#144 | God on the Move Among Diaspora Peoples | Sam George

We need to develop a sense of knack of watching people and engaging in conversation and inquiring where they came from and listening to their stories.

It's watering time, everybody.

It's time for Apollo's Watered, a podcast to saturate your faith with the things of God so that you might saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. My name is Travis Michael Fleming and I am your host. And today on our show, we're having another one of our deep conversations.

Several years ago, I participated in a study called Experiencing God. Perhaps you did too. One of the things that has stuck with me from that study is this. Find out where God is working and then join him in that.

I've always tried to see where is God at work in the world. And one of the things that we've noticed is that God is on the move, and not just in the United States, but everywhere.

The world is spreading around the world, including here in the West. Chances are you've encountered someone that is from a different culture than you have come from.

It could be from Venezuela, Ukraine, Russia, Laos, Congo, Nepal, Mexico, Iraq, Iran, Sudan or Afghanistan. It could be from anywhere around the world. We encounter that every day. But rarely do our churches reflect the diversity of our communities.

And I don't care where you live, it could be in a small town, it could be in a suburb, it could be in a city. Diversity is not just in the large urban environments anymore. Even small towns are becoming more and more diverse.

That's why I wanted to bring on today's guest, Sam George. Sam teaches at Wheaton College. He's the global catalyst for Diaspora Ministries with the Lausanne Movement at Apollos Water.

We are committed to engaging global voices to learn from the global church as well as teaching. We want to receive the best and we want to offer the best of what we have. We don't have all of the answers in the West.

That's why we want to engage people from different voices from around the world to glean from them, because they have much to teach us. And Sam comes from an Indian background and his faith story goes back a long way. But he helps me to see God more clearly.

His vantage point helps my faith grow and I know that he will help yours grow as well. Normally we divide these conversations into two parts, but we didn't this time.

There wasn't a real natural midpoint for one and we felt that all of the information just went together.

We want to renew the church in the west and we believe that one of the ways that we do that is by having a bigger vision of what God is doing around the world. By realizing that the church of Jesus Christ is global. When we take that perspective, when we learn from one another, the church is renewed.

And that's what Sam's about too. I can't wait for you to hear what Sam has to say. We are able to have conversations like this one because of listeners and supporters like you.

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Now, without further ado, let's get to my conversation with Sam George. Happy listening. Sam George, welcome to Apollo's Watered.

Thank you Travis. Great to be with you on this podcast.

I am so excited. We've known each other for a few years and our schedules have just not been able to coordinate because you are traveling around the world.

You are a busy, busy man. But I am excited to have you on the show and you know how it goes. Are you ready for the Fast five?

Let's go for it. Thank you for having me on the call. I know you tried many times. Somehow it did not happen before. But now is the time. I feel there's a right time for.

Everything that's right for such a time as this. I don't want to quote scripture out of context, but we're going to go with it just for right now. All right. Number one, Coffee or tea?

This is an easy one.

Coffee.

What kind of coffee? Is there any coffee you like specifically?

Just Indian brew coffee.

So describe Indian brew coffee. What is Indian brew coffee?

I grown up with India is a tea country. They say British colonize India for the tea and Chetli tea and all that. But I came to study in another city called Chennai.

It is known for its morning coffee and I switched over in my college years to coffee and I've been a coffee drinker ever since. Of course I came to America and then I've been a coffee drinker more than tea drinker.

Oh, I wake up with the coffee.

I need a strong coffee in the morning.

Oh yeah, I do too. You travel around the world, you teach, you're writing, you're a busy man. So in whatever spare time that you have, you like to do blank.

What is it you like to do?

Read. I've been a voracious reader from childhood. I read all kinds of things, not necessarily in my field.

I always have a pile of books sitting in front of me to read list and a pile that having read, having to return to the library.

So what do you like to read? Give me some of the things that you like to read that. Non academic. Non academic.

Yeah. So I follow, follow quite a bit on business world. I, you know, I lived in the business world for many years. 10 years I was in the corporate America.

So I keep track of some of the business. Some of the things that I follow is technology. This last week I attended the Amazon's annual conference on cloud computing.

I follow a little bit on artificial intelligence and some of the developments there. Internet and technology. What is happening? I'm an engineer.

In my early years my first degree was in engineering, mechanical engineering and computers and then did my master's in business and worked for 10 years in the corporate America based in Asia and crisscrossing Asia and America for nearly 10 years.

That's a lot of reading. That's your fun reading. You like to read about the cloud for fun. God bless you. That is not my idea.

Yeah, that's just one area. I mean I do follow politics quite a bit. I follow current affairs and currently I'm reading a book on the revenge of geography.

I love it though. I love it. You get to meet so many different people and hear about their reading habits and because of the geography part. Here's your third question.

Your most absolute favorite place to travel in the world is Singapore.

I lived there for some years and was crisscrossing. I was there just two months ago and then Malaysia, Singapore and Korea and so just. Yeah, Asia is a fascinating place.

Singapore is like a little minuscule little island. The whole of Asia is somehow compressed and condensed and you know, experience all of Asia and, and it's an island. I grew up in islands.

You know, seeing water nearby and, you know, seeing how tiny you are in the large expanses of the water kind of centers you and knows you, who you are and your place in the world.

And you went from Singapore to Wheaton?

I went to Singapore to Hong Kong, went back to California, went to India, started a business, came back, wound up my career and went to seminary in Southern California, in Pasadena, and then went to Princeton in New Jersey and then came to Chicago some 22 years ago.

Wow, that's a lot of moving.

Then went to London, Liverpool to do my doctoral work. I've been a man of the move, you know, I mean, you know, my childhood was marked by lots of movement.

My dad's work for, you know, I'm originally from India. My parents are from the state of Kerala in southwest of India. So soon after India become independent, no jobs, extremely difficult time.

This is after the Second World War. British had left India and he was in a pretty dire state and no jobs and opportunities or education.

He had lost his dad, he was the youngest in the family and didn't have anything to do. So he went to the nearest city and which was Chennai, which was called Madras back then.

And he enrolled in the university there, a very well known state university. And then somebody said, you know, hey, get on a ship, you'll find a job. Because they were all looking for a job and a government job was a big deal.

And he sailed across the oceans but got caught in a storm. And if Indian Ocean, if, you know those monsoon seasons can be pretty crazy.

And so yeah, got Scott in a storm and they ran out of water and my dad had seasickness. I mean, he was 17 year old and seasickness. Yeah, I mean, you know, those days, India was a very different India, you know, no opportunities.

And so he just wanted to risk his life and never seen a water, never seen a ship. Got on a ship and was traveling, I think 14 days or something. They ran out of water and food and he couldn't hold anything down.

He was throwing up for 10 days or so and he thought he's going to die. In those days when somebody dies in the ship, they just take the body and throw it into the waters.

And he thought, you know, his family will never see him again. And. And the ship was drifted, it was headed to Malaysia. Back then, Malaysia was part of the Indian presidency during the British colonial era.

So Malaysia, there was no Singapore. Malaysia, Singapore was all managed by British colonial Institutions based in Chennai and. Yeah.

So ship was going there, ship had to be redirected and it was drifted in the ocean and went to a nearest island, made a forced landing and. And the first sight of land, my dad just wanted to get off the ship.

Well, of course.

Yeah.

Is that where you met your mom?

No, he fell sick and somebody kind of nursed him back to health and he found a garment job, climbed up, worked very hard, and it took 10 more years for him to sail back to India to gather courage to get back to India and then get married to my mom on his first trip. And then he took there. So I was born in the mid-60s in the islands. But then my dad's job, God's favor, worked very hard. He was one of the pioneers.

Somebody extended hospitality and care. He became a champion for all the newcomers in the island and helped hundreds and hundreds of people find a job, you know, get them established.

And he got. He did really well for his career. He retired as one of the senior most government administrative leaders.

Because you've traveled around the world though, and I love to ask this question of people that have traveled around the world because we all like to eat, but what's the strangest food that's just so different? I'm sure in that culture it's just normal, but for you, it was the most strangest food you had ever personally tried.

I've eaten all kinds of food. I think I would say snake in China, snake meat. And also I was taken to a market, meat market in Shanghai.

And I saw tiger and, and elephant meat and all kinds of wild animals like, you know, wild boar and, and elephant meat and all that. But I never got on to eat that. But I've eaten snake meat.

Now again, you have a very eclectic, fascinating story. So if your life were a Bollywood movie, it would be titled what?

Yeah, yeah, good question. I would say All Wanderers are not Lost.

Oh, that's a good one. You even got bumper stickers for that.

I mean, the idea that my life was marked by wandering. Wandering also gives you a very unique perspective.

You can see one reality from multiple vantage point and it enriches your understanding of the issue that you're seeing.

Wonderful. I love that. That is so good. And that really kind of acts as a segue.

And we've already touched on a little bit, but give a little bit more of your bio. Who in your family converted to Christianity? I mean, most people don't realize, I mean, there's a history that goes way back from India.

Does it go back Generations. Is it very recent? Because I look and I study history and I see that Christianity was in India way early than people.

But people often don't think about that in Christian circles because of so much Hinduism and Jainism and Buddhism and so on and on. But Christianity has a real robust history.

Is your family historically, do you come from generations of Christians or is it more recent for your family?

Yeah, I think Indian Christianity began in the first century. That's what many people in the west sometimes don't realize. So Christianity reached India before it reached America.

America was even discovered or England or Germany or any of those places. It came around the same time when gospel reached Athens and Greece. A.D. 52. Apostle Thomas, much like Paul, took the gospel to the West.

The one of the disciples of Jesus by the name of Thomas, he traveled all the way to the furthest settlement of the Jewish people which was in southwest corner of India. And he wanted to tell that the Messiah has come. And he wanted to declare about Jesus's ministry and his resurrection and his death and resurrection.

My own family I can trace back at least till early 12th, 13th century onwards.

All of them Christians? All of them are Christians.

I come from Apostolic Thomas tradition. I was part of a born and raised in the Mar Thoma church. Mar means saint. Thoma is Thomas. So it's like a St. Thomas church.

It's a reformed, evangelical, eastern Bible believing, mission oriented church.

So your family goes back a considerable way. I mean 13th century, that's way before. I think probably many of our listeners would even know their family histories.

To be able to trace that back is quite phenomenal. And as you said before, I mean you have a robust history of Christian faith. In your background.

Christianity has been in India for a long time and you have wandered around the world. God has led you to different places to have these different experiences. And you now are multifaceted in your understanding of global Christianity.

One of the most foremost experts on global Christianity and diaspora Christianity. What I want to hear a little bit about, first of all, let's talk about diaspora. Now first of all, are we saying the word correctly?

Is it diaspora or diaspora?

Yeah, you know, it's a Greek word, you know, diaspora, you know, or some people, you know, pronounce it in different ways. Especially when it comes to English. It gets, you know, called by all different kind of pronunciation.

It's basically is two words, two Greek, Latin words that comes together in English, you know, dia and spora. It just simply Greek word means scattering.

And then subsequently the New Testament writers pick up that verse to Explain the scattering of the Jews, how Jewish people were forcefully displaced and for the gospel.

And because diaspora is an important factor to understand the growth and the advancement of Christianity all through the ages, even coming to our times. So Jewish people who from one locality who got dispersed and that become the conduit or the trajectory through which Christianity spread and grew.

And so that becomes an important lens to understand mission and understanding God's work in the world today.

We're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back. The most important Bible translation is the one you read at Apollos Watered.

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Get one today because understanding the Bible changes everything. And the NLT is the Bible you can understand. You talk about how people have traveled around the world and you're working though for Lausanne.

And I want to introduce. I know many people that listen to our show are familiar with Lausanne, others are not. Introduce us to Lausanne and what LAUSANNE does.

LAUSANNE is a global network of Christian leaders from various walks of life. Pastors, evangelists, missionaries, teachers, homemakers, business people, leaders of all kind who believe in a historic Christian faith.

And it was began with Billy Graham and John Stott, two great leaders of the Euro American Church in the 50s and 60s.

I want to go. How do you get an invitation? Or can I just totally sneak in?

Yeah, it is my invitation only. I mean, we're talking about the global church. There are 3 billion, 3 billion Christians in the world.

And we have room for 5,000 people in person and 5,000 people online.

Wow, that's amazing. So you have to be pretty exclusive in who you allow in and who you don't allow in.

Yeah, but I mean, it's not, of course, younger leaders. We really have a committee who really decides the process. And so we have a process in place.

So beyond our lifetime, how do we create something that will gain momentum for the coming decades, will have lasting impact on the shape of Christianity on the planet by the end of this year, the end of the century.

You have a specific focus within Lausanne. I mean, you do a lot of different things, but your main title is.

Oh, 74 is when that started.

1974, UPG came as an idea on the mission platform.

It is the professor from Fuller Seminary who stood on the Luzon's platform and said that we have to reach define people by UPG anthropological definition rather than nationality. And until then, reaching the nations was the idea. And he unpacked.

All of that become the focus area for study and research and work and resources and deployment and all that help.

Our listeners to understand the importance of this. Because as you said, it's a recent. I mean, it's an ancient word, but the focus has been much more recent.

This idea of diaspora communities or diaspora communities. Why do we need to talk about diaspora today?

Very good question. I think the idea is migration, movement of people. How do we understand how that shapes and reshapes Christianity?

And Christianity in all its history, it is shaped and influenced significantly by the movement of people. It is not geographically rooted or grounded like some of the other faiths are.

Hinduism, for example, believes that you have to live and die in a place close to where you're born, because your destiny, your salvation, all of that is tied to the place of birth. There is scripture prohibits people from traveling over waters.

You cannot travel over water because you lose your caste, lose your identity, and you fall to the lowest caste.

Even if you go somewhere and then come back, you're supposed to do special rituals and ceremonies to cleanse you because you have become contaminated and imperial.

Sounds like a religious shoots and ladders, like, for kids. Like, you got to make your way up and then you do something bad and you slide back down and you got to start all over again. Is that right?

Yeah. But the idea that you're supposed to live and die in the same place, you're not supposed to go anywhere, and especially crossing waters.

But all of that notion is gone because now people don't have livelihood and they go to the nearest city and then they find a job and they go abroad.

But even now, many of the temples, you know, the religious priests, you cannot enter the inner sanctum of many Hindu temples if you have traveled abroad because you are unclean. But God of the Bible is a universal God. Jesus is a universal savior.

Remember John the Baptist who comes and says, look, the lamp of God who takes away the sin of the world, the whole world. Cosmos is the word there. And so the idea that he's a universal savior, he rose again and he told his disciples to go to the ends of the earth.

The Christianity is embraced of all people, all cultures, all languages. Bible can be translated. And one of the great missionary efforts have been translated.

So whenever missionary work is displacement, every missionary is a migrant. They go from one place to another place. And so as a result of displacement, when you come to a new place, you see the differential.

These new people don't have the Bible. But I come from a land where there's a Bible in my home. There is Bible in the sitting and several copies of it sitting in the shelf.

And they have a great value and appreciation for the Scripture in their own languages. And some of the early missionaries become a strong advocate of translation ministries and translated the Bible into those languages.

So displacement, missionary displacement creates the need for translation and making the Bible available in those languages. And so similarly, now we say every migrant is a missionary, just like every missionary is a migrant.

It is the story of displacement where the missionary thrust activation and missionary diffusion. Gospel diffusion happens because of the displacement and the differential. The displacement creates for the need for the gospel war in the new land.

So understanding displacement, migration, missionary work and the Christian faith at the very heart of it, which is so different from every other faith because a lot of them are regional, tribal, territorial, oppressive. And as compared to that, Christian gospel is liberative. You're not bound to a land or a culture or a people.

Different people will be the representative of Christian faith all through his history and will continue to do so.

You know what's amazing to me, Sam, is as you're talking about this, I kept thinking of the Old Testament where they talk about their God is the God of the lands or the mountains or this geography, and the God of Israel is the God of gods. And you talk about how these missionaries are migrants. They're going into these different cultures.

But we're also seeing, as we said, alluded to a little bit earlier, this idea of diaspora or diaspora, these people that are. I still can't get it right. I got it in my head. I have to rethink it. It's the same with Augustine and Augustine. I can't get it. Potato, potato.

I don't know. We're just going to go with the dia. The dia. The idea of these guys moving around the world.

Why were these people being displaced around the world so Much that Lausanne needed to pay attention.

Yeah, I think it's become a significant in terms of numbers. It used to be a long distance, long term migration was a pretty lots of hassles involved.

She traveled on a ship and she was here for two years of graduate studies. I think she wrote two letters or something back home in the two years that she was here. Because communication was so much more harder.

We take it for granted because we can connect on Internet, Zoom and WhatsApp. And we live in a very different world, 21st century communication and transportation. So I think as a result, more connected, we are more informed.

We are. We will travel more. More we travel, more likely we will become Christian.

And if you are a Christian, so that somebody says if you're a Christian, you will travel and if you travel, you will become a Christian.

I've never heard that before, but I.

Like that because displacement is in the story of Christianity.

Yes.

And so God who moved into my neighborhood and now people are moving into your neighborhood and my neighborhood and others are coming here. We have come here. And again, American Christianity. We need to understand America is a land of immigrant. American Christianity is immigrant.

Christianity is. I see.

So describe that. I mean we're talking about diaspora. We're talking about people that have been driven off their homelands for famine, work, economics, war.

And they're coming into our countries. Some are refugees, some are coming just for the simple opportunity, looking for education. And I think you're right, as we have really codified.

Give me. I mean even with the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired. You're poor people looking for liberty, looking for opportunity.

It's the land of opportunity. And we are a land of immigrants, as you've mentioned. It's what's made the country great of so many different cultures coming together.

But you just mentioned immigrant Christianities. Describe what you mean by that.

Yeah. So what we need to realize is Christianity is not native to America. Jesus did not come to America. He did not grow up here.

You know, do his ministry here. Jesus is the center of our faith. Jesus lived in a faraway land in Palestine. So how did Christianity come to America? It was through the immigrants.

So the wave after wave of different immigrants brought their unique expression of Christianity from different shores of the world.

First it was Spanish, then the Portuguese and then the Dutch and then the French and the English and others have brought their unique Christianity to America. Then, of course, Swedish and Norwegians and the, you know, you know, you know, Spain and France and Switzerland and others also came.

Irish and Scottish, they all came and pitched their tent here in America and established their faith. So, for example, Anglican church, when English came, they brought the English church.

So the queen established the great cathedral in Manhattan that become the center of the faith. Now the great Anglican church on the Wall street, it was the church of England that was established.

So when the Irish people, okay, before that, probably the Presbyterians, what did the Scottish people do? Scottish people came and established their Presbyterian church. Germans came and established their Lutheran church.

So did the, you know, the Dutch and the, you know, you know, Norwegians and the Swedish and the Finnish, they all created their own churches. And so those becomes the starting point of these churches.

Then subsequent generations, second, third, fourth generation of these Europeans, they came. They, you know, shaped what has become the American evangelical church.

Evangelicalism grew out of those struggles in the late 19th and early 20th century. And that shaped American Christianity. So every American can trace their roots to an immigrant beginning.

And then what happened in the post second world War, we see the Eastern Europeans and also the Jewish people who find their home in America. Then of course, South America after the revolution, we find Latin American migration into the country.

In the last 30 years or so, Asia has been a major wave. Of course, we skipped over the African slave wave when millions of Africans were brought into America and that become the African American stream.

I often would like to see American Christianity as the great mighty Mississippi. Here is this great river.

Every stream from different, different parts, they brought the unique flavor, unique Christian expression and the spirituality to this great stream. And every time a stream joins the main river, there is increased flow and activity and mobility within that river.

Otherwise it'll sediment and it'll become shallow and without any flow, and it'll become dead and lifeless. And so every stream, the European stream, which comprise of many, many minor unique streams within that.

And then the African stream, and then the Latin American stream came, and now there are 63, 64 million Latin American, Latin American from Mexico And Central and South America are here in America. And you know, so that's a very unique stream, Spanish speaking, largely from a, you know, past Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostals background.

The immigration reform. There was a major act at the Congress and they undid all the bans on originating countries where people were allowed into the country in the U.S. so.

What countries were not allowed in Asia?

It is called Asian Exclusion Act. It began as a Chinese exclusion act in California. The Chinese were coming because of the Gold Mountain and the Chinese migration there.

They didn't want many Chinese because they were cost cutting Europeans. And so they were working in their labor and the railways and worked labor migrants who came from Hawaii and Hawaii to California.

Of course it was largely Chinese, Indians, but also Filipinos, Korean and others.

So when we're talking about the Asian Christianities, because we have so many different streams of it, but I find that a lot of Westerners in the United States aren't familiar with so many different Asian Christianities. They think of it as a whole, but it's very, very different. Each culture that comes in is very, very different.

How many are we talking about when we're talking about Asian Christianities? About roughly. I know that so many depends on people groups and so on and so forth.

Yeah, I think our numbers will be, you know, I mean, it's just varied.

I mean, depends on, you know, so they might, you know, the idea is when first generation comes in, they will start their services in their own language and the culture becomes very important.

What he meant is when immigrants come, they bring their language and culture, but in the process of Americanization, we lose the language and culture more.

Second generation, third generation don't know any language and cultural competency in their ancestral land and the people reduces significantly over the second and third generation. We get Americanized.

Is that true though, for any country? We see so many immigrants going into Germany because of war in Syria.

Do you think that still Germanization happens there too, where they're learning German and they're not holding onto their language or is that just unique to the American.

Experience, I think it is in many ways just survival issue. When immigrants go to a foreign country to find employment, to live in that society, to go into a college, learning that language becomes important.

But of course, English is a global language. And you know, people all over the world, common language that is globalized, you know, you know, it is English most global language.

But if you have Syrian refugee or Iraqi refugee who's arriving in Germany, you know, one of the first thing is within first six months we have to.

Learn German language to be able to survive.

That way you can go to the market and do your shopping and you know, you know, live in the society, fill up the forms, seek the refugee status, find a job and livelihood. All of that is possible only if you learn German. Immigrants become multilingual. I speak five languages. I just grew up in India.

Most Indian people speak at least three languages. That's very naturally we come to what we call as a polyglot or multilingual competency.

Because Christians are multilingual, Christianity is multilingual. If you know only one language, you will be poorer for not knowing rest of the Christian struggle.

I don't even know one language. I know half of the language. You know five. What are the languages that you speak?

Many of them are Indian languages and I'm learning few others. You know, foreign languages. But just that's just the nature of India. India is a multilingual nation.

Every kid learns three languages minimum their regional language, which is their mother tongue.

They learn a national language in the form of Hindi and then speak another language, English because of, you know, science, technology, engineering, business and law. And you know, everything is taught in English. And by the way, India is the largest English speaking country in the world.

There are more people speak English in India than England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, America all put together.

That's crazy. That is just crazy. I don't know anybody that's ever recited that statistic to me. That's phenomenal.

When I first came to America some 30 years ago, I remember my wonderful colleagues who had never been outside California, they said that, hey, when did you learn to speak English so well?

Before you, and better than you?

No, no. So I said, English is not your language, neither is my original langu.

And then I said that the same stat and I said, there are more people speaking, how did you speak English? And I said, I don't speak only English, I speak few other languages.

And because that's the nature of the colonial legacy, British came to India and left behind English and couldn't cricket and the love for it.

I love it. So let's talk about India there for a bit. You're talking about Indian diaspora. You've actually written a book, Desi Diaspora.

I mean, you've got some other books out now that are talking about these Asian diaspora communities. But this is ministry among scattered global Indian Christians because we see a lot of Indians.

I know in my sphere of influence and where I live, there are a lot of different Indian communities that are there. I can go watch a soccer or football game, American soccer, and you'll see everyone there is speaking Hindi or Malayali.

And I don't think though that the people that I interact with on a normal basis are familiar with this group. We know that there are Indians everywhere we go.

Some of the most educated CEOs we see in the tech industry, we see the medical industry, we see even food service, running restaurants, so on and so forth. But how many Indians do we see living in and let's just say the United States right now? How many Indians are living in the United States roughly?

So if you include the larger South Asian population, South Asia is a continent of Indian subcontinent which includes India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. So these are the seven nations in and around India. They are largely clubbed together as South Asian or the Indian subcontinent.

And all of them were under the British rule. After the British left, they were broken up into several nations. And so that region, there's nearly 5.5 million people in the U.S.

but Indians particularly stand out. They are the most educated, wealthiest minority in America right now.

I mean, as you said, they're most educated. You're right.

We see again across all these different industries, what's the religious makeup and how many, what percentage of this group is Christian?

Around 20%. So almost a million Indians are Christians. Because the early waves in late 60s and early 70s, it is often called as the healthcare wave.

America had a shortage of nurses and doctors. The healthcare system was faltering and after the there was no nurses and hospital system was falling apart. They needed medical professionals.

They brought large number of them from Philippines and then India. Nurses and medical doctors, large number of them came in the late 60s and early 70s.

And so that healthcare industry, Christian presence was very high in India because a lot of the medical institutions and hospitals were all created by the missionary who came from the west, from America, from England, from Germany and others.

And so many Indians won't send their daughters to study in college or even professional fields like nursing because nursing was a very, you know, disregarded or, you know, profession of disrepute. And because you have to touch somebody else's man, married a woman is not supposed to touch anybody else because they'll.

Defile them in Hinduism, is that culturally.

Or religious or both religious and cultural beliefs. And they had to be homebound and committed, devoted to their husband and not touch blood. Blood will make you impure.

Touching another man will make you impure and unfaithful to your husband. And all of those kind of very age old superstition and religious beliefs confine people from pursuing these careers.

It is the Christian families who send their daughters to study medicine and doctor and nursing and all that.

So when America needed nurses, it is a Christian belt that they send from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat and other places where many, many who came in the first wave of Indians were Christians. Nearly 60% of Indians in the 60s were Christians and then gradually declined.

Now with the 20% being Christian, that means 80% are Hindu and oh no, Hindu.

50% or so are Hindus.

50% are Hindus. So the rest would be like Muslim, Jainist, Buddhist, Sikh, Sikh, yeah, Sikh, Sikh.

People who wear turban. It's a. Sikhism is a faith. It's not S I K H. Some of my American friends don't even know about this religion. They think Sikh people, it's not.

Speaking of this.

It is the Legion of Sikhism.

Do you know this guy? Light of the Satguru. Do you know him? Jasvir. I'd like to have Jasvir on the show.

And so Sikhism is a religion, you know, that also grew up in India in protest to Hindu traditions. Jainism is another religion. And of course India is also large Islamic community and also Bangladesh and Pakistan.

So many have come from those regions as well, but smaller percentage. And the second largest Indian religious affiliation is to Christianity and the first being.

Hinduism, number one is Hinduism. How does that work then I thought they were defiled if they flew over the ocean. How's that work?

Yeah, so you know, I mean there's also the idea of, you know, land of gold and you know, opportunity. They were educated populace. India couldn't employ them. There was not enough opportunities. Higher studies 70s and 80s.

In the late 70s there was an American Indian, American scientist who got Nobel Prize. That kind of really rocked the Indian world. And we only had found India had only got one Nobel Prize. Before that it was for literature.

Here is a science and technology guy, astrophysicist, who got a Nobel Prize for his invention and that set the American Academy. Hey, there are good scientific minds in India in engineering and maths.

70s and 80s American universities started hunting for young men and women to come and study graduate studies and do doctoral research in America.

So millions of them came over 70s and 80s and they become the brain power of some of the innovations in the medical, science and technology, Wall street academia in America.

And so the brightest of the brightest young men and women were brought to America, taught them in the American academics, research and scientific methodologies and they become subsequently great inventors, business leaders and entrepreneurs. Google chief is Indian. Microsoft chief is Indian. Adobe and IBM, all of them being headed by Indians. Now these are the cream of the cream from India.

And some of the best education they got in India they brought here, they went to top schools in America and they got hired by American company and they're delivering big time to the economy here and to their cultural influence in America because that's why they're wealthiest and the most educated ethnic minority, much like the Jewish people were in the early 20th century. And now Indians are the cream of the cream in America.

So how then you have so many Indians, 20%, as you said, are coming in as Christians and they're helping strengthen the church and as you said, contribute to the greater Mississippi stream.

I love that imagery of the flowing in and strengthening the stream and hoping, acting as a corrective for those things that have gone much more Americanized than the true gospel. I think this is where God bringing the nations helps, I think help us remove our blind spots when we can see and fully see God.

More of a new begin approach in that regard. Looking at that though, there are still so many, as you said, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims.

I find though that many within the, let's say the white evangelical church are not embracing or don't know how to reach, I shouldn't say it that way. They don't know how to reach. Reach out to Indians. And again this is. This is a diverse group of people in so many different ways.

Different states, different religious backgrounds, different educational levels, all the different caveats. And then depending on the level of globalization and how long they've been here, Americanization that's happened.

I mean, you've even written a book on that called the Coconut Generation. The younger people that are growing up here in America that are dark on the outside but are quote, unquote white on the inside.

That's a whole different approach. How do we help the church see and embrace the group that needs to be reached, number one?

Number two, how do we appeal or even reach into that Hindu group?

And three, how do we minister differently between the older generation that has either newer, the first generation that's been here, because there are still a lot of first generation or even second generation and different between that and the third generation. So I got five questions right there for you. If you got to write all those down.

I know that's a one hour of talk in there itself. You have to unpack that. I know you're trying to cover so much of ground here.

There's so much of literature and so much of research have gone into each of those questions. I'll try to attempt maybe, you know, briefly.

That's three more hours for each question. All right, take a stab at it.

Hold on, pause there. You said all time low. Christians talking to non Christians or personal contact with non Christians all time low.

13% of Hindus in America have a contact with a Christian. Is that right?

In America it is.

20%.

20% of Hindus have a contact. Personal contact with a Christian in America.

Wow.

They never stepped into a house of a Christian. They never invited a Christian into their home. They never know.

They do professional exchange at a workplace, at a local store, but they really got to sit together, have a coffee, meet with them, talk to them, get to know them. One is the otherness. We are over. We don't know. Indian center. Maybe a little more philosophical and religious in their orientation.

They are definitely a lot more conservative than Western conservatives in issues of gender, sexuality, relationship issues and understanding of life and values of life. I think the idea that. What does it mean? We've become so siloed. The great strength of America is people coming from everywhere.

But we all live in our little silos. It is important for Christians to know and have the courage.

You don't have to have answer for everything, but just befriend them, befriend people who are unlike you, greet them, get to know where you are from and you know, what brought you to America when you came to America. They want to talk, but sometimes we feel kind of. We pull into our cave and kind of into our shell and we don't have enough courage.

I mean, they'll ask questions I don't know how to answer from the Bible. You don't have to be an expert in the Bible. Just personal relational skills is an important cultural skills.

And I think as pastors and leaders, we also have a responsibility to help our people to see people because we have these. It's not like a blind spot, but somehow it doesn't appear on our radar.

There are a lot of people are oblivious, they're walking around us, but I don't see them.

We need to develop a sense of knack of watching people and engaging in conversation and inquiring where they came from and listening to their stories. We can go through the business of life and life in the motion of, you know, religious motion.

I do my church, you know, with hundred people or five thousand people, whatever the size of your church is, tick mark on my Christianity and go on with life as I want to live.

So you're saying building relationships is key, that personal connection?

Absolutely, absolutely. And learning about the world.

Learning about the world. So listening.

Christianity is growing in other parts of the world. Christianity is growing from other parts of the world.

And many people who have come to America, almost most majority of the people who have come to America are Christians. That is something that they don't realize.

Just because they don't look like my same skin color or, you know, don't show up at my church every other Sunday does not mean they are not Christians. Because, you know, there are 700 million Christians in Africa, 600 million Christians in Latin America. There are some 450 million Christians in Asia.

So where they say in the history of Christianity, where Christianity grows, it pushes its people out, they become mobile and they go to places to the ends of the earth. And now many who are coming to America, are they Christians.

They may go to a church across the street, but I don't want to talk to them because they are not doing church the way I do church. They are not coming under my leadership as a local pastor of this church and paying their tithes to this church so I can minister to them.

That's a fallacy of modern, dichotomized, siloed Christianity.

It would be imperative, I would think, though, that some pastors, if they're not looking at the trends and the numbers are down, at least with American Christianity.

Post Covid, I was talking with a guy who places pastors and he said, I'm talking to people and they're still citing their numbers from pre Covid, he goes, it's, it's two years later, he goes, those people are gone. And we're seeing a cultural shift right now between paradigms. But God is still bringing the nations and he's bringing a lot of the people around us.

Why does the church have, and let me put it this way, why does the white Western evangelical church, and I'm sure there's other pockets too, and I'm just going to cite the one that I come from right now, have such a hard time seeing God bringing in these different groups and seeing him working and partnering together for the furtherance of the gospel. What. And I'm sure there's not just one factor, but what do you see is keeping these groups apart from one another?

Yeah, I think it always. The one is, I think, immigrant Christianity. We all go into our respective streams and we don't merge. We continue to flow as independent streams.

But the second third generation might jump out of the stream and then come to the mainstream. But they don't get recognized because they are a Chinese or Korean or a Latino.

So they don't get recognized or their culture celebrated or they want them to whitewash them and become like, act like the mainstream Christian because this is how we do church and Christianity. So that becomes the normative understanding of the Christian faith.

And there is less room for variety and celebrate the diversity that is in the global church. And, you know, so, you know, I think it was John Stott who said, you know, we had to become global Christians because our God is a global God.

And, you know, and so there was another African theologian who said, if I belong to Christ, I belong to everyone who belong to Christ. I can never understand Christian faith all by myself. I need Christians who does not look like me.

And they will enrich my understanding of the Christian faith and the global church because we are at a time in the history of the church where there is a Christian in every country of the world, every geopolitical entity of the world. There are church. It must.

Sunday morning, as I stand in the church sing a song or a preach or give your tithes or whatever you do, your offering and fellowship and small groups or whatever your activities are Sunday schoolers.

You must recognize it is not that these 200 people who agree doctrinally and do everything together, you know, the four walls of your church, there are men and women in every country of the world, all over the world this Sunday, they have worshiped my sense of solidarity with the global family of God. And so we have to globalize our faith. Our narrow, parochial, you know, nationalized or ethnicized understanding of faith, you know, keeps us so poor.

And I think it was in our last week, I was listening to N.T. wright, great Bishop N.T. wright, from an Anglican bishop.

He was saying division of the church along the lines of nationality, language, ethnicity and cultural lines have effectively blunted the witness of the church in the world. So we nationalized our church, which is the German church, English church, Irish church, whatever that is in America. We got racialized it.

Black church, white church, brown church.

You know, we kind of ethnicized and racialized our Christian faith because our biases, our lack of understanding of the global church, the gospel, where there is no black or white, no Jew or gentile, no man or woman. Understanding the global church is imperative for the American church.

At the crossroads of this kind of post racialized, the tension with the political and race issues have become so galvanized. And we need to understand that our faith is universal. Our faith is a global faith because our God is a global God.

He has children, that is my brothers and sisters of brown and yellow and every color and every stream all over the world.

The more we can help our people to globalize their faith, understanding the global family of the faith, they will have a richer experience of the Christian faith.

Taking that into consideration, all these people.

Who are coming from around the world is helping American church to become global.

Totally agree.

More global. The American church is more globally relevant. We will be. And more globally connected. We will be.

They also bring us connection to those parts of the world where there is a revival breaking out.

Yes.

Like in China.

Yes.

If you know Chinese Christians, the fastest growth of Christianity right now is happening in China. So if you know the church in underground church in China, that will set you on fire to understand your own thing.

She's Hannah Nation. Hannah Nation is coming on the show to talk about this.

You're seeing the church explode around the world, but you're not seeing it in the United States. And I mentioned that.

I think that the Western church, the white evangelical, Western church and you could say it into the different pockets that's racialized. By staying in our own little pockets, we find comfort, but we lose a greater global conviction. And our testimony, I think, suffers.

You know, I've talked about this and I'm writing this right now. We have the Great Commission, right to go make disciples of all nations.

We all know the Great Commission, the Great Commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. But then there's the great community, and I think that's the one that we've been missing. John 17.

I pray they may be one as we are one, so the world may know. This unity that we have to work through shows the reality of our heart and our conviction.

And without that, without being together, without working through these issues, I think our vision of God dissipates. I think we can become comfortable. I think we give in to the kind of carbon monoxide of our culture. It slowly lulls us to a spiritual sleep.

But when I'm with someone else, working out my differences, it's work. It's work to understand, to listen, to be hospitable, to open up our home, to hear stories. But it's so worth the price.

I just wish that so many in the church would be able to see this, what you're talking about.

I mean, it enriches my experience, it enriches my understanding, broadens my outlook, and gives me great sense of compassion, my understanding and empathy. At the same time, they are bringing and helping me to see my faith in a whole different level.

And I think America Church will be in a better place more than no immigrants around the world.

Well, as you said, because a lot of the immigrants that are coming in are more conservative anyway, so they have no problem taking the Bible as the word of God, no problem with the biblical authority, no problem with understanding of the Holy Spirit. I mean, there's not. They're not coming with. I mean, they have their own baggage. We all have our own cultural baggage, but this is a.

This is something that can revive and renew the church if we would just do it now. Saying that is one thing. The practical implications of doing it are very different.

And any pastor will either will say, if I try to do this, I'm going to lose my people. I'm going to lose my tithers, my givers, my. My robustness.

Because this is so out of the comfort zone of so many people that I'll lose them before I get the opportunity to do so. So take a step, right? It's. It's being a part of that step. The next step. The next step. What's the small little step?

And as you said, it starts with building relationships. I think though, that some people want to just give the quote, unquote, four spiritual laws and go on. What do people miss?

This is getting much more practical. How do we go about sharing the gospel, talking about Indian diaspora now and the Hindu specifically?

Let's focus on the Hindu because we could focus on any of the other group. How do we share the gospel when their worldview is so different?

When many of us have come from a christened mindset where the idea of one God is just. That's a given. But here you're talking about a polytheistic, long term historical faith.

What are the practical steps that we need to do to help overcome those barriers of sharing and showing Jesus to them?

Yeah, very good question. Again, I would say that you don't have to take up the apologetic, philosophical approach.

Most Indians that you will meet are probably more educated, more well versed, more religious than average American evangelical. So that is not the approach that you need to take. I would say that take a relational approach.

Get inquisitive about their family, talk about their community, talk about which part of India do you come from? And they all want to talk about that. Ask about what language do they speak. As if you're interested. Ask them one or two greetings in that language.

This applies to Indians and every other immigrants that you will run across here in America. So these are bridge builders or conversation starters. Ask about the family. Asian community is very family oriented in America.

Family system has fallen apart. They don't even open or have a conversation on family. But you don't have to talk about your family.

But you talk about, okay, who are I in your family? I see several people coming and going out of your neighbor's grave, out of the driveway, and who are their family?

Do you have parents or relatives back in India or China or Korea? Who are the people are kind of break a conversation about relationship, family, community. When did you come to America? What brought you to America?

What do you do for a living? These are conversations that you can have in the grocery aisle and in the airport or in the plane sitting next to you.

You don't have to share anything about, you know, sharing the spiritual laws or get them baptized at the end of the conversation. It is a series of conversation.

If hundreds of us will consistently engage in the series of conversation with everyone who is in our neighborhood, in our workplaces, and I think ball will start rolling. They are also ministering to you. They are expanding your understanding. Your heart is expanded. You have a greater burden. And let's pray for them.

You have one or two people that you talk to this week. Let's pray for those people. Then I do my homework. Okay? He said that he is from, he speaks Telugu, it's a language in India.

And he comes from such and such state in India. Let me go and research about that. What is this language? Telugu? Is there Bible available in that language?

By the way, Telugu language was translated by William Carey, the father of modern missions. And you know, just gotta find out suddenly, you know, so I have something to talk about.

You know, did you know how, you know there was a man who came from England and you know, who translated, who learned your language and translated the entire Bible into a language. Oh really? Our language was developed because of the Western missionaries.

You don't have to take pride or take, you know, take, you know, claims of you have done the work or what that is. But the idea that you are respectful of differences in language and culture and celebrate the difference.

And so having these conversations, a series of conversations, go back, do your research and then have another conversation at the next, another plane altogether. And a series of conversations that you can have, get to have their family, have the family over.

You know, you will get invited into their homes and you don't have to be sharing the gospel, but build relationship over a long periods of time. And then they will ask you why you believe, what you believe, why do you do certain things, why you do certain things.

And then he can say, that Sunday I go to church, I believe in Jesus because Jesus changed my life. And I know fellow other, I met other Indians who are Jesus followers, don't make it into religion.

You know, philosophical arguments, you know, you know, when are you really, you know, saved and you know that their idols are all, you know, you know, wrong or false gods. And you know, you don't have to attack any of their faith backgrounds.

Just press in Jesus and how Jesus has changed your life and why Jesus is so important to you and what he has taught, why you believe in the Bible and why you read Bible every day. Share your spirituality, your love for Jesus with other people.

When they ask you, don't volunteer and go out and try to bulldoze them and be gentle and kind and be Available, continue to pray and do your homework. Soon or later they will ask the question, what do you believe? And now, now is the time for you to share.

And don't as a dogmatic doctrinal statement, but personalize it. What does the Bible, what does Jesus mean? What does it mean faith, Christian faith has meant for you.

What do you say to those? Because I've interacted with some folks who basically they want to do the presentation right away.

What's the danger of doing that with someone that's coming from a Hindu background?

Yeah, I would say that that may be the last conversation they will have with you.

They'll just shut it down.

You have to take a long, long approach, a long drawn approach in engaging especially Hindus. Why so?

Yeah, I think, you know, because their religious orientation and then communal nature of their faith because sometimes it's difficult for individual to believe in certain things. You know, Hinduism is a communal faith. The whole family, the whole clan believes in certain things and the God is the family God.

So a young woman who may be impressed with Jesus and Jesus teachings and your church and community, but she's not at the liberty to personally believe in what she wants to believe because her father, her husband, her community is, you know, it's a communal faith that they believe in. It is not individualized.

And as in a Western enlightenment idea of individually, I am choosing Jesus, you know, in my heart and I receive Christ to be my Savior. This is a very consumeristic, individualized understanding of Christian faith and individual.

A Hindu background has not at the liberty to make a choice of their own, especially in matters of faith. It's a communal decision.

And so even if the individual decides that we need to give room for others to have a say, so kind of sustained relationship over long periods of time.

And when they go through difficulties, when they go through family problems, when they lose their job, when they have challenges in life, they have nobody to turn to.

May you be the one that they will turn to and then you be there to offer a prayer, assure them you are there with them, you will be praying for them and they will ask you to pray for them.

And I often ask that I pray, I'll pray to Jesus and I will ask the prayer in Jesus because when I ask something in Jesus name, because Jesus promised that he will listen and he will answer, is that okay? And many Hindus have said yes, could you please pray to your Jesus for me? And I'll gladly intercede and pray for them.

And so I think, you know, we need to stand with them, you know, Individuals that are international student or young professional who moved into the country, you know, this country four or five years ago or two months ago, they're very lonely people. They don't have many relationships.

If you can build a sustained relationship, they will turn to you for all their life challenges here in this new country and those becomes amazing opportunity to live out the gospel before you share the gospel.

Sam, this has been a delightful conversation. I want to continue this and have you back on because I think we've only scratched the surface.

How can people follow more of what you're doing and learn more about what you're doing?

So I'm based in Chicago. I teach at Wheaton College and Trinity and few other schools and around the world and but I'm served with Luzon.

So look me up@luzon la u s a n n.org and you can search for me and you can find me. I'm part of the Catalyst team and so you can find me there. Or if you're in Chicagoland area, you know, please come over to Wheaton.

We can be happy to connect with them. There's otherwise email or Twitter would be the best way to reach me. And thank you for what you do. Travis.

We miss you here in Chicago, but on these winter days I guess you have no regrets of living in nice Florida, warm weather.

I've got shorts on right now.

Yeah, here it is 34 degrees here. But we are glad, glad for your ministry, your podcast and your audience and what you're doing there.

Proud of you and God bless your work and your conversation with many leaders around the world and around here in the US and your faithful listeners. Please share this with other people.

Others will be blessed with the great breadth of audience and depth of their insight that Travis is bringing to you. And may you continue to learn and be enriched and grow and understand God's work and God's purposes for your life for such a time as this.

I love that image of American Christianity being like the Mississippi River. All the streams going into it are what keeps it flowing forward. We all contribute and we do need one another.

Christianity has always been a diaspora movement, an immigrant movement. It is always and will always move and shift demographics and styles because in Christ, God opens himself to everyone and we get to be a part of it.

That is awesome. We get to be a part of something so much bigger than we are on our own. Sam's reminder to us gets to the heart of who we are in Christ, doesn't it?

He takes us all and brings us in. He wants to be with us. So why wouldn't we want to bring in others, too? It might take work and time, but it's really not that complicated.

Show genuine interest in people. Learn about them. Show them who you are.

It's really not so different than what we've heard from other guests like Audrey Frank or Nick Ripken or Ruth Ripken. Even in our differences, we are human beings created in the image of God. And when we really get to know one another, we get to see God more clearly.

We can see God through the eyes of believers from around the world. And we can help others who don't know him see Him. And guess what? We get to see him better when we do that, too. That's a true renewal of the church.

We get to see that we are a part of something so much bigger, that our brothers and sisters from around the world are us too. That waters my faith, and I hope it waters you. I want to thank our Apollos water team for making this dream a reality.

And I want to thank you for listening to our show. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off from Apollo's Watered. Stay watered, everybody.