c. 1998 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ It’s a common urban story: On May 17, the members of Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn bid adieu to the congregation they and their immigrant forebears had nurtured for more than a century.

But in handing over to a group of newcomers the parish registry and a $110,000 check representing the church’s remaining assets, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation put an unusual twist on the story by witnessing the rebirth, rather than the death, of their parish. With that ceremony, the church created in 1885 became Salam Arabic Lutheran Church, the country’s first official Arab-Lutheran congregation.”That was their legacy,”the Rev. Khader El-Yateem, the church’s Bethlehem- born pastor, said of the congregational registry.”Now it’s our turn to carry it.” The story of Salam is, in many ways, the story of old, urban parishes throughout the country struggling to survive in an era of rapidly changing demographics.

Churches _ mostly Catholic and mainline Protestant _ established in the nation’s major urban areas by European immigrants in the 1800s and early 1900s are seeing their neighborhoods change as second- and third-generation Americans continue their flight to the suburbs and new immigrants take their place. “The members don’t easily give up on a building that has a sacred character,”said Patrick McNamara, a University of New Mexico sociologist, referring to congregations whose neighborhood demographics have shifted dramatically.”They’re willing to adapt to situations they never remotely envisioned.” While Salam is the first Arab-Lutheran church, the denomination _ originally made up largely of German and Scandinavian members _ is seeing the growth of Asian, Latino and Russian parishes. Similarly, urban Catholic parishes founded by Italian, Irish or other European immigrants are increasingly Latino, Filipino and Asian, while Presbyterian congregations are welcoming more Korean and Chinese congregants.

Trey Hammond, coordinator for urban ministry at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), said many parishes are in denial about the implications of urban demographic changes, while others have responded by relocating to the suburbs or deciding to focus their mission narrowly on their core constituency.

But, he said, other congregations have responded creatively to the new reality, choosing either to adapt by becoming multilingual and multicultural, or, like Salam, to totally transform the church to the ethnic character of the new group.

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Most mainline Protestant denominations remain overwhelmingly white and middle class, Hammond said, but most are beginning to recognize the demographic changes sweeping American cities. Presbyterians in particular are aided by a huge influx of mostly Korean immigrants who converted to Presbyterianism in their homeland because of missionary efforts there.

Hammond called multicultural churches a”powerful metaphor for what the church should be about,”but a”profound challenge”to create successfully.

In Catholicism, McNamara said, European immigrants, such as Germans and Poles, often came to the United States with pre-existing animosities for each other, leading to strict ethnic divisions within the church. But today, immigrants from Latin America, Asia and the Middle East are more often welcomed without hesitation, McNamara said.”Those old cultural variables are ceding to an awareness by the hierarchy and priests that we are all called to be one and minister to those in need, like immigrants,”he said.

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The ELCA has established about 350 ethnic churches within the past 10 years, mostly in large, urban centers such as New York, Newark, N.J., Miami, Houston and Chicago, according to the Rev. Gary Mills, assistant to the bishop of the ELCA’s New York Synod.”It allows us to continue to grow as a church,”said Mills, who also works on church development on the national level.”We as Lutherans have historically been an immigrant church, so we get to continue that immigrant tradition.” The transformation from Salem to Salam _ both words mean peace, in Danish and Arabic, respectively _ began three years ago, when the 20 or so remaining congregants at Salem predicted the demise of the congregation and noticed the area’s growing Arab population. They approached the ELCA’s New York Synod and asked for an Arab-speaking pastor to reach out to the newcomers.

El-Yateem was studying at Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia at the time and assumed after he was ordained he would return to Bethlehem, where he had taught comparative religion at a university. But he changed his plans for the new opportunity.

El-Yateem began by knocking on doors in the neighborhood and gradually introduced English classes and bilingual services to the church.

Bilingual services gave way to separate English and Arabic services within the past few months. The English services for the remaining Salem members sometimes draw as few as three congregants.

Until the formation of Salam, local Christian Arabs such as Adib Abdelshahed generally worshipped in rented rooms at other area churches. Now, Abdelshahed is director of youth activities at the new church.”I was really looking for a full-scale Arabic ministry to belong to, to have a community to belong to,”said Abdelshahed, who emigrated from Egypt 16 years ago.”Here we have the freedom to build a community of believers, of Arabic believers.” For old-timers like Rosa Tellefsen, a member of Salem for 42 years, the transition came with mixed emotions. She said she remembers when the church had 700 members, but cannot remember the parish being as full in recent years as it was for the ceremony creating Salam.”When we took the church registry and presented it to Salam, it was with a feeling of sadness,”Tellefsen said.

But moments later, she added:”I’m thrilled and really moved. It was thrilling to see the church filled with people who were worshipping.” The church’s Arab members hail from nine different countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan and Egypt, most of which do not have Lutheran or significant Protestant populations. Most Arabs are Muslim, but large minorities are Christian.

Most of Salam’s members were originally Catholic or Orthodox, El-Yateem said. The church’s few originally Protestant members are mostly Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian.”We are meeting the spiritual and social needs of the Arab community, and that is why people are coming to us even though the Lutheran church is not well known in the Middle East,”El-Yateem said.”We don’t care about the denominational background. What unites us now is our background as Arabs, our culture, our tradition.”

DEA END KRESS