By Tom More
The last time I wrote an article for this newsletter, I reflected on Jesus the refugee. At Christmas time, we recall that shortly after the jubilant birth and angelic choir, the shepherds and magi, after the gold, frankincense and myrrh, Jesus was on the road and on the run. It occurs to me again at this time of year that many of the English learners I work with are very much on a road far away from home, some even on the run.
When we started an ESL House Church about three years ago, I had many questions about how to relate the gospel to our learners according to their cultural lens. “If I have more Spanish-speaking people we’ll start with music,” I thought; “if Persians, I’ll ask about dreams.” What eventually occurred to me, in large part through hearing many of the stories of the participants at SOCEM’s Gathering conference, was that the need I should focus on was not firstly cultural, but human.
What does a human being far from home need? They need other human beings. They need warmth and companionship and family and love. The common vein that ran through many of the “Come to Jesus” moments that have been shared with me over the years was the importance of hospitality. While inviting someone into your home is culturally significant in many cultures, in this act we are actually addressing a fundamentally human need to be with others.
With this in mind, we asked how we can introduce God to a quickly growing ESL conversation group. We knew we didn’t want the whole ministry to turn into a Bible study, though many of the great ESL groups in Toronto do exactly that. We wanted to continue to minister to and bless the multi-ethnic, multi-faith group we had in much the same way we had, but we wanted to give those who were ready the chance to go deeper.
I challenged my Christian facilitators to think of a person in their group who fit three criteria: existing relationship with the facilitator; open to deeper spiritual conversations; and ideally in the country for at least six months. I asked God to give each of them at least one person from the friendships they had already forged. In less than five minutes, each came back with a very willing participant and our group was full and ready to begin.
We picked a night of the week and had them over to my home twice each month. We began with a meal – usually homecooked, but pizza on nights the baby was fussy – and talked without agenda around the living room. Then we would sing a popular hymn, usually only one new one every few months. Since many of them used music and videos to learn English, we went over the grammar, the syntax, and then the hymn’s meaning.
When we got into a time of more focused exploration we usually only posed one question – “the Big Question” we called it. Eventually, it became painfully clear that the group was ready for the Bible, but instead of searching for religious answers in the text and then inferring a question, we started with their real-life wonderings.
A Big Question for the night might be “What is the meaning of life?” or “What does it mean to be a good person?” Around this time of year, we might be a little more specific, but instead of asking a religious question that may mean much to us, like “Why did Jesus come to earth as a man?”, we matched their actual curiosities with a cultural question: “What is Christmas to a Canadian?”
We started with some introductory questions, and then went right into the meat of the text so they could work on reading comprehension, express philosophical ideas in a second language, and learn the range of things Christmas can mean in their new country. Often, we discovered we beat around the bush too much. Our friends, who had so much genuine marvel at why strangers loved them so much when no other Canadian had thought of inviting them into their home, wanted to know about our “why”, about Jesus. We told them; they were happy to hear the Good News; and some were baptised. We’ve made dozens of mistakes along the way, but we still have those who are on a road far from home finding some semblance of a home in our living room, around our table, and we’re still asking Big Questions.
Author’s Note: If you are interested in starting something similar to our ESL House Church in your own contexts, please contact me at tmore@thelivingroomchurch.ca. We’ll be delighted to share more and offer some coaching and materials.