Châtenay Malabry Mennonite Church grows into a diverse group that worships and works together.

When Isabelle Deler, then a recent immigrant to France from the Caribbean island of St. Martin, first walked into the Châtenay Malabry Mennonite Church, she finally felt at home.

Having recently moved to Paris for university, she felt distant from the people, food and traditions of her home. But Châtenay Malabry, with congregants from Haiti, Congo, Madagascar, Ukraine, Vietnam and many other countries, reminded her of the diversity of St. Martin. When she finally moved out of the neighborhood, she says, she didn’t want to change churches.

“I was afraid of not finding another community like Châtenay,” she says.

The church, located in the Paris suburb of Châtenay Malabry, was once comprised mostly of white, middle-class, native-born French people. But congregants have worked hard to adapt to their neighborhood’s changing demographics in a country that has made headlines for the clashes that have erupted between the country’s 6.8 million immigrants and the native French population.

In the fall of 2005, youth from immigrant communities in France, frustrated by a lack of economic opportunities, rioted for 20 nights, leading to almost 3,000 arrests. This summer the French legislature banned the wearing of facial veils in public, a law that affected mostly immigrant women from Islamic traditions. And even as the public debated the legitimacy of the clothing ban, French authorities were rounding up thousands of undocumented Roma [Gypsy] immigrants and forcibly returning them to their home countries.

These reports do not tell the whole story, however. There are places in France where communities of faith work toward embracing their immigrant neighbors and traditions through inclusive worship. These communities of faith are what Neal Blough describes as “true peace churches.”

Blough and his wife, Janie Blough, are Menno­nite Mission Network workers who have lived in France for 35 years and attend Châtenay Malabry Mennonite Church.

“Mennonite peace theology is fulfilled when people who would not ordinarily interact choose to come together and form a community. It is the fulfillment of the gospel,” says Blough. “A fully integrated church fulfills the scriptural teaching that we are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Making a home

When immigrants arrive in a new country, they often settle collectively, creating satellite neighborhoods in the suburbs of large cities. These immigrant communities become places where the faces, languages and foods remind residents of their homelands while providing them with a safe place to interact with and support one another. And for many of the newcomers, an important part of communal connection is finding a place to worship.

Châtenay Malabry Mennonite Church is located in one of these satellite immigrant neighborhoods. According to Neal, as more and more immigrants began calling the neighborhood home, Châtenay Malabry Mennonite’s membership began to reflect these demographic changes.

“The reaction at first [to the influx of immigrants] was one of caution,” says Neal. Since most of the immigrants came from former French colonies and had lived in France for a number of years, language was not the issue. The different styles of worship, prayer and faith traditions, however, took time to adjust to.

“Many of the church’s immigrant members were used to a more physical, charismatic style of worship,” Neal says. “People had to learn to accept different forms of spirituality and expression that were not familiar to them.”

Breakthrough moment

One of the first ways members of the church connected was through sharing prayer concerns during worship. Prayers for housing and jobs or for sick or absent family members were simple concerns all church members could relate to.

“As [members] heard the needs and concerns, of their fellow church members,” Neal says, “they began to sympathize with them, and their eyes were opened to the larger issues immigrants face.’

The church wasn’t merely moved to sympathy; it was moved to action. People came forward with offers to help find housing or jobs or to offer assistance with official paperwork. Sharing prayer concerns opened doors to conversation. Understanding one another’s needs was a first step toward building relationships.

Worship

Janie is pursing a doctorate degree in worship studies and teaches worship in various settings while also serving as one of Châtenay Malabry’s worship leaders. As changes began taking place within the congregation, she made an all-inclusive worship experience her personal goal. She also strives to educate worship leaders to the importance of this goal in the classes she teaches.

“Worship is the ‘work’ of the congregation,” Janie says. “This means that members from different origins need to be present and up front, through Scripture reading, sharing prayer concerns, participating in moments of spontaneous prayer, distributing the bread and wine. Worship should represent the different cultures and spiritualities within the congregation.”

Leadership

“One mistake some churches make in [integration] is that the changes don’t extend to the decision-making process, and leadership remains the same,” Neal says.

A year ago, three longtime members of Châtenay Malabry’s church council stepped down from leadership in order to make way for new leaders. As a result, the church council now includes Isabelle Deler, Geneviève Boukono from Congo, and Julio Rakontonindriana from Madagascar. A variety of voices, representing the many different peoples and views of the congregation, now participate in congregational discussions and decisions.

Working together

The results of the church’s efforts to work toward integration were evident in their response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti in January. News of the tragedy echoed across the airwaves and reverberated through the community’s immigrant neighborhoods. And in the Châtenay neighborhood, the shock of the event led to action.

‘During the period following the earthquake in Haiti, the events became more real for our congregation because our Haitian members gave specific prayer requests for their friends and family in Haiti,” says Neal.

A special prayer service was organized at Châtenay Malabry Mennonite to lend support to the nearby Haitian immigrant community and to lift up the people of Haiti.
Alexandre Nussbaumer, pastor of Châtenay Malabry Mennonite Church, initiated an interdenominational benefit concert that raised over $4,000. The funds were shared between two church-related organizations in Haiti for use in relief efforts. In the months that followed, Haitians in the congregation continued requesting prayer and provided updates on friends and family members living in Haiti.

Extending a hand

Christian immigrants in some neighborhoods, seeing the frustrations evidenced by the riots of 2005, have made it a priority to provide assistance to other immigrants. Mirroring the help they received from their own churches, they now extend offers of help to all, including their Muslim neighbors.

These neighborhoods, Neal says, “are some of the few places where you will see Christians and Muslims living and working together in a real spirit of cooperation.”

Looking forward

Immigrant Christians have brought vitality and growth to what was once a small group of believers at Châtenay Malabry Mennonite. The church now hosts monthly multicultural potlucks and annual church retreats to help build relationships within the church and encourage self-understanding. The church invites immigrant preachers to address the congregation, hosts women’s groups and house groups, holds multicultural prayer meetings and ecumenical activities in addition to joint worship services with other Parisian Mennonites.

For Isabelle Deler, Châtenay Malabry Menno­nite Church is a testament to the gospel’s transformative power.

“Being part of a [culturally] mixed church,” Deler says, “is a good way for me to show to the whole world that we can live together on this planet without fighting each other.”