challenge unconscious biases, encourage people to embrace the ‘other’ – anyone who is different from them – and, in response, we have changed our leadership structures to welcome and embrace all ages, abilities and ethnicities. Our leadership team now reflects our church, which better reflects the community in which we live and serve.

The impact of embracing an intercultural vision for our church is yet to be seen in its entirety, but our church is becoming a more inclusive, all‑embracing and welcoming church, where people feel they belong. Our worshipping community continues to grow, and mission in, for and with our community is thriving. We still have a long way to go, but we are confident that, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit at work, we will see a little more of God’s wonderful, intercultural Kingdom at Grays.

Lieutenant Gill Feltwell

Over the past three years, the corps has diversified in just about every possible way. I don’t think that we could honestly say that we intentionally embraced an intercultural mission. I think what happened was that God kept bringing people and the church kept loving them. It didn’t matter who the people were, where they had come from or what their background was or who they loved. What mattered was that God brought them to the front door at Parkhead Corps, and they found a family here who embraced them – and then quickly became Parkhead Salvation Army with us.

The community is incredibly diverse in itself. There is a lot of temporary accommodation and people pass through from all walks of life. There is a lot of need in the area and so there are natural gathering places where the breadth of the community comes together to support each other. We have such spaces in the corps too, both when we worship and when we gather for programmes through the week.

We are working hard to learn about each other, but also to recognise that with every new person who comes along, we as a church change. This is a really positive thing. Our internal culture is changing – who we are and what we do, what the corps looks like is all different, because there is so much diversity in the corps. And it’s exciting. I often think that within our chaos is a beautiful small glimmer of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Captain Amy-Jo Battersby

Over the past three years we have seen a growth in the number of people attending from different cultural backgrounds. Numerous families from across Asia and Africa have joined with us. This has been a mix of Salvationists moving to the UK, some connecting with the Army after years away since living in the UK and others who have not had any Army connections in the past. It feels like, once they learn that there is a warm welcome here, they tell others too.

The impact has been a richness in experiences of different cultures, languages, worship styles and especially food. It feels like everyone has had to make adjustments to welcome the unfamiliar. This has been celebrated and embraced beautifully, as new friendships have been formed and people have learnt to try new things.

Intercultural ministry is something we are exploring and learning about, finding our way as we go. We have broadened the corps council and pastoral care council to include people from other countries. The leadership team is being strengthened with new people coming into positions as well as leading worship and preaching when required. Regularly in worship we include and experiment with traditional worship songs in Hindi, Shona, Portuguese and other languages. The Zimbabwean praise group feature monthly in our services and lead us in energetic songs of joy.

Our prayer times are so rich now as people are encouraged to pray in their mother tongues, often allowing prayer to flow from the heart without worrying about translation. The Bible is also read in multiple languages sometimes. By celebrating diversity in our corps, we are also honest with each other about our lack of understanding about other cultures. This is met with people who are more than willing to share and educate us as we grow together.

Territorial Envoy Lee Highton-Nicholls