Stephen Kriss, Philadelphia Praise Center
It’s an easy flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta, less than two hours with frequent flights between the City of Brotherly Love and Delta Airlines’ main hub at Hartsfield Airport. However, upon landing, I was jarred to remember that I wasn’t in Pennsylvania anymore. Accents are different. Tea is sweeter. Stories of racial justice and struggle surface rapidly in the midst of conversation.
Atlanta is a new city, built as a railroad hub, largely grown up after the Civil War. It’s a sprawling city, seemingly too bustling for a plan. I’ve been in this capital of the New South a few times—for the Olympics, to eat at Hard Rock Café, to walk around in hip and pricey Buckhead, to engage the story of the Civil Rights struggle at the Martin Luther King Center.
This visit was different, I came to Atlanta on assignment—to become acquainted with what’s set to become Franconia Conference’s newest congregation—Atlanta Revival Center, tucked in a business park in the northwest suburbs. Atlanta Revival is part of an emerging network of Indonesian Anabaptist congregations. It’s a church of about 80 people, most of whom came to Atlanta following the political, religious and economic turbulence that jettisoned many Indonesian Christians toward life in the United States to seek peace and prosperity through religious and political asylum.
It’s a long stretch to imagine that the Swiss/German immigrant and farmer foreparents of our Conference would have imagined we’d be here in this glistening and ambling metropolitan area. However, we’re following the path of pursuing Franconia Conference’s people as they move out into the world, up Germantown Pike, up the Skippack Creek, up the Northeast Extension. This is different now though as Indonesian immigrants have migrated mostly to the big cities of the East Coast and are now grafting their future into our long history of migration and settling.
Atlanta Revival Center is a vibrant and committed congregation. Worship is energetic and similar to other Indonesian Christian congregations. Prayer is sincere. Music is passionate and movement is carefully choreographed. Worship flows with ease. There is prayer for persons in the congregation, prayer for local and global situations, recognition of economic struggle. The congregation’s expenditures and receipts are posted on the wall monthly. Worship is a commingling of Bahasa Indonesian and English. The congregation wants to connect with Franconia Conference because of other connections with the Indonesian Anabaptist community in Philadelphia. The church is socio-economically diverse including entrepreneurs, professionals who work at Emory University, persons working in the distribution hubs of Atlanta, and those who work at Chinese restaurants
However, one uniqueness about Atlanta Revival is their commitment to being together. The Sunday morning I visited along with Pastor Ertell Whigham and Beny Krisbianto from Nations Worship Center in Philadelphia, we met again for teaching at 11:30pm in the midst of a driving rainstorm. I led the equipping conversation and we nibbled on a small scale Chinese buffet. I returned back from worship around 2am.
The next day, Pastor Ertell and Beny met with a second offshoot group within the congregation. This group meets at midnight on Mondays. It’s intended to work around the schedule of those persons who work second shift. It proved too taxing to do these services on Sunday nights. The group includes persons who have recently converted from Islam and many who are natives of the island of Sulawesi where Christian/Muslim conflict has been intense over the last decade.
It’s a privilege to introduce this congregation briefly, to begin to build the connections between communities that will be essential to our life together as a conference as we spread up and down the coast, from Vermont to Atlanta, following Christ as we follow our relationships with each other, to bring forth a glimpse of God’s reign together.
Pending the blessing of the delegates at this year’s conference assembly, Atlanta Revival Center will become the largest Mennonite Church USA congregation in Georgia. And the history of our connection as we spread from and through Philadelphia, as immigrants and exiles will continue and manifest once again. May God’s peace and grace be upon us.
The opinions expressed in articles posted on Mosaic’s website are those of the author and may not reflect the official policy of Mosaic Conference. Mosaic is a large conference, crossing ethnicities, geographies, generations, theologies, and politics. Each person can only speak for themselves; no one can represent “the conference.” May God give us the grace to hear what the Spirit is speaking to us through people with whom we disagree and the humility and courage to love one another even when those disagreements can’t be bridged.