To America With Love: Why U.S. Christianity’s Resurgence Will Come From Immigrants

As Ed Stetzer underscored in his May/June 2023 From the Editor column in Outreach magazine, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that “by 2030 immigration is projected to become the primary driver of population growth in the United States.” That means more people are predicted to be added to the population through net international migration than through new births minus deaths. Pew Research Center has put a number on a similar forecast: 82% of U.S. growth from 2005 to 2050 will come from new immigrants and their families.

This development has huge implications for your church’s outreach and growth. 

Why? The United States is currently home to more immigrants than any other country in the world—and as Christianity booms overseas, more Christians are migrating to the United States. Many of them are joining existing churches or starting new churches, which in turn are leading other immigrants to find faith in Jesus after they arrive. As scholar Timothy Tseng affirms in his chapter in The Future of Evangelicalism in America, “Since the mid-1960s, immigration has fundamentally altered the composition of American evangelicalism.”

This indicates that the next big surge in American Christianity will likely be seen in a wide range of ethnic congregations led by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Even mainstream publications are noticing the trend. A recent editorial in The New York Times was titled “The Global Transformation of Christianity Is Here,” and a recent CNN article was titled “Predictions about the Decline in Christianity in America May Be Premature”—premature because of growth through immigration.

A Harvest From Overseas

The most widespread expression lately of this growth is Hispanic. Latino evangelicals are the fastest growing segment of evangelicals in this country. One analysis in The New Yorker called Hispanic immigrants a “decisive force in American religion … a kind of rescue squad” for American Christianity, given their higher levels of religiosity with more frequent church attendance, prayer and Bible study than white Protestants.

As delightful as the vitality and growth of Hispanic faith is, an even bigger global trend is already impacting churches in the United States. It’s the growth—and movement—of Asian Christianity. For example:

* In South Korea, one third of the population claims the name of Jesus, but among Koreans in America, 4 out of 5 do.

* In India, at most 3% of the population claims the name of Jesus, but among the up to 5 million Indians in America, nearly 1 million do.