NARRATOR: In part three of Christianity at a Crossroads.

MARK KOPKA: Life on the farm is difficult.

People that live in the country, that live close to the earth have this deep connection to the soil.

BRIAN JONES: People will have to decide either to change their politics or to change their faith.

OWEN LEE: There is Korean spirituality, and there is also a kind of a Korean-American spirituality.

SHAY AUERBACH: Hispanic presence is a blessing and a challenge.

It can and is changing the church.

These are immigrants with very different stories.

JEANETTE SALGUERO: God used Joseph, the immigrant to save a nation.

ALFREDO ARREOLA: This is who we are in a country that sometimes is not happy with us being here.

FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Major funding for this program was made possible by Lilly Endowment.

Additional funding provided by The Catholic Communication Campaign through the MPT Foundation and The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

♪ ♪ NARRATOR: About 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis, in the heart of Minnesota farm country is the town of Paynesville.

Since, the mid 1800s, it's been home for Nordland Lutheran Church, and now, for nearly two decades, Nordland Lutheran has hosted the community's annual tractor run.

MARK KOPKA: Morning, everybody.

I'm Pastor Mark.

Welcome to Nordland Lutheran Church.

Let's pray.

Creator God, thank you for this beautiful morning, and for the sunshine, and your creation.

And now, as we begin this run, keep us safe.

Keep our motors running.

May we watch over one another, enjoying all you have made along the way.

NARRATOR: The tractor run is a showcase for one of the most important tools any farmer has.

It brings out the new, the mighty, even the classics.

But more importantly, the event is a chance for the wider community to come together.

MARK: Nordland Lutheran Church was founded by a handful of immigrants who came here in the 1850s from a region of Norway called Nordland.

The people that live in the country that live close to the earth have such a great connection, have this deep connection to the soil, have deep connection to the land, that there is a spirituality that's there that you don't find anywhere else.

NARRATOR: To discuss the challenges and changes for church in rural America today, Nordland recently hosted a gathering of pastors, including their local Lutheran bishop.

Two pastors serve more than a single congregation because some churches can no longer afford a full time pastor.

SHERRI LARSON: On paper, perhaps a half time pastor at two different churches.

But in reality, it's a full call to each church equally.

ANDRES ALBERTSEN: I am visiting really doing ministry with four different congregations, and it is a lot of fun.

And the...the...the activity I... NARRATOR: Mark Kopka grew up on a farm.

He worked for a while in inner city Los Angeles, but he feels at home here in Minnesota and understands the challenges farmers are facing.

MARK: Life on the farm is difficult.

Farmers are growing corn, corn and soybeans predominantly.

They've got cattle.

They've got to make sure that they're fed and watered.

NARRATOR: And there are other realities facing small farms.

MARK: If they do have farmland, they're either renting it out to another farmer, somebody larger or they're bi-vocational.

So, they're probably having another job.

There's food desert out here, just as there is in the inner city.

We're surrounded by fields that have crops, but they don't end up on our tables.

Christenson Farms.

Dave's family has been part of Nordland for generations.

His father's side of the family were founders back in 1858.

DAVE CHRISTENSON: Personally, I love the Nordland Old Church and I know my ancestors built it with their bare hands.

They spent $600 on the pews and I want one of them.

(Laughter) JACOB CHRISTENSON: My dad, obviously he's kind of paved the way for the rest of us, but now it's kind of down to me.

So, I'm what we're looking at for the future of this place.

MARK: Jacob, David's son, is the seventh generation, so that, that connection runs deep for that family, not only on their land, but it also has a deep connection here at Nordland.

NARRATOR: The pattern in American church life today, where many larger churches are getting even larger as smaller churches struggle, is mirrored in the farming community as well.

SHERRI: One of the elements of my congregations is a very strong connection to farming.

And of course, we know that there are fewer farmers and the farms that are there are larger, so there are fewer smaller farms, but there's still such a strong connection to the land.

Such a strong pride and ownership of that lifestyle that I think is really important to my congregations.

STEVE MEIER: We've just had an obvious demographic decline that's starting, for sure in the mid '80s farm crisis.

Many of our congregations were founded in the maybe in the mid to late 1860s, 1870s, and then for a long period of time, there was just growth because more and more farms, farm families had lots of kids.

And then, the opposite thing has happened - bigger farms, less children.

Yet, the congregations remain.

So there's less people, less resources going into those congregations.

NARRATOR: And the political divides that permeate the nation also impact church life here.

BRIAN JONES: We're all here preaching the gospel in communities that are politically fairly conservative.

And sometimes, the gospel can become controversial in that sort of political situation.

Because if you're serious about preaching love, and mercy, and forgiveness, of inclusiveness, and hospitality to the stranger and the immigrant, if you do that in a community that is politically quite conservative, then there has to be some kind of reckoning there.

And I do think that's a big thing that's going on in rural ministry right now.

In some cases, people will have to decide either to change their politics or to change their faith.

NARRATOR: The founders of Nordland Lutheran came from Norway, close to the Arctic Circle.

It was seven weeks by ship to America.

SUSAN HENDRICKSON WARNER: They got here in 1867.

The church was originally started in 1868, so the first thing they did when some other families were coming, as they...they started this church.

This was where land was opening up in Minnesota.

And then, they wrote back and said, "this is good land here.

You should come."

One of my great grandfathers was a founding member of the Nordland Church, and all of my great grand-parents settled in this area and all belonged to this church.

And my grandparents and my parents were married, baptized, confirmed, and buried here.

NARRATOR: Each year, the tractor run honors farmers who passed away over the last year.

This year, one of those honored was Nate Johnson, a young member of Nordland Lutheran.

ALLIE JOHNSON: My husband passed away unexpectedly.

Healthy 30 year old guy and ah, just shook our whole world.

So...we um, have been leaning on a lot of people and just trying to make him proud and continue to do things that he loved to do.

So, just ah...day by day.

STEVEN STULEN: And the news.

There's so much, you hear so much bad about everything, you know, but... KAREN STULEN: There's a lot of good... STEVEN: There's a lot of good people.

ALLIE: Couldn't have done it without them, um.

Even here today, six months later, um, the same group of people who was there in the beginning is still there for us, so um, I couldn't have had that anywhere else, I don't think.

NARRATOR: Nate and Allie were married on the family farm.

Now, Nate is buried in the Nordland graveyard.

It's the final resting place for so many parishioners going back generations.

As churches across America close and church properties are sold, one of the most emotional issues is disturbing the final resting place of loved ones.

Nordland, with its 100 plus members, may not have the attendance it once did, but it seems to be doing well.

SUSAN: I stop pretty much every week after church or before church, but I know exactly where I'm going to end up because my mom and dad are planted there, the Hendricksons.

And then, there's a space where I'm going to be, and then the next space is my grandparents.

So, it is comforting.

MARK: Churches traditionally have been the record keepers of a lot of the folks that have lived here for generations after generations.

Every once in a while, we get a phone call here at Nordland asking, if their ancestors are buried here.

They're trying to find their ancestors, trying to find their lineage, and they find they can find it here.

How many people are connected to this?

And how many generations have had a place here?

SUSAN: When I hear the bell ring and I think about the roots here, and that my great-great grandparents were here and my grandparents and my parents, and it's a root here that I always think about.

Like, they heard the bell.

They heard that when they were getting married, that was the same bell.

BRIAN MCLAREN: One of the issues that I think we're going to have to face is that climate change is going to change everything.

It's not just changing temperatures, it's going to change our religion, our spirituality, our politics, our economics.

It's climate change will change everything.

The people who start to care about the climate will also care about the whole earth.

And they'll begin to understand that humanity, regardless of your race, religion, politics, whatever, social class, wealth, humanity, and the plants, and the animals, and the water, and the soil, and, and the air that it's all one living planet.

I think the future of religion and spirituality is going to have to take more seriously than we have for 10 or 12,000 years, our deep connection to the Earth.

(Congregation singing) NARRATOR: This service is to commemorate the 350th anniversary of Old Trinity Episcopal Church in Eastern Maryland.

Dating back to what is believed its founding in 1675, Old Trinity is considered the oldest church in continuous use in America.

DANIEL DUNLAP: When we make the claim that this is the oldest church still in use for Christian worship, we're not saying that we're the oldest church in the country.

There are older churches.

The building is the oldest church building in the U.S., used regularly for Christian worship.

NARRATOR: Old Trinity was built during an era of great tension and some bloodshed between Catholics and Protestants that spilled over from Europe to the New World.

Old Trinity was to be an extension of the Protestant Church of England.

Today's anniversary service follows the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the same book used in the founding era.

DANIEL DUNLAP: If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond.

NARRATOR: Dan Dunlap serves not only Old Trinity, but another nearby congregation.

It's the reality of both declining members and fewer clergy.

Ministers in the colonial period often served more than one congregation.

Sometimes, traveling great distances on horseback.

DANIEL: The minister would come here, do his baptisms, preach a fine, university-educated sermon.

In a parish like this, he might be here for two Sundays, and then he's off to another place.

Much of the liturgy and the religious life of the parish was given over to trained laity.

Laity had to step up their game.

They had to exercise leadership.

A lot of churches in the colonial period were built out of wood, clapboard fashion.

So basically, wood sided churches.

So, when you had a brick church, that meant something to the people.

That meant stability.

It is stood through the founding of the United States, the trials of the Civil War, the transformations of the 20th century, and continues its witness today, reminding us of the enduring role of faith in shaping both our national and our local identities.

Church in the early colonial period was the center of both religious and civic life.

We beseech thee also so to direct and dispose the hearts of all Christian rulers, that they may truly and impartially administer justice to the punishment of wickedness and vice.

(Organ music) DANIEL: It was a given that people were Christian, which meant that they're going to find their moral compass in Christian teaching.

You went to school to learn to read.

You went to the church to learn morality.

To learn your duty to your neighbor.

To learn your duty to your king.

No one had to impose this on anyone.

It was just the way things were.

NARRATOR: That understood bond between church life and civic responsibility was often referred to as the Standing Order.

It was foundational throughout the 17th and into the 18th century.

TED SMITH: The Standing Order and the idea of an established church had such an incredible hold on people's imaginations that religious leaders and political leaders, they simply couldn't imagine any other way that the church could endure.

NARRATOR: By the time of the founding of the new nation, a time when America was becoming more religiously diverse, yet, only 1 in 5 Americans attended church.

The country elected to break with European tradition and not have an established church.

That greater freedom to choose one's religion, gave birth to a form of voluntary association.

TED: Voluntary associations just transform religious life in the United States.

And I really think it's because the institutional form of religion was just so out of sync with people's lives, imaginations, understanding of the world.

Once, the voluntary association form emerges, though, you just see participation in American religious life go up and up and up across the 19th century.

NARRATOR: No longer simply an outpost for Christian missionaries from Europe, America was now fostering its own form of religious expression.

Where the First Great Awakening in the mid-18th century preached individual conversion across the early colonies; a second Great Awakening at the dawn of the 19th century, lit a spark of social conscience around issues like slavery and the role of women.

Revivals brought out people by the thousands, and new religions like, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Disciples of Christ, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others were being birthed in America.

The 20th century brought a wave of immigration, the likes of which the world had never seen.

And while there were sizable numbers of Jews, Muslims, and other traditions that came seeking religious freedom, the vast majority were Christians.

Orthodox from Russia, Greece and the Balkans.

Protestants from England, Germany and Scandinavia.

But millions of Catholics from Poland, Italy, Ireland, and the Southern Hemisphere meant Catholics were becoming America's largest denomination.

In many ways, the Spanish story is distinct from the Anglo one.

The Spanish, seeking fortunes in the New World, arrived in the southern regions with their Catholic missionaries, long before pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.

The clergy established missions to serve their countrymen and to convert the native peoples to the faith.

Clergy became advocates for the indigenous people, but at times their methods of conversion could be cruel.

By either conversion or by conquest, Christianity took root across the entire Southern Hemisphere.

Now, centuries later, those southern immigrants to America sometimes welcomed, sometimes tolerated, other times villainized, continue to reshape American Christianity.

(Singing in Spanish) ERICA RAMIREZ: You really want to understand where Christianity is growing now, you'd have to look at immigrant populations and especially Hispanic populations, whether new arrivals or first, second, and third generation.

NARRATOR: Palm Sunday at Sacred Heart Church in Richmond, Virginia.

It's a day to relive the Passion of Jesus Christ, a day celebrated around the world.

For more than a century, Sacred Heart has been a working class parish.

Today, it's at the center of a larger immigration story.

Within a few years, the majority of American Catholics will be Hispanic.

SHAY AUERBACH: Palm Sunday is a huge celebration in Latin American countries.

LIA GARCIA: The vast majority of this population is under the age of 25, so we are the emerging majority.

When we migrate to the United States, we don't leave our culture behind.

We don't leave our religion behind.

We bring that with us.

And so, when we come here, we tend to form communities in the parishes.

JONATHAN CALVILLO: When we talk about the Latino, Latina, Latinx community, we recognize that it's a community that has often looked to the church as a source of social support and the centerpiece of community life.

Often, the rhythms of community life have revolved around the seasons of the church, the sacraments, the practices of spirituality that the church provides.

(Speaking Spanish) CONGREGATION: Amen!

SHAY: Most of the immigrants that we have here are coming from rural areas where really the church dominates.

The practice of the faith is inseparable from daily living.

Daily living is organized around feast days, celebrations, whether that's a town's feast day, whether that's a child's baptism, whether that's a young couple's marriage.

(Speaking Spanish) (Singing in Spanish) SHAY: We have Mexicans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Cubans, all the flags over there.

We've got people from almost all of those countries.

But it's a unique opportunity for people to come together and build community around their faith.

(Speaking Spanish) ERICA RAMIREZ: These are immigrants with very different stories.

Immigrants from El Salvador have been through a different kind of political stress and also different kind of Catholicism.

The diversity of immigration means that these more established traditions are having to expand how they present themselves in the lives of immigrants.

(Singing in Spanish) (Speaking Spanish) ALFREDO ARREOLA: I came as a teenager.

Coming to a country where you don't speak the language, when you don't have any friends, where you feel alone, you kinda lose a sense of identity.

You don't know where you are.

(Praying in Spanish) NARRATOR: The main sanctuary is relatively small, holding only about 250 people.

So, every weekend there are eight masses in both the main sanctuary and the school across the street.

Most services are filled to capacity.

ALFREDO ARREOLA: This is who we are in a country that sometimes is not happy with us being here.

But Sacred Heart is a place for us where we can feel like home.

And we are family.

As long as we have Sacred Heart, we have a place that we can call home.

ERIC MERIDA HERRERA: I came here because I believe that this is my way of giving back to the community, helping out in whichever way I can.

I believe that after everything that God has done in my life, the only way I can answer to him is by trying to replicate my life as best as I can, as Jesus' life, and that is by serving others.

NARRATOR: The same building across from the main church also serves as home for Sacred Heart Center.

While a separate, independent entity, the church and the center work together to identify and respond to the growing needs of this community.

TANYA GONZALEZ: We've served in the last year 18,000 people through Sacred Heart Center, through all of our programs and services.

To give you a little comparison, the last year before the pandemic, we served about 11,000 people, so the need has really grown.

TEACHER: What do you do in the morning?

STUDENT: Shower in the morning?

TEACHER: (Speaks Spanish) I... STUDENT: I take... TEACHER: Shower... STUDENT: ...shower in the morning.

TEACHER: I take a shower in the morning.

Okay.

STUDENTS: She brush.

TEACHER: Her teeth.

STUDENT: In the morning.

TEACHER: ...in the morning.

No, not take off.

No, we don't take it off, okay.

(Laughs) TANYA GONZALEZ: We offer 17 different programs throughout the year.

We start with adult education.

And so, those are variety of different classes.

Adults can come in and learn English.

They can prepare to become U.S.

citizens.

But it's really quite remarkable.

You know, these are adults that are working all day and that come here to study at night and have families that they're raising or take care of.

And sometimes, we have people coming in the morning that have worked all night.

They've worked the night shift, and they come to English class before then going home to rest.

So, this is the level of dedication, of resilience that we see in our students.

♪ ♪ JONATHAN: Second and third generation young people sometimes want to go back and experience the culture of their parents and of their grandparents, and their own culture, because it's still a part of their own culture.

TANYA: So, I first came to Sacred Heart Center as a volunteer dance instructor, because I was born on the Texas Mexican border and grew up my entire life as a dancer.

I've done ballet, jazz, modern, but I've also been able to learn dances from my heritage, which is Mexican.

So, I just want to say, I'm proud of you because you just figured that out, right?

Right there.

And what's so beautiful about it is for children that are second generation or maybe even third generation.

It's a way that they can connect to their culture, their parents' culture.

But here they're actually learning something that is directly a part of who they are.

And I think that's so special.

SHAY: The Hispanic presence in the Catholic church, it is a blessing and a challenge.

It is a blessing to receive so many people that share our faith.

The challenge is how will we evolve as church as we move into the future?

This important demographic is so large that it can and is changing the church.

I think if the wider church is able to make room for our sisters and brothers coming from Latin America and the second and third generations, that will determine what the church looks like in the future.

NARRATOR: There is clear vitality and a sense of hope here at Sacred Heart in Richmond.

New arrivals have kept the Catholic numbers nationwide mostly stable.

Yet, the big picture remains uncertain.

JONATHAN: There has been a notable decline within Catholic affiliation.

Where have people gone from that?

Well, they've mostly gone to either Protestantism, mostly Evangelical and Pentecostal Protestantism, or they've gone toward disaffiliation.

(Singing in Spanish) GABRIEL SALGUERO: Bienvenido al encuentro querida iglesia.

JEANETTE SALGUERO: Welcome home.

Welcome to The Gathering Place.

GABRIEL: Donde.

JEANETTE: Where God.

GABRIEL: Haciendo.

JEANETTE: Is making.

GABRIEL SALGUERO: Todas las cosas nueva.

JEANETTE SALGUERO: All things new.

GABRIEL: We are a Latino led, multi-ethnic church.

What that means is that we have, I think, over 15 nationalities here.

(Gabriel speaking Spanish while Jeanette translates) JEANETTE SALGUERO: Joseph...was the hero immigrant.

God used Joseph the immigrant to save a nation.

His name was Joseph.

GABRIEL: Solo diciendo lo que dice la Biblia.

JEANETTE: I'm just saying what the Bible says.

So, just saying what the Bible says.

God uses Joseph...to save Egypt.

And saving Egypt saved other nations.

NARRATOR: In Orlando, Florida, a husband and wife team, Gabriel and Jeanette Salguero are co-founders of NaLEC, the National Latino Evangelical Coalition.

GABRIEL: The National Latino Evangelical Coalition is a coalition of several thousand Hispanic evangelical churches in the U.S.

and Puerto Rico, and we gather together to serve and empower the Latino church from a gospel centered perspective.

We do advocacy.

We do direct services.

We do theological education.

JEANETTE: Capacity development.

GABRIEL: Capacity development and leadership training, and next gen empowerment.

NARRATOR: They're also co-pastors of The Gathering, a multi-ethnic Pentecostal church that started online in 2020 and has grown rapidly into a congregation of nearly 600.

JONATHAN: In the U.S.

context, when we talk about Latino, Latina, Latinx peoples, we're talking about people who are multi-ethnic, multiracial, within themselves.

So, not only are the congregations multi-ethnic and multiracial, the individuals within the congregations are themselves multi-ethnic and multiracial.

NARRATOR: The Gathering is part of the 3 million member Assemblies of God, one of the few Christian denominations that are growing.

Pentecostalism is a largely American born movement that focuses on the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.

JEANETTE: And Pentecostalism continues to move.

NARRATOR: Pentecostals are known for charismatic worship, which can include speaking in tongues.

(Woman speaking in tongues) PASTOR: Bless her.

Jesus.

(Woman speaking in tongues) NARRATOR: They're also known for the ordination of women, which they've been doing for over a century, making them unique among conservative groups.

JEANETTE: Women have been ordained since Pentecostalism began.

We are Assemblies of God church and Assemblies of God since 1914 has been ordaining women.

GABRIEL: I grew up with women pastors.

My mother was ordained in the 1970s.

JEANETTE: I saw it in his parents.

They were both co-lead pastors and I felt called, drawn to the ministry.

And why not?

Why not me?

(Gabriel speaking Spanish while Jeanette translates) JEANETTE: The persecution of Jerusalem.

Produces.

The revival of Samaria.

Philip begins to preach in Samaria.

Okay, okay.

Although although.

Don't tell anybody.

They already had an evangelist there.

Before Philip arrived, Samaria, they'd already had an evangelist.

An evangelist.

Before Philip arrived.

There was a woman already that had already evangelized.

Do you remember that woman?

The woman at the well?

GABRIEL: The spirit empowers men and the spirit empowers women.

It's part of the biblical text.

I couldn't imagine doing ministry without her.

JEANETTE: My favorite moment in ministry is when I come off the pulpit and all of the children, especially the little girls, run to me, and I tell each and every little girl, "you are empowered to be whoever God has called you to be."

And that is very important to me, to us as a family and for the congregation that we lead.

GABRIEL: Most of our congregations, the majority, if not the plurality, is women.

So, it seems to me on a very pragmatic level, that we need to empower those women who are a part of our church, who uphold our church, who lead our church.

STEVEN RUIZ: Many times we come together and there's so many teams that have to work to make a Sunday right.

JEANETTE: A distinctiveness of Pentecostalism is that it empowers the layperson.

Very communal.

It's not us leading a congregation and top-down approach imperialistic, telling them what to do.

STEVEN: Every Sunday morning, we have an opportunity to gather with all of our volunteers that will be working that Sunday service to be able to intentionally get them into the right mind space to understand what they're about to do, and really let them know that what they do is important.

JEANETTE: We lead from our strengths.

A lot of people ask us, "do you step on each other's toes?"

We do.

We step on each other's toes.

GABRIEL: Her, she steps on my toes.

Leading together is a dance.

JEANETTE: It is.

GABRIEL: And sometimes, it's a cha-cha and sometimes, it's a merengue.

And sometimes, it's a waltz.

JEANETTE: Or a bachata.

GABRIEL: Or a bachata.

You want to make a place that's welcoming and inviting.

For us, aesthetics is evangelism.

JEANETTE: This was a parachute-making place.

It was absolute rubble.

It was an open space, some walls torn down, broken down.

And I knew that I wanted this to be kind of like an open room, kind of like an urban feel, very attractional for the youth.

GABRIEL: One of the reasons we geared it towards the next gen is because we find where you serve young people, families stay.

So, when serving young people, you're serving everybody.

♪ ♪ Young people are drawn to things that are alive and Pentecostal worship is alive.

STEPHANIE MARCELIN: When you come, you're going to see students in the parking lot.

You're going to be seeing them say hello to you, when you walk in through the doors, you're going to see them behind cameras.

You're going to see them in worship.

And if they're not engaged from the moment that they're young, they're going to grow up.

And the church may feel strange because they never were a part of it and served it.

NARRATOR: Jun Marcelin and his wife, Stephanie, are co-youth pastors at The Gathering.

JUN MARCELIN: Lord, we thank you for this day.

We thank you for this opportunity that we get to demonstrate love.

STEPHANIE: I think The Gathering it really pushes co-leadership, which is maybe different from other churches, other ministries.

And you see that from the top.

We essentially resemble the community around us, which is beautiful being that we are a multi-ethnic family within itself.

JUN: We partnered up with this homeless coalition and what we do is we provide care packages where they can have things for just hygienics, and we write a letter of encouragement to these people.

LEILANI CRESPO: I'm here with my dad today, and we are writing notes to put in the care packages.

And this is important because in the homeless shelters, it's important to know that people care about them and that they're not alone, especially in their very difficult situations.

MARCOS CRESPO: Having experienced it on the other side, I know without shadow of a doubt that it makes a difference.

I know what it is to have to eat at homeless shelters, and to have my family that be the only meal that we have.

GABRIEL: The focus has always been in healing and restoring and renewing people who perhaps have lost all sense of hope.

NARRATOR: One way The Gathering attempts to do that is through a ministry for abused or homeless young women called Esther Rising, named for Queen Esther in the Bible.

SUELY RIVERA: This ministry is a ministry where we have women at the church that come and mentor young women who have experienced difficulties and challenges in their lives.

Many of them have experienced trafficking in some way or abuse in some way.

And so, we come alongside them and try to give them spiritual and emotional support.

NARRATOR: Diana Monroy is a youth mentor at Esther Rising.

Her client is a 16 year old with a new baby.

DIANA MONROY: I met Maritza about a year and a half ago.

Maritza came from Guatemala, seeking for a better life in the United States, and she was a victim of an abuse.

The reason why we do this is because we know that Maritza is going to spread the love that she had received, like a seed that's been planted in Maritza.

And we know that Maritza is going to plant in somebody else.

JUN: I know what it's like to be the son of two immigrants and not being accepted, especially for something you have no control over the family in which you're born in.

GABRIEL: There's always some historical tension that the church has had to navigate.

Immigration is a big... JEANETTE: It's one of them.

GABRIEL: It's a big one for us.

What we always tell people is in the times of social division or social conflict, what does the Gospel say?

How would Jesus ask us to respond to this moment?

Not how partisan politics ask you to respond.

And when there's a tension between government executive orders or memos in policy and the Gospel, we always go with the Gospel.

So, am I hopeful?

Every day, every day, I'm hopeful because it's my story.

It's the story of my family, the story of my in-laws, the story of my parents, the story of the many, many people that come to The Gathering Place and churches all across America.

(Wind blowing) NARRATOR: It's hours before dawn and the temperatures are subfreezing outside Korean Central Presbyterian Church on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

Yet, people are streaming in.

They are celebrating the New Year, Korean-style, with a week of services at 5:00 in the morning.

♪ ♪ With over 5000 people in attendance on any given Sunday, Korean Central Presbyterian Church, or KCPC is one of the largest Korean American churches in the country.

It's one of over 4000 Korean churches serving a million plus Korean-American Christians.

EUNG YUL RYOO: Father, we pray that You pour Your grace upon each one of us in the New Year.

(Translating English into Korean) Well, I was born and raised up in a small village in Korea where there was not even one Christian in my family.

NARRATOR: Reverend Eung Yul Ryoo, is lead pastor, over a team of more than 20 pastors.

EUNG: It was 1998 when I came to America for the first time.

And I was really surprised, and I was so much shocked to see the Korean churches in America was thriving.

GRACE JI-SUN KIM: Korean Christianity gets tied in with this concept of "uri"-ness or our-ness, or "uri."

You know, in Korea we never say, "oh, let's go to my school" or "my church" or "meet my family."

We always say, "our church," "our school," "our family."

People are not just going to church on a Sunday to worship.

And so, people build friendships.

OWEN LEE: Community is the backdrop in which we do everything that we do.

I think in majority culture churches, people have different social centers, right?

Their work friends, they have their...their gym friends.

They have their whatever friends.

I don't think it's centered around the church necessarily, but in the Korean-American church, it's not just our religious center, it's also our social center as well.

Our deepest friendships and relationships are experienced in the context of the church community.

So, people at church aren't just your fellow congregants, aren't just your fellow people that you worship with on the Lord's Day, but they're your best friends.

NARRATOR: Owen Lee was born in Southern California and is now pastor of Christ Central Presbyterian Church, a younger English speaking offshoot of KCPC.

Christ Central shares space with the larger, predominantly Korean speaking body.

OWEN: Growing up in a Korean church meant everything's done in Korean.

In the home and in the church, it was Korean culture, and when we went to school, it'd be majority culture.

We're always the minority in someone else's majority culture.

Growing up, I remember hearing all the time, Owen, you're not American enough, Owen, you're not Korean enough.

And I can't tell you how much I would struggle when I would hear those things, because I would feel like I was like a bad American because I didn't know the nursery rhymes and the fables that all my white friends in kindergarten or whatever seemed to know.

And I would also feel like, I was like a bad Korean because I couldn't speak Korean well.

I was clueless when it came to Korean culture and traditions.

OWEN: English speaking Korean-American church: it is unlike Korean culture.

It is unlike majority culture.

It is a culture by itself.

We have people that drive 20, 25 miles to get to us in (inaudible) Virginia, and on their way they drive past a dozen different churches.

The facilities are better, the ministries are better, the preaching is better.

So many things are better.

And yet, why do they drive so far to be a part of this community?

It's because I believe Monday through Friday, they feel like minorities in majority culture.

And it's very healing and humanizing and dignifying to feel like you don't always have to explain yourself.

NARRATOR: Christianity came to Korea as early as the 1600s, and for centuries, early converts often faced persecution.

But in the late 19th century, Protestant missionaries from America made strategic inroads building churches, schools, and hospitals.

Later, Koreans began immigrating to America for a variety of reasons, some of them religious.

GRACE: Korea was a very poor country, and so missionaries came with that story.

If you become Christians, you know you will become successful.

You will experience, you know, milk and honey, and we want to send you to America.

When you look at the first kind of immigrants, they were all Christians because the missionaries kept saying, "if you go to America, this is going to be a great place.

There's so many Christians."

EUNG: We are so much indebted to the American missionaries who came to Korea.

They buried their children in Korean land and they were buried in Korea.

They shed such a precious blood for Korea, and we are the fruit of the blood of our missionaries.

NARRATOR: Most Korean-American Christians are Protestant, and KCPC is one of the flagship churches.

Its 80 acre campus includes a school and an independent senior center that serves over 400 seniors each week.

Here, people enjoy a meal.

Join exercise classes.

Learn music.

And dance.

And they practice the traditional arts.

There is a school serving nearly 200 students pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, and they meet for chapel once a week.

PASTOR: Are you ready to worship God?

CHILDREN: Yeah!

♪ I'm so blessed, I'm so blessed ♪ ♪ Got this heartbeat in my chest ♪ ♪ No, it doesn't matter about the rest ♪ ♪ If I got you, Lord, I'm so blessed ♪ ♪ I'm so blessed, I'm so blessed ♪ NARRATOR: Students here study the usual subjects, but also the Bible, their Korean language and traditional Korean values.

JENNIFER PARK: When we are respecting our parents, we need to be really, really respectful.

It's not just only academics that we're focusing, but their spiritual life.

We're here to serve and love others and we're here to make disciples.

What is "I am" in Korean?

Sunny?

SUNNY: [Speaking Korean] JENNIFER: [Speaking Korean] So, everybody say... [Speaking Korean].

CLASS: [Speaking Korean] JENNIFER: [Continues in Korean] NARRATOR: The heart of KCPC is its weekly worship and teachings.

This adult Bible class just finished studying the Bible cover to cover.

KCPC is part of the Presbyterian church in America, a more conservative strand of the Presbyterian tradition.

EUNG: We Korean churches really place a very high emphasis on the Bible.

The reason why we are growing is because we believe the Bible as the words of God.

The most important reason why these days many churches are declining is that they depart from the Word of God.

They do not believe the Bible as the inspired Word of God anymore.

NARRATOR: A focus for KCPC is holding on to its younger members, a challenge every church faces.

EUNG: The youngsters are leaving the church gradually, not only in the States but also in Korea as well.

And we really want to educate our next generation with all our heart.

That is really the most important part of our church.

We pray for them a lot, and we also try to teach them Korean language so that they can communicate with their parents and even grandparents.

(Applause) Father, we pray our next generation is not the only future of KCPC, but the future of all God's Kingdom... (Translating English into Korean) Pour Your spirit upon our next generation... (Continues translating English into Korean) NARRATOR: A megachurch is thought to be one with 2000 or more members.

Larger membership often means megachurches have the resources to offer more programs and services than smaller neighboring churches, and that can be a distinct advantage, especially reaching younger members.

GRACE: In the smaller cities where the Korean-American churches are smaller and they can't afford to have a full time Korean-American pastor, those you see a decline in the second generation.

EUNG: (Speaking Korean) OWEN: I think the majority culture churches can learn from the Korean or the Korean-American church.

One, a sense that community are really prioritizing community and relationships in the church.

And secondly, is a sacrifice.

As second generation Korean-American churches, we don't do this as well as the first generation Korean church, which they sacrificed so much.

But I think we've learned some of that where we understand that the Christian life, there needs to be a measure of sacrifice.

But I think how I feel culturally as a Korean-American is, is an echo.

It's a reflection of how we feel spiritually as Christians and as Christians, we are citizens of another world.

Even the phenomenon of the kind of the Korean-American church is not meant to stay this way forever.

I think the Korean-American church will give way to the Asian-American church, which will give way to ultimately, the global church.

I thank God there are so many different kinds of churches in the Kingdom of God, right.

Because I think every church is a door into the kingdom of God.

NARRATOR: In part four of Christianity at a Crossroads.

JASON SHEPPARD: There is a forced rethinking happening in the church in America.

TOM CORCORAN: In past generations, faith was passed down pretty automatically.

We're not in that culture anymore.

MELISSA WAGNER: Thank you for joining us for this, our final service.

ASA LEE: The overwhelming consensus about what moment we're in is that we're shifting.

HOWARD-JOHN WESLEY: Is the digital platform something we fight or embrace?

JUDY STEELE: It continually grew and it just got bigger and bigger.

JONAH TELLER: Our goal is not to be New York's hottest club.

BONIFACE ENDORF, OP: They're looking for answers to the deepest questions of life.

WILL ED GREEN: Our communities have always been meant to be larger than the people who are sitting in our pews on Sunday.

♪ ♪ FEMALE ANNOUNCER: For more information about this film, visit JourneyFilms.com.

♪ ♪ Major funding for this program was made possible by Lilly Endowment.

Additional funding provided by The Catholic Communication Campaign through the MPT Foundation and The E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪