c. 2005 Religion News Service

NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ Junjun Huong arrived at West End Church of Christ knowing enough English to read it, but he barely could speak it. He had immigrated with his family from China, where he says he couldn’t find a Bible.

Today Huong is proud to speak _ though with a very heavy accent _ about the Bible, having improved his English and two years ago become a Christian. His family now attends church most Sundays, and his daughter is a member of the youth group. He is a success story of the church’s program teaching English as a second language, an outreach to area immigrants that mixes evangelism with English language instruction.

“I entered this first to improve my English,” says Huong, 42, a medical researcher at Vanderbilt University. “Then I start the Bible. From studying the Bible, I love Jesus.”

This is how a growing number of congregations across the country are carrying out the biblical directive that Christians make disciples of all nations. As the country grows more diverse and international tensions and high costs discourage travel abroad for some, congregations are looking to their own neighborhoods for mission work.

Many are introducing ESL (English as Second Langauge) programs. Some supplement them with career and citizenship help, child care and other services. At West End Church of Christ, the culture is part of the curriculum. Volunteers teach immigrants not only how to conjugate verbs but how to ride the bus. They take immigrants to baseball games, invite them home on Thanksgiving Day and encourage them as they obtain green cards and buy homes.

The Nashville congregation is one of more than 100 offering ESL programs through FriendSpeak, the domestic part of the international mission group Let’s Start Talking, based in Bedford, Texas.

Similar ministries are scattered across the country. The Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board trains up to 50 Christians a year to lead community workshops on the topic, says Kendale Moore, the board’s national literacy missionary. The workshops draw churches of all faiths, Moore says. Ministry leaders say churches are responding to community needs.

“We get a call at least once a week from a different church, so I think the demand is growing and the response of churches is growing,” says Lester Meriwether, coordinator of Literacy ConneXus, a ministry that partners with the Southern Baptist-affiliated Baylor University in Waco, Texas, to bring programs to churches in the state.

Adds FriendSpeak director Homer Burks, “God has sent these people to us. I don’t know if we did a good enough job going to them. It is an evangelistic program.”

The programs are not manipulative, ministry leaders say. ESL instructors are upfront about who they are and seek only to welcome immigrants who want language help and embrace them when they want more, they say. Some churches use materials based on the Bible, but others use secular materials.

“One could argue it would be unethical not to respond to the needs of the whole person,” Meriwether says.

Yet some of the programs bother Tara Neuwirth, associate director of UCLA’s American Language Center. Churches must draw a line between evangelism and English language instruction and never should use the Bible as a language teaching tool, she says. She once taught for a faith-based organization but is disappointed by some of the religious materials students bring to her class.

“In a way, it doesn’t really serve the intended purpose,” she says. “It may or may not go over their head.”

The programs can be a beneficial supplement to those offered by municipal governments and community colleges that sometimes are too costly or don’t fit with every work schedule, says Angela Harris, ESL director and teacher coordinator for the Tennessee Foreign Language Institute. But she has mixed feelings about teaching immigrants English in a religious environment.

“They’re at a vulnerable point,” she says. “It’s such a fragile and delicate topic, someone’s religion.”

The ESL program at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Va., has proven to be a successful outreach not only to area immigrants but to other churches, says Linda Tracy, the program’s coordinator. Two Presbyterian churches, a Catholic church and another Lutheran church all contribute tutors to the classes, which meet twice weekly at St. John’s. In the past, the church has offered child care and career help, too.

The program carries out the message of the signs posted in the parking lot of the 1,000-member church, Tracy says. “You’re now entering a mission field,” the signs say.

“Our program was begun with the intention of serving the community, fulfilling our roles as Christians,” Tracy says. “We have students of all different backgrounds, so we are sensitive that we try to be a light, that we show our Christian spirit without overtly trying to teach Scripture.”

In Nashville, home to a broad mix of Hispanics, refugees from the Middle East and Africa, and Asians employed by research institutions such as Vanderbilt, the 350-member West End Church of Christ is among several congregations offering ESL programs.

The church started its program four years ago and has educated a few hundred immigrants since then. Using materials based on the Bible, immigrants work one-on-one with tutors on vocabulary and reading comprehension.

The program encourages immigrants to think in a more abstract way, because of its religious content, than teaching just basics such as how to order from a menu, coordinator Marcia Stewart says.

Minjian Shi, a 37-year-old researcher at Meharry Medical College who like Huong immigrated from China, joined the program two years ago and now is advanced enough to read straight from the Bible, but as a scientist he still considers himself an atheist. Shi’s tutor, 24-year-old Kelsey Boyd, is impressed by his progress.

“His openness and world view on the Gospel and Jesus make me see Jesus in a different way,” says Boyd, who just finished a master’s degree to be an ESL instructor.

Huong joined the program three years ago after hearing about it from a friend. He considers himself changed since becoming a Christian.

“Now I can meet some problem, but I can pray to God,” he says. “Before, I don’t know what to do. I just worry.”

DH/RB END RNS