“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.” — Exodus 22:21 (NIV)
The Languages of Church
On any given weekend across America, the church is still gathering but the sound has changed. If you step into a bilingual congregation, you’ll notice something sacred happening. A worship song begins in English, flows into Spanish, and somewhere in the middle, both languages lift at once. For a moment, no one worries about translation. The Spirit translates it all.
In that holy space, a grandmother whispers “gracias, Señor” while her grandson beside her says “thank you, Lord.” Their words meet like old friends in the middle of heaven’s sentence. That’s the church at its best — diverse, complicated, human, and holy. I feel blessed to be part of a bilingual congregation that gives a foretaste of glory.
But beneath that beauty, there is an ache. Many immigrants come to church with stories they rarely tell — stories of sleeping in cars, of children left behind, of jobs lost to the wrong name or accent. They sit quietly during sermons that speak of freedom, wondering when that freedom will reach them. Some have spent years holding two lives together — one here, one back home — and it shows in their eyes.
When we talk about mental health in immigrant communities, we are really talking about survival in two worlds. The mind is stretched between languages, cultures, and loyalties. The body is exhausted, but the spirit keeps showing up. Every weekend, people bring their trauma to the altar… not always to confess it, but to breathe in a space where they’re finally not a problem to be solved.
The Bible understands this reality far better than we often admit. Scripture itself is an immigrant document. It tells of exiles, wanderers, refugees, and sojourners who walked through lands that were not their own. Abraham left Ur. Ruth crossed borders for love and survival. The Israelites wandered forty years through deserts of both geography and identity. Jesus fled with His family to Egypt before He could even speak His first words.
Faith, for the immigrant, is not theoretical. It is an act of endurance. To believe in God while the world treats you like a stranger is to practice resurrection every day. The church, if it’s faithful, becomes the bridge, which translates not just language but hope.
When we worship together across accents, we are declaring that God speaks in every tongue and hears every cry. The immigrant church is not a charity case; it’s a prophetic voice reminding the body of Christ what faith sounds like when it’s sung with a scar.
The Weight No One Sees
Pastoral care in immigrant communities often begins not with a sermon but with silence. People don’t need to be fixed; they need to be heard. Trauma among immigrants often hides in plain sight. A child who interprets at doctor’s appointments becomes the family’s emotional translator too. A father who left his homeland to find work carries guilt every night he tucks his children in. A mother who lost her nursing license when she moved to the U.S. now cleans homes for others, praying her children won’t forget her strength. These are not statistics. They are sermons of survival.
When Exodus says, “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt,” it’s not issuing a rule — it’s restoring memory. God ties compassion to remembrance: Remember when you were vulnerable. Remember when you didn’t belong. That’s why forgetting becomes sin. Forgetting hardens the heart.
The Church as Refuge, Not Fortress
In Leviticus 19:33–34, God commands,
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.
Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”
This is more than moral advice; it’s divine policy. Hospitality is a form of holiness.
And yet, how many churches build walls instead of tables? We lock our compassion behind language barriers and call it tradition. We say, “They have their own service,” as though division were discipleship. We let cultural comfort become idolatry.
The church was never meant to be a fortress of sameness; it was designed as a refuge of belonging. True refuge does not mean assimilation. It means participation. Refuge says, “You don’t have to sound like us to be loved like us.”
Imagine a church that takes that seriously. Weekend service would no longer be a performance; it would be a reunion. Translators would stand at the pulpit not as helpers but as prophets. Food after service would taste like every continent. Worship would echo with the tongues of those the world has silenced.
This vision is not new. It’s the same vision breathed at Pentecost — when the Spirit refused to choose one language. That day, God shattered the myth that unity requires uniformity. The crowd in Acts 2 heard the gospel in their own languages, not someone else’s. That’s what love does — it meets people where they are.
To be the church in a land of immigrants is to embody that miracle again. The local congregation becomes a healing place for trauma, a school for cultural humility, and a home for resurrection.
Some will say, “That’s too complicated.” But love has always been complicated. Jesus Himself crossed cultural lines — speaking to Samaritans, touching lepers, honoring the faith of a Roman centurion. The gospel grows in messy soil.
The refugee, the migrant, the foreigner — they are not interruptions to ministry; they are invitations to rediscover it. If the modern church wants revival, it will not come through comfort. It will come through welcome.
Healing in the Ordinary
In mental-health work, we talk about protective factors — the small things that guard people from despair. For immigrants, the church can be that factor. A potluck meal after service might keep a family from isolation. A bilingual Bible study can save a teenager from feeling invisible. A pastor’s listening ear can become a form of therapy when professional help is out of reach.
The simplest ministries are often the most profound. A food bank that offers dignity, not pity. A prayer group that meets at a laundromat. A church that celebrates its members’ accents rather than hiding them. Every one of these gestures says, “You are not alone in this.”
When the body of Christ recognizes that healing is not only spiritual but psychological and social, ministry becomes whole again. The Bible never separated the two. Jesus healed bodies and souls in the same breath.
When the Church Forgets
There is a quiet cruelty in indifference. Many congregations once filled with immigrants slowly become enclaves of the comfortable. English-only policies, shifts in music style, and unspoken cultural hierarchies send a subtle message: “You’re welcome — but not too loudly.”
That’s how churches die.
Paul warned the Corinthians about division at the communion table, saying that some went hungry while others feasted. In the same way, modern churches can create spiritual hunger when they forget who’s missing at the table.
To forget the foreigner is to forget the gospel. The cross itself was God’s act of radical inclusion — a bridge stretched across every border humanity built.
Belonging as Healing
Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28,
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
That verse is often quoted but rarely practiced. It’s not just about equality; it’s about identity. It declares that your value in God’s eyes is not determined by citizenship or accent or social class.
For the immigrant believer, belonging is more than being allowed to attend church. It’s being recognized as a co-heir in the Kingdom. It’s being invited to teach, lead, preach, and sing — not as charity but as calling.
I remember visiting a congregation in the Midwest where the sermon was preached in two languages every week — alternating sentence by sentence. It took twice as long, but no one complained. Afterward, a woman from Guatemala said, “This is the only place where I am seen.”
That’s belonging.
When a community creates that kind of space, mental health improves naturally. Anxiety eases because people no longer feel invisible. Depression lessens because there’s shared purpose. Even physical health improves; studies show that social belonging reduces stress hormones and strengthens immunity. The church, then, is not just a spiritual body — it’s a biological blessing.
But belonging requires humility. It asks the majority culture to listen more than it speaks. It asks leaders to make room at the pulpit, not as token gestures but as genuine partnerships. It demands that sermons confront prejudice instead of avoiding it.
Every church must ask: Are we protecting our preferences or proclaiming God’s promise?
Belonging, at its core, is theological. It is the embodiment of the incarnation — God entering the world’s foreignness and calling it home.
When we practice belonging, we mirror Christ’s descent into our humanity. We echo His welcome to tax collectors, outsiders, and sinners. We become, in a small but powerful way, the hands of a God who refuses to let anyone remain a stranger. Because God has never met a stranger that He did not want to call friend.
By Dick Montanez
