A friend recently sent me an article from Christianity Today called “When Your Neighborhood Changes You” that details how “three Twin Cities churches have adjusted to reach their rapidly changing community.” Take a look at these stats that introduce the article:
Since 1990, Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen a massive influx of refugees. The Twin Cities metro area boasts the largest Hmong, Somali, and Oromo (Ethiopian) populations in the United States and the second largest Tibetan and Liberian concentrations.
The University of Minnesota is home to the largest Chinese student population in the country, and the cities were the eighth-fastest growing Hispanic area in the country during the 1990s. All this adds up to nearly half a million internationals, speaking more than 136 different languages.
In fact, one of the churches detailed in this article is near the target area for this plant. The church boasts of 20 countries in its 350 person church, which include: “Sierra Leone. Uganda. Haiti. India. Zimbabwe. Panama. Liberia. Mexico. Nigeria. Central African Republic. Rwanda. Guinea. Great Britain. Malaysia. Ghana. Philippines. Vietnam. Laos. Japan. Marshall Islands.”
What an exciting article! If you reach Twin Cities you do not merely reach Western European descendants from Germany, Norway, Ireland and Sweden. Rather, if you reach the Twin Cities then you will reach the nations. A church in the Twin Cities is a global church.
- Bryan
[...] the world into U.S. cities, and the Twin Cities metro area is no exception. A plant here would reach people all over the world within the limits of one city. Church planting overseas AND in cities is vital to reaching all [...]