Hong Kong ready churches
As around 130,000 people are expected to come from Hong Kong to the UK this year, Hong Kong Ready Churches are helping churches become a network ready to welcome and show hospitality. Over 560 churches have signed up to be Hong King Ready at the time of writing this. How can you and I be a part of it?
Krish Kandiah explains in an introductory video:
Hospitality is one of the defining features of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus once said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me in.” Because what we do for the least of these we do for him. There’s a huge opportunity right now for the church to show that Jesus-loving hospitality to people who need our help.
Around 130,000 people are expected to come to the UK from Hong Kong just this year alone. That would be the largest and fasted planned migration of people to the UK from outside of Europe since Windrush and, 50 years later, we know what a terrible job we did as a nation when it came to the Windrush generation. Let’s learn from those mistakes in order to offer this new group all the help that they need.
Moving to the UK in the middle of a pandemic, when you might struggle a little bit with your English, when you come with lots of skills at a time of mass unemployment, and while race-based hate crime is going through the room against people of Chinese appearance. There really needs to be a concerted effort to make sure this group of people feel welcome. So we’d love to invite you to be a Hong Kong Ready Church.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if someone moved into your area and their first call was to your church asking for help with some of the simple things, like how to register with your local school or the GP. You might have people in your congregation who would love to get involved with this. With a little bit of training they can really make a difference in someone’s life. Even if they’re shielding or they’re housebound they could be on the end of a phone and offer someone the help and hospitality they need.
Friends, let’s fill a map with thousands of churches who are ready to offer the help and welcome this new group from Hong Kong need. Together we can definitely make a difference. Thank you.
At the launch of the ukhk.org website, Krish Kandiah hosted a YouTube event sharing the massive opportunity we have in front of us, the situation that has led to this huge move, how we can be of support, and interviewed various people about their experience of moving to the UK.
As you watch, look our for Hope Church Guildford and Open Door Church Sunbury from our Commission family chatting in the live comments section!
What does it mean to be a Hong Kong Ready Church?
Emily Holden of Welcome Churches explained how they got involved in coordinating this network of Hong Kong Ready Churches (you can watch here):
“We primarily exist to see every refugee in the UK welcomed by the local church. At Welcome Churches we train churches to welcome refugees and asylum seekers in their communities and we profile refugee welcome churches on our welcome network at network.welcomechurches.org. That means that, as refugees and asylum seekers move around the UK, they are able to find a local church who will welcome them […]
“Whilst we recognise that those arriving from Hong Kong aren’t refugees, we know that it’s still important that when they arrive they receive a good welcome when they arrive. And in our opinion, the best place to do that is from the local church. It’s our hope and prayer that, by doing a good job of welcoming people arriving from Hong Kong, then this could perhaps shape the wider immigration narrative in the UK – particularly the conversation about how we treat asylum seekers.
“So, we’re creating a similar network of churches who are Hong Kong Ready, committed to welcoming Hong Kongers arriving in their local community. So that way we can connect Hong Kongers with people from their local church when they first arrive to make sure that they are welcomes. People arriving from Hong Kong will be able to visit ukhk.org/church where they can easily see churches near them. They may be people specifically looking for a church to belong to or they might be people looking to make new friends as well.
“We really think that a good welcome doesn’t happen accidentally and we can’t just sit and wait for people to wander through our church doors to say hello. This is even more true since COVID when we’re not naturally going to bump into someone in our everyday lives. Good welcome is intentional and proactive, you need to want to welcome someone to be part of your community, it doesn’t happen by accident. People feel most welcomed when you go out of your way for them because we choose to get in touch with them rather than waiting for them to call you for help.”
Churches who sign up will gain access to training developed by team and experts in Hong Kong culture – to learn about working cross-culturally, the values and culture of people arriving from Hong Kong, and how to be great welcomers.
The whole launch is highly recommended watching, whether in one go over a lunch break or in bits. It was particularly powerful to hear the stories and helpful advice from those who have had first-hand experience of moving from Hong Kong to the UK already.
How can you and I respond?