Quotations

The church must always show compassion, always… A good Samaritan doesn't stop and ask the injured person. 'Are you legal or illegal?

Why is immigration policy important to evangelicals? Certainly because we believe what the Bible teaches about treatment of “aliens in the land.” It is also because so many Hispanic, African and Asian immigrants are evangelical Christians who are in our denominations and churches by the millions. They are us.

86% of the immigrant population in North America are likely to either be Christians or become Christians. That’s far above the national average…The immigrant population actually presents the greatest hope for Christian renewal in North America… This group that we want to keep out is actually the group that we most need for spiritual transformation… We shouldn’t see this as something that threatens us. We should see this as a wonderful opportunity.

Much has been written about the way that growing numbers of “millennials” are walking away from the church. Yet while millennials are walking out the front door of U.S. congregations, immigrant Christian communities are appearing right around the corner, and sometimes knocking at the back door. And they may hold the key to vitality for American Christianity.

While we must continue to send missionaries throughout the world, we must also recognize the Great Commission Opportunity that is present in Western nations. Something is missionally malignant when we are willing to send people across the oceans, risking life and limb and spending enormous amounts of money, but we are not willing to walk next door and minister to the strangers living there. (Source: Strangers Next Door: Immigration, Migration, and Mission, InterVarsity Press, 2012, page 33)

I would like to see us as a country find a way to provide for illegal immigrants to stay but still have them pay a reasonable penalty. Such a solution would give honor to the law and show mercy to the immigrants, whose situations are so varied and so many. It's not an easy, black-and-white, "they disobeyed, so get 'em out of here" issue. There's a lot of exploitation. We've benefited a lot from these people, etc.

In terms of the Great Commission, right here in our home, right here in the United States, right in our own towns, we’ve never faced such a Great Commission responsibility. We have never faced such a Great Commission opportunity.