Spencer Burke at TheOOZE has a great series of interviews with folks around the world about how they are living our their Christian faith in the emerging post-modern world. This week he talks about immigration with Matt Soerens.

“Immigrants are more than what they can contribute to our affluence,” says Matt Soerens. Made in the image of God, they are people like you and I who demonstrate the beautiful diversity of God’s creation of humanity. ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, talks with Soerens in the Chicago suburb where he lives. His neighbors are a diverse population including immigrants from Mexico, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

View Matt Soerens on Immigration and the Stranger

Soerens has co-authored a book about the church and immigration called “Welcoming the Stranger.” He says his goal with the book was not to convince anyone of a particular immigration policy but rather to look at the issue Biblically and ask—as Christians—what do we do with this complicated topic of immigrants and immigration?

Personal Reflections:
1. Take a moment to role play—what would you be feeling if you were in a foreign country, didn’t know the language, didn’t know the customs, you saw law-enforcement as an enemy and it was criminal to work, yet the conditions in your country were worse?
2. Moving beyond policy to personal, what has been your first-hand interaction with immigrants?

Small Group or Staff Questions:
1. Throughout history we’ve used language to de-humanize people we don’t want to deal with. How have terms like “alien” influenced you?
2. As a Christian, how do you feel about evaluating people solely on their economic impact to our organization, city, or country?