September 16, 2024
DULUTH, Ga. (BP) – Afghanistan. Benin. Brazil. Bulgaria. Cameroon. China. Colombia. Cuba. Dominican Republic. Ecuador …
The 2024 Paris Games opening procession of athletes? Were the contestants vying for 2024 Miss Universe taking their place on stage? No, and no.
It was the Aug. 25th Parade of Flags at First Baptist Church of Duluth, Ga., celebrating the 55 birth nations represented among the 400 members who attend the church on any given Sunday morning.
When First Baptist Duluth held its first Parade of Flags after the London Games in 2012, members paraded 16 flags representing the church’s diverse membership. In 12 years, the church’s diversity has continued to grow with Gwinnett County, which the local chamber ranks as the fifth most diverse county in the nation, based on the latest U.S. Census data.
Senior Pastor Mark Hearn sees his pastorate as a picture of God’s handiwork, a biblical picture of immigration in action.
“When you look at Acts Chapter 17 that says God is orchestrating the patterns and the movement of people for them to come under the hearing of the Gospel,” he said, “I believe God is bringing people where they can get the message. And we have people that are members of our church that come from nations that we cannot send missionaries.
“And we have seen people come to Christ and then return home in areas that less than 1 percent of their native population are believers,” he said. “We are able to witness to people that have a global impact, that are able to carry the Gospel to places that we have very difficult times getting to.”
While some members have returned to their birth nations, the current membership includes active members whose births span 47 nations and include 35 language groups, Hearn said. Half of the congregation is Anglo.
The Parade of Flags was included in a worship service with a sermon by Jeff Ginn, International Mission Board vice president for mobilization.
Seven new believers were baptized from El Salvador, Colombia and the U.S., and two others joined by letter.
“That’s pretty typical for us,” he said. In the last 20 months, the church has baptized 74 new believers from 20 nations.
But the church doesn’t embrace the traditional “melting pot” image of America. Instead, Hearn seeks to accommodate each individual who joins the church.
“There is not dominant culture, including Anglo,” he said. “There just isn’t.
“We’re so incredibly unique. Most people when they come here, they say, ‘We’ve never seen anything like this.’ For some, it’s intimidating, to think how do you disciple people that come from such a variety of different backgrounds.”
Increasingly since 2017, most new members are born outside the U.S. In 2023, 80 percent were born outside the U.S., Hearn said, and on a typical Sunday, 80 percent of visitors are foreign-born.
The church’s multiculturalism is seen not just in the pews, but in the offices and on the church calendar.
Hearn heads a nine-member leadership team including a global/worship pastor from Indonesia, an African American community/discipleship pastor, a director of children’s and preschool ministries from South Korea, a One Voice Ministry director from South Korea, a family ministry coordinator and student ministry associate born in Jamaica, and three Anglos employed in the positions of student and family pastor, director of operations and weekday preschool administrator.
Holidays important to several cultures are on the church calendar and serve as evangelistic outreaches, with a recent Persian New Year drawing 50 Muslims to Gospel worship, Hearn said.
On the calendar are Three Kings Day, a Spanish celebration of Christmas; the Lunar New Year Celebration for Asian countries; African Celebration Sunday; Island Sunday; July 4th combined with a celebration of every member who became a U.S. citizen the previous year; Indian Independence Day; Spanish Heritage Month and a tailgate party celebrating high school football teams.
“By adopting culture, we’ve been able to share Christ and the Christian culture,” he said, “and it’s been a tremendous blessing.”
An international Thanksgiving service with a meal on Thanksgiving Day generally attracts more than 200 attendees from 20 different birth nations.
“A lot of them, it’s their first holiday away from family or away from home, and to have a place to go, and a place to connect and a place to belong,” he said. “And it’s been embraced by our congregation because it’s become a real ministry, a community ministry.”
When the meal was held on the church parking lot during COVID, curious passersby stopped to participate, Hearn said, and there was plenty of food.
Perhaps Hearn has never felt so blessed in his 43 years of ministry as he feels at First Duluth, he told Baptist Press.
“It is so neat to watch the Gospel being presented, oftentimes for the very first time, in people’s homes and seeing the miracles that are taking place with those Gospel transformation stories,” he said. “I could tell you dozens and dozens of them, where someone comes under the hearing of the Gospel for the very first time and the life transformation that takes place.
“We feel very fortunate, my wife and I. We love this area. We love this community.”
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This story first appeared in Baptist Press.
