First of all, we have to know what groups are here and where they are living. One can travel to the Himalayas and find that American Christians know who is there, what the status of the Christian witness is among the different groups, and have strategies and personnel in place to reach them. We even have North American churches that have adopted these groups and take several trips a year to visit them. All the while, we are unaware that representatives from these same ethnic groups have moved to places like New York in great numbers, have great influence over their networks back home, and even drive the taxis American Christians get around in while on vacation.

Furthermore, in places like New York, where multiculturalism is trendy, churches are more apt to desire a church with representatives from all nations than they are to strategically engage a specific ethnic community with a strategy that makes the gospel accessible to large numbers of people within that culture. When our desire for a multicultural church dominates and exceeds our desire for an expression and strategy to engage the different language groups and cultures around us, some groups are certain to be neglected. As an example, one large church in New York had some Christians of Muslim-background who often set up a table in the church to provide resources for Muslims that came into the church to investigate Christianity. The leadership of the church made them stop setting up the table, because, "Our church does not target any group. All people are treated the same in our church." As a result, these Muslim inquirers no longer have direct access to resources that speak to their needs and answer the questions they ask.

Reaching these various groups in North America is different than reaching them in their home countries. The process of immigration and the context of where they now live changes their identity, sometimes ethnically and/or religiously and almost always economically. With these changes comes a different worldview requiring new, or at least adapted, strategies to reach them. Additionally, most areas of the world are more conducive to relationships than North America is and finding time to just "be" with people is more difficult and takes more creativity and planning. Churches will need to start thinking beyond their own programs and structure and go to where these groups are living, working, or playing.

I think that the immigrant and 2nd-generation churches will play a vital role in reaching out to other immigrants. We are already seeing in places like New York, that vibrant college ministries and missions mobilization courses like Perspectives are dominated by Asian-Americans. Hispanic groups are becoming increasingly evangelical in North America and might be best-positioned culturally and occupationally to reach out to Muslim immigrants in the cities.

Almost all cross-cultural missionaries in Metro New York are immigrants themselves or were trained to be missionaries overseas. We have to start raising up and training cross-cultural missionaries within North America. This will require radical changes in our thinking, our mission boards, and our churches. Evangelicals have largely retreated from cities in the last few decades, and our voice in society has lessened as a result. Christians need to intentionally move back into the cities to influence the media and the general culture of North America.

Finally, North American Christians need to do better at recognizing waves of immigration of different peoples and deploy people to them immediately. Most people switch religions during a time of dissonance in their lives. Immigration, usually motivated by some traumatic event, whether political, religious, economic, or social, inherently creates a stirring in individuals for something new and different. That is why they move! This window of opportunity is usually very short, maybe one or two years, before an immigrant settles into their new identity in North America. When Jews from the former Soviet Union migrated to New York in large numbers in the 1980s and 1990s, they were largely blank slates religiously speaking, due to the influence of communism. Many looked forward to becoming more religious in America and were open to suggestions. One pastor in Brooklyn was ready for this, and baptized over 600 Jews in six years. Most everyone else responded to the immigration too late, and the window of opportunity had already passed.