Partnerships between immigrant and established churches reimagine church homes

In 2024, there were 36 new worshiping communities meeting within the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. Over two-thirds of these are considered primarily immigrant congregations. Most of these immigrant churches worship in the buildings of other established PC(USA) congregations, creating opportunities for relationship-building and collaboration among new and established congregations and among immigrants and longer-term citizens and residents of Atlanta. 

“It’s kind of a symbiotic relationship that develops,” said the Rev. George Tatro, pastor of Johns Creek Presbyterian Church, which has partnered with Casa Brasil, a Portuguese-speaking new worshiping community led by the Rev. Rafael Viana.

“It’s not about the Johns Creek Church or Casa Brasil; it’s about the church of Christ in different languages, different cultures,” said Viana.

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Casa Brasil recently moved its services from Saturday evenings to Sundays at 10 a.m. in Johns Creek’s fellowship hall. The change in worship service accommodates the growing number of young families attending Casa Brasil and also allows the worshiping communities to interact with the members of Johns Creek Presbyterian Church, who also worship on Sunday mornings.

Along with worshiping at the same time on Sundays, Tatro invited Viana to share office space with him during the week in hopes that the congregations would see them both as pastors of the church of Jesus Christ flourishing in the congregations that meet at the Johns Creek property. Partnering with others in ministry is essential to Tatro’s vision of ministry. Before accepting the call to Johns Creek, Tatro served as a pastor of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Clarkston, Georgia, a popular resettlement destination for global refugees. During his tenure, Memorial Drive Presbyterian hosted three congregations that served immigrants originating from Africa, India and Burma, as well as rented space to several nonprofits that served refugee families and school children.

One of those congregations was Shalom International Ministry, led by the Rev. Gad Mpoyo. Mpoyo has served as pastor to this growing congregation of immigrants from the African diaspora for over 13 years. As the associate for the Eastern and Southern regions for the PC(USA)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities, he also supports mid councils, new leaders and established churches as they navigate partnerships and growth related to church start-ups. Mpoyo described the “huge impact” of new worshiping communities, established churches and presbyteries working together and called the bringing together of a rich tradition with new ideas “beautiful.” As new worshiping leaders have joined groups like the presbytery’s Committee on Ministry, Mpoyo noted important shifts in understanding the ways God is doing a new thing: “There is learning that is happening on both sides. And I think that has been having a really huge impact in the presbytery.”

Mpoyo’s congregation of Shalom still meets at the site of Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, although the original congregation that opened its doors to his immigrant new worshiping community no longer worships there. In 2021, the Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church congregation pastored by Tatro engrafted into a neighboring congregation in Stone Mountain, Georgia.

However, the vital ministry to refugees and new immigrants continued at the Clarkston location through the groundwork that the congregation laid. With the help of other congregations across Atlanta and the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit called Memorial Drive Ministries was formed prior to the church’s closure. Memorial Drive Ministries continues to be dedicated to maintaining the property and its partnerships with other nonprofits that serve refugees and immigrants in the neighborhood.

When Tatro left Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church and accepted the call to Johns Creek Presbyterian Church, the Johns Creek congregation had already developed strong bonds with Viana’s congregation of Casa Brasil, even joining their youth ministries. Viana and Tatro warned established churches against the temptation to see partnerships as a “landlord-tenant arrangement.”

“That's a real temptation for the host church,” said Tatro, who described the mindset: “Well, you know, we're providing this space, and we're providing all these things. What are they giving?” Tatro’s answer is, “They're giving us the opportunity to be the church.” The partnership between new worshiping communities and established churches sharing space works best, according to Viana, when it is approached with a “mi casa, su casa” attitude.

This same ethos has buoyed the decade-long relationship of Fairview Presbyterian Church and  El Camino, where Viana serves alongside his wife, the Rev. Ivette Sanjines del Llano.

El Camino (“On the Way”) is a Spanish-speaking congregation which meets at 1 p.m. on Sundays at Fairview Presbyterian Church in Lawrenceville, the oldest congregation in the presbytery.

According to Fairview’s pastor, the Rev. Melissa McNair-King, the two congregations bonded during the quarterly workdays dedicated to the upkeep of the 200-year-old original sanctuary building. These side-by-side improvement projects soon led to joint worship services on Palm Sunday and other festival days when older members of Fairview delight in the exuberance of the new families attending El Camino. Sanjines del Llano describes being inspired by the commitment and hard work of the Fairview congregation, which takes such good care of the historic property, as well as the delight of her youngest members, who are excited to share their processional pageantry on Palm Sunday with more followers of Jesus.

“One of the unexpected blessings of new worshiping communities in Greater Atlanta is the relationship building that has happened between the established church and the newer worshiping communities,” explained the Rev. Dr. Lindsay Armstrong, executive director of the New Church Development Commission in the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. “They are now in life-changing relationships, not just leader to leader and not just leadership team to session, but also as a church.”

For the Rev. Aisha Brooks-Johnson, the partnerships forming between new worshiping communities and established churches in the presbytery are an expression of the global church.

“I think of new worshiping communities; I think about our siblings who have had to escape, who have had to find another home here in the U.S. I think about how Presbyterianism is global and reimagine what home looks like in this space. I think it is a gift. I think it's an honor,” said Brooks-Johnson, executive presbyter for the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. She describes it as a perfect vision of the breadth of God’s table: “God's inclusion is so deep and abiding and wide; seeing leadership make space for other folks who are here, I think, is a very powerful demonstration of the gospel.”