Welcoming the Arrival Church Planter: Preparing Immigrant Church Planters for North American Training

Many North American leaders in Christian mission and evangelism would consider immigrants arriving in North America from all around the world a key opportunity to engage and reach the nations with the gospel. While that certainly holds true, it should also be taken into consideration that the largest number of immigrants coming to North America are already Christian, many of whom are arriving with a missional call. Many church leaders pray daily from Luke 10:2 that the Lord of the harvest would send more workers to North America. One answer to this prayer are the arrival church planters who are emerging from immigrant communities all across North America. This paper uses concepts from organizational socialization and learning theory to analyze how North American church planting organizations often struggle to adequately integrate immigrant church planters into their training and concludes by offering four ways to better socialize these planters into the training process, thereby offering a better learning experience.

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