Intercultural Church Planting
Revd Mohammad Eghtedarian, originally from a strict Muslim family in Iran, moved to the UK as an asylum seeker and was invited to church by a local parish vicar. He gave his life to Jesus and later became a Church of England vicar himself, serving his curacy at Liverpool Cathedral and working with asylum seekers.
Can you tell us about the situation you went to and the people you reached out to?
When asylum seekers arrive in the UK they are sent by the Home Office to Liverpool for a few months and then they are dispersed to different cities, or they arrive and they stay in Liverpool for a few years. So, the congregation was very fluid, people come and go, and it wasn't the only congregation. There were other Persian congregations in Liverpool, so they could move around and see different styles of church, services and liturgies.
When I arrived, there was a team of British people already taking care of them, about six or seven of them, some of the Persians who were part of the congregation had been there for a few years. So they were helping, but they weren't part of the leadership.
What happened while you were there?
I set up a system where we had five or six sessions of a baptism course in Farsi with up to 50 people attending, out of the 50 we baptised about 35 people. We baptised them as someone interested in and confessing the faith of Christianity, but who knows what has happened in their heart? Then they have a one-to-one interview with me—because of my background, I speak the language and understand their culture.
Then we observe them in what they do: are they involved with the life of the church? Do they help with serving tea and coffee? Are they helping other people or in wider society? We observed them as much as we can and then, when they finish that, periodically we have a Confirmation course.
But the problem with this system was resources: having to see every single person one to one, giving them duties within the church and within the congregation, as well as running the baptism course with the administration behind it and so on.
It created some problems, it brings more faces, more dynamic to the team, but discipleship was very, very hard. The biggest issue we found out is how to maintain discipleship. And, because we baptised them, we felt we had a duty to help them with their visa and asylum application.
“The biggest issue we found out is how to maintain discipleship”
So, we tried to cap the numbers on the baptism course—we said, the maximum number we can accept is 30 people and out of 30 around 15 to 20 people get baptised, then it became more manageable.
That created a lot of difficulties for them and for us and it created a lot of upset. I remember people came and knocked on the door when the class was just starting, I had to say to them ‘no I’m sorry’. Theologically it was difficult for me: how can you say ‘no, I’m sorry you can’t do that’, if somebody is saying they want to baptised, it's very strange for a British church to do that.
Because of this we decided to give the overflow of the baptism course to churches around the Cathedral. If we got 50 inquiries, we say ok we accept 30 of them, maybe baptising 20 of them, but we send the other 20 to the churches around the Cathedral. So, we started different congregations around the Cathedral, which is great, it was church planting as a result of what we’re doing.
“We decided to give the overflow of the baptism course to churches around the Cathedral ... which is great, it was church planting as a result of what we’re doing.”
Then I tried to help the other churches to understand our Persian congregation and the Persian culture, as well as using our baptism course material for their own baptism classes.
Another point was discerning people's motivation, so we try to create a system to discern and we tried to create a system to help them to get their visa. I went to the courts 30 times, and every time they asked me “how do you know this person is a Christian, how do you know he doesn't deceive?”.
Every time I said I don't know because I can't see his heart, but he went to the baptism course, the Confirmation course, he does this, he’s done that, and I’m Iranian, I speak the same language and so on, but who knows? God only knows the heart.
I think if we try to discern too much it’s just a lot of pressure on us.
What did you learn?
I think working with refugees is exciting, it gives a lot of energy because they want to learn, they want to know. But it's got a lot of disappointments and dealing with disappointment I think is a huge learning curve. For example, I remember a person who came to our church, and he was in the UK for about 10 years. He had a very, very complicated case and he couldn't get a visa so he came and stayed with us for three years, and he promised to stay with us after he got his visa, and we worked with him, he changed hugely, his background wasn't great at all, but he changed a lot and we thought he's going to be one of our future leaders. But the moment he got his visa, the next month he moved on.
So, there was a lot of disappointments, spiritually, physically, emotionally, but the Last Supper was a great inspiration for me because Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him and he washed his feet as well.
The biggest learning point for me is that the Church does not belong to me. Any church, any congregation does not belong to us, we are just the servant of the Lord. Yes, we have a role, we very much have a role, we can shape the congregation we can direct them, we can damage them, we can help them to grow. So as leaders we have a huge role. But if we understand, this is not mine, this is His and if you listen to Him, and to others and to your experience and yourself, I think with this combination, we can move forward. And we can establish that congregation and make it grow.
Rev Mohammad Eghtedarian
Having served his curacy at Liverpool Cathedral, Rev Mohammad’s first incumbency was at St Nicola Ankara, Turkey as a chaplain.
His passion is sharing the Good News of Jesus to people from various backgrounds and helping them to grow as His disciples and expanding the Kingdom of God.
He is currently serving as Intercultural Pioneer Minister at St Paul Oadby since joining them in April 2020.
