Profile 10: The Newcomer
Immigrants, refugees, international students, and second-generation households
He is new: to the country, the city, the language, or all three. He is displaced from every network that used to define him. He is also, statistically, in the single most receptive condition a person occupies: away from home, without the social cost that religious change would carry there, and in need of practical help from strangers.
This profile includes two quite different populations that must not be conflated: the recent arrival from another country, and the U.S.-born second generation drifting from the faith of immigrant parents.
Who they are
Recent immigrants and refugees. International students: over a million in the U.S., with India (about 363,000) and China (about 266,000) the largest sending countries in 2024–25. Hispanic households across generations. Second-generation adults raised between two cultures. Workers on temporary visas. And people from Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, and secular backgrounds who have never had a Christian friend.
In a Community Intelligence Report
A congregation's Community Intelligence Report estimates how many people or households in this profile live around its building, where they are concentrated, and how the profile ranks against the other eleven in that field. The profile keeps its number there: Profile 10 on this site is Profile 10 in the report, and in any campaign built for it.
In the sample report for Fairview Church of Christ, a congregation invented for the purpose and given an address in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Profile 10 ranks fourth of the twelve, at an estimated 13,000 to 18,000 people, held with moderate confidence. It is built from Census figures for the area: the lower figure is the foreign-born residents, and the upper adds about 5,700 U.S.-born children of immigrant parents, who are reached through their parents. The adult second generation, which this profile also describes, is not counted, because no Census table publishes it. The report finds it around the MTSU campus and across the area, and notes that Spanish and Arabic are the most common languages at home after English, that about 3,000 Spanish speakers have limited English, and that Egypt is the second most common birthplace among immigrants.
What the research shows
- A majority of U.S. immigrants (58%) are Christian. About a quarter are religiously unaffiliated and 14% belong to other religions.
- Among immigrants, the unaffiliated share grew from 16% to 26% over the period Pew tracks, the same secularizing trend as the native-born population.
- Hispanic religious identity is shifting rapidly. The share of Hispanic adults identifying as Catholic fell from 58% to 42% between 2007 and 2023–24 (Pew). PRRI finds Hispanic Christian identity down from 79% in 2013 to about 74% today.
- Generational status drives this. U.S.-born Latinos are much less likely to be Catholic (36%) and much more likely to be unaffiliated (39%) than Latino immigrants (52% Catholic, 21% unaffiliated). Most Hispanic outreach is designed for the immigrant generation, leaving the U.S.-born second generation unaddressed.
- Roughly 64 percent of U.S. Hispanics are now born in the United States.
In his own words
Everyone here is polite and no one is close. I have been in this city eight months and I have never been inside an American home. At home I knew who I was and who my family was and what was expected. Here I am only a job and a phone number. I would go anywhere someone actually invited me.
The governing conditions are displacement and an unclaimed hospitality gap. Most internationals in the United States never enter an American home. That is a measured and repeated finding, and it is the widest open door in this entire program.
For the second generation the condition is different: not fully at home in the parents' culture or in the surrounding one, and often carrying a faith inherited in a language he does not pray in.
What he feels he needs, and what he needs
| What he feels he needs | What he needs |
|---|---|
| Practical navigation: documents, driving, housing, English | A citizenship not dependent on any government (Philippians 3:20) |
| Belonging in a place where he has none | Adoption into a family (Ephesians 2:19; Galatians 3:26–29) |
| Not to be a stranger | To be reconciled to God first, and then to a people (Ephesians 2:12–13) |
| To honor his family | To learn what Christ actually requires of him (Matthew 10:37), the hardest thing in this profile |
| Access to God | One mediator, no hierarchy, no ritual specialist (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 4:14–16) |
Where the gospel meets him
- Hospitality as the doctrine it actually is. Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9. This is not a strategy for reaching this profile. It is a command, and it happens to be the single most effective thing anyone can do.
- A universal body that crosses every line. Galatians 3:26–29; Ephesians 2:11–22; Revelation 7:9. He is not being asked to become an American. He is being added to something that already contains every nation.
- The household conversions of Acts. Acts 10 (Cornelius), 16:14–15 (Lydia), 16:30–34 (the jailer), 18:8 (Crispus). Household-oriented cultures see themselves in these accounts immediately.
- One mediator. 1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 4:14–16. For Catholic-background and other hierarchical-religious-background hearers, direct access to the Father in Jesus' name is the doctrinal point that changes everything, and it should be presented as an enlargement rather than a subtraction.
- Citizenship that no government issues. Philippians 3:20; Hebrews 11:13–16. For anyone whose immigration status is precarious, this is not an abstraction.
Where he enters the plan of salvation, and where he stalls
- Enters at Step 1, hearing, in his own language wherever possible. Written material must be genuinely translated, not machine-rendered. A badly translated tract signals exactly how much thought was invested.
- Stalls at Steps 3 and 4, repentance and public confession, because both carry family and community cost that an American reader may badly underestimate. Confession is public by definition (Romans 10:9–10), and in some families that is a permanent rupture. Do not pretend otherwise.
- Step 5 is generally accepted readily, particularly by those from traditions with a strong sacramental sense. The teaching that sins are washed away at that moment (Acts 22:16) is received with relief rather than resistance.
- The hardest sentence to say: "This may cost you your family."
What helps, and what doesn't
Do: invite him into your home within the first month; learn to say his name correctly; help with the practical things (DMV, lease, school enrollment, doctor, taxes); eat his food; provide material in his language; expect a long timeline for the second generation and a short one for the newly arrived.
Don't: conflate the gospel with American culture or politics; discuss immigration policy; treat him as a project; assume the second generation shares the first generation's faith; use machine translation.
Where to find him: universities and international student offices; English-as-a-second-language classes taught freely and well; refugee resettlement agencies; apartment complexes; workplaces; existing members who share his language.
Which distinctive teachings resonate
Direct access to the Father in the name of Jesus: no priest, no intercessor, no saint, no fee. Scripture available and readable by him personally, which for many is a novelty in itself. An undenominational identity, since he has no stake in American religious history and "we are simply Christians" is a relief rather than a claim to evaluate. A cappella singing, which travels across languages, requires no equipment, and allows a congregation to sing in two languages in one assembly.
The pamphlet: You Are No Longer a Stranger
For those who have arrived in a country not their own. 20 pages, to be produced in English and Spanish at minimum, with additional languages by local need.
Why 20 pages. It must carry the household conversions of Acts, the one-mediator teaching, and an honest section naming the family cost, and it has to do so in a reader's second or third language without losing him.
A second edition for the second generation. A separate 12-page edition, Between Two Houses, is written in English for the U.S.-born second generation, addressing inherited faith that has never been personally examined. It is not a translation or a shortened version of this pamphlet, and the two are not interchangeable.
Translation. Translation must be done by a fluent speaker who holds the doctrinal positions the text teaches. Machine translation is not adequate.
How it is built. It opens on what it is like to be here, with the command about strangers in Leviticus 19:34, and gives the reason as memory rather than charity. It goes on to God moving people on purpose, the religion the reader grew up with, no priest, no fee, and no intermediary, the book in his own language, what it may cost him, whole households, a citizenship that cannot be revoked, and the five steps. It closes with an honest list of what is not promised. It is made of 15 short sections.
Opening excerpt
1. What it is like here
You have been here some months, or some years. You can do the paperwork now. You know which shop has the food you want, and you have found the one road that reminds you of home.
And there are still evenings when the phone call ends and the room is very quiet.
Nobody here knew you before. Nobody here knows what your family is respected for, what you were in your own city, or what your name means. You are competent in a language that will never be the language you dream in.
This booklet is written by people who cannot fully imagine that, and know it.
But there is a word for your situation in this book, and the people who wrote it were displaced too. Every one of them had been a foreigner, or was descended from one, and their oldest law contained this command:
"You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." — Leviticus 19:34
For you were strangers. The reason given is memory, not charity.
From the first section of You Are No Longer a Stranger. The full pamphlet is not posted on this site.
Neighboring profiles
Profile 1, the untethered, also lacks a church frame of reference but not a displaced home. Profile 6, the cultural christian, applies to many Catholic-background newcomers once the language and family dimensions are accounted for.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Based on Gospel Audience Profiles, version 2.0, August 11, 2026. Pamphlet draft 1.0.