In Amharic, Karen and Spanish, worship is a home for migrants in the inner city

WORTHINGTON, Minnesota – Come at noon on Sundays, overlapping worship options reflect how many Worthington has changed from a typical Midwestern farming community to a majority minority center with migrants from around the world.

A packed crowd still sways to the sound of praise music from one of 10 Latin American choirs at the weekend’s second Spanish-language Catholic mass. Half a mile away, Ethiopian Orthodox Christians finish their six-hour service in what used to be the office of the local newspaper.

And in the cornfields outside the city, Southeast Asian refugees gather to pray and sing in Karen at a Baptist church founded by Swedish farmers in 1873, many of whose descendants attend morning services in English.

These and other churches try to preserve diverse cultures in a way that feels like home, while offering the possibility of integration for communities that tend to self-segregate.

“My job, at least in the two congregations, is to bring them together,” said the Rev. Lucio Berumen, Mexican pastor of Indian Lake Baptist Church. “You’ve been here 150 years, you’ve been here 15 years, you know the problems you have. The only thing I want to know is that you can work together.”

Berumen studies Swedish traditions such as julotta (Christmas morning prayers), but also regularly sits through the two-hour Karen service, not understanding a word but silently praying for all the members of his church.

For Karen volunteer pastor E Ler Plau So, who recently led the community in a 15th anniversary celebration in Indian Lake, helping the Karen children with their exercises is as big a challenge as the older generation’s problems with English.

At St. Mary’s, the Rev. Tim Biren hopes to bridge the gap between the Latino and predominantly white congregations, with different pastoral needs and worship styles, right down to the volume of the choir music.

Some parishioners would like to try bilingual Masses — “That way we can learn a little Spanish and help them build relationships outside of their community,” said Pat Morphew, who has attended St. Mary’s since the 1980s.

But for many members of Spanish choirs, it was a relief to belong to something so familiar in a foreign country, said Dagoberto Mendez, who moved to Worthington in 2000 and directs the group Nueva Inspiración.

His three children and several Guatemalan compatriots recently shook the rafters during Saturday night and Sunday morning services to the accompaniment of trumpets, saxophone, electric piano and the signature guira, a percussion instrument that resembles a giant cheese grater.

The large drums and tall sticks are part of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo liturgy, which surprised the Lutherans, who had been hosting worshipers in their church for years until they built their own shrine.

“They have no idea what we are doing, but they give us a place to worship,” Abebe Abetew recalls. “They are God’s people.”

Today, most of the community’s 500 members gather before dawn in the sanctuary, decorated with Ethiopian-made icons, and begin the day with prayer over lunch in the basement.

“Church is as basic for us as food consumption. If you don’t eat, you die,” Abetew said.

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Associated Press religious coverage is supported through the AP cooperation from The Conversation US with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.