Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary

Sectional 2: Is There Hope for Second Generation Immigrants?

Many denominations in the United States, including Lutherans, are engaged in helping immigrant congregations plant mono-ethnic congregations. This is mainly due to the choice of first-generation immigrants to worship in their languages. The key challenge that these ethnic congregations face is how to accommodate the younger generations into the life and ministry of the church. Whether the immigrant communities are African, Asian or Hispanic, these challenges are strikingly similar. There exists fear within immigrant congregations that younger generation immigrant American Christians are leaving their parents’ churches and abandoning their faith. This presentation will discuss the challenges of the Ethiopian immigrant congregations in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minn., and focus on their struggle to understand how to incorporate second- and third-generation immigrants into their communities.