Christian Migrants and Their Living Faith in Mission: An Indonesian Perspective

Abstract

The main problem highlighted in this essay is the challenges being faced by Christian migrants in Indonesia. They are expected to succeed in overcoming the cross-cultural problems within their Christian communities, and externally to take part in building a fellowship beyond their own groups. Indonesia's multireligious and multicultural landscape has suffered in the past few decades from the politics of identity. The Christian migrants have also been affected by this. Whilst they need support in formulating afresh their Christian identity, they also require a broader intercultural mindset. Through observations, focus group discussions and literature reviews, the paper tries to formulate the role Christian migrants can explore in their cross-cultural contexts. The basic position it takes is that the Catholic migrants (a case in this paper) are also agents of mission and that migration is to some extent a process of building bridges among diverse peoples in society. The paper argues that there is a need for the migrants to be equipped with intercultural competencies and interreligious spirituality.