Ethnic churches in Europe

Ethnic churches, which bring richness and a variety of worship styles to our European Christian landscape, have become a growing and vital part of the Baptist family. The home mission secretaries of the European Baptist Federation gathered at a conference on 'Ethnic Churches in Europe' held at the International Baptist Theological seminary for their yearly conference. Representatives from various European and Middle Eastern Baptist families looked at the different situations of their changing regions prayerfully trying to respond to the changes and to do God's will in welcoming immigrants and encouraging ethnic church and mission work. As a result of hearing how each region has experienced the changes brought by these new ethnic church communities the participants were excited about continuing and expanding this development each in the context in which they live and work. An extremely welcome development shared in the papers in this book, was the sociological reflection on errors which have been made in the past by churches in first attempts to absorb large ethnic immigrations. New visions based on biblical reflection, sociology of groups and praxis of church communities gave fresh insights into how to encourage ethnic church development and cooperation with existing church unions and congregations. Readers will feel they are at the conference itself as they read the vital case histories and learn mistakes to avoid and ideas that have fostered good relationships between local Christians and new brothers and sisters in Christ from other traditions. They will be encouraged to include in their own worship music and liturgy churches are learning from these vital new ethnic churches. As Europe is increasingly recognized as a mission field, we hope that this material will be of help to see God's hand in his mission in Europe among ethnic communities and invite others to be part of this mission.