Mission workers equip churches to minister to Muslim immigrants

It is good to see some missionaries helping different immigrant groups in this country. DP

By Laurie Entrekin

abpnews.com: ATLANTA (ABP) -- Butch and Nell Green, overseas missionaries since 1986, have entered a new stage of their ministry life: working in the United States.

After spending the majority of their lives working with Muslims in Senegal and Belgium, the Greens are back on U.S. soil to start a strategic ministry that teaches American churches how to care for Muslim immigrants in local communities.

Affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship since 1994, the Greens have an understanding of U.S. churches, Muslim populations and Muslim evangelical churches that makes them uniquely positioned to help lead the new venture.

It’s all part of a new and sometimes counterintuitive way of doing missions, they said.

“In our globalized world, the ones most poised and capable of reaching Muslim populations are not necessarily career missionaries overseas, but churches in America,” Nell Green said. “That’s because the nations have come here. It’s no longer about sending missionaries to remote villages because that remote village has come to you.”

From their home base in Rock Hill, S.C., the Greens will develop relationships with churches both in South Carolina and North Carolina over the next three years, helping congregations learn to pray for Muslim immigrants, understand the Islamic faith and share the gospel with cultural sensitivity.

And while cities like New York City and Washington, D.C. are well known homes to multiple races and ethnicities, South Carolina may not seem an area ripe for immigrant populations. But it is.

“Our point is that these smaller cities and even tiny towns -- because of the numbers of internationals -- have the potential of impacting the world,” Nell Green said. “Part of our work is to help people just realize that they’re there.”

Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, S.C., has agreed to provide the Greens with housing for their three-year project. The partnership began several years ago when the church hosted the Greens and a singing group from Belgium. Later, the church sent three mission teams to Belgium, and the Greens began spending their off-field assignment time in Rock Hill, preaching and leading Wednesday night fellowship groups. The partnership has been a blessing to both the Greens and Oakland Baptist, they said.

“You do not have to travel overseas to experience another culture,” said Christy McMillin-Goodwin, Oakland Baptist’s associate minister of education and missions. “As churches, we must respond to those who are now part of our communities. So often, we pass by these newcomers and their neighborhoods not realizing that they are immigrants.”