How to Talk to Your Pastor About Immigration
Maybe you’re watching what’s happening to immigrant families across the country and wondering why your church isn’t talking about it.
Maybe you know families in your own community who are afraid, hurting, or navigating an uncertain future.
And maybe you keep thinking: How do I talk to my pastor about this?
First things first, you’re not alone in feeling this way.
It makes sense to feel emotional when real people are experiencing real pain. This is a legitimate reason to be emotional. Let’s flex that empathy well. But the burden to “get your pastor to see this as an important issue” is not on you. You have a responsibility, just as he/she does, to know what the Bible says about people and live that out just as Jesus would. It’s a shared, communal responsibility.
Still, your voice matters. Having the conversation is important, especially if you’re knowledgeable, personally affected, or simply watching the news and seeing the national landscape.
Here are a few ways to approach the conversation with courage, compassion, and wisdom.
1. Start with prayer
Before you talk to your pastor, talk to God.
Ask the Holy Spirit to prepare your heart and to move in the hearts of your church leaders, growing their compassion for immigrant families in your city and across our country. Pray for wisdom about what needs to be said, tenderness toward everyone involved, and clarity about how you can respond faithfully.
You don’t need every answer before you begin. You do want the Spirit, rather than your anger or anxiety, leading the way.
2. See the big picture, but know the local toll
Stay informed about what’s happening nationally, including research on family separation and detention, but don’t stop there. Learn how these realities are affecting immigrant families in your own community. Talk with local ministries, resettlement organizations, immigrant pastors, and immigrant neighbors. Become a student of how families in your county are being affected.
Then help your pastor make the connection between a national issue and actual neighbors.
Pastors carry long responsibility lists. Doing some of the investigative work can be a gift. Instead of arriving with only a problem, consider bringing a specific local need and a practical way your church could respond.
3. Pursue biblical confidence to help make connections
Your pastor may have been to seminary, but that doesn’t mean they’ve spent significant time studying the theology of migration or considering how Scripture speaks into today’s immigration realities.
You don’t need a theology degree to open your Bible.
Study what Scripture says about the sojourner, stranger, neighbor, vulnerable, and foreigner. Let God’s Word shape your own convictions first, and then invite your church leaders to explore it with you.
The goal isn’t to win an argument. It’s to faithfully ask together: What does obedience to Jesus look like here?
4. Share helpful information
Sometimes, putting your thoughts in writing is a kindness to your pastor.
A thoughtful email gives you space to communicate your concerns clearly and concisely, while sharing links to relevant research, stories, and information. It also gives your pastor time to read, investigate, pray, and process the information when they have margin, creating a stronger foundation for a productive follow-up conversation.
5. If necessary, start without your church
You may pray, research, prepare, and have a thoughtful conversation with your pastor, only to discover your church isn’t ready to respond in the way you hoped.
Keep going.
You don’t need to wait for a formal church program to begin loving your immigrant neighbors.
You know what God’s Word says. Go and live it out. Serve with a local ministry. Build a relationship with an immigrant family. Volunteer. Listen. Learn. Advocate. Practice biblical hospitality right where God has placed you.
And who knows? Your faithfulness may help your church see new ways to love and welcome immigrant neighbors, too.
Women of Welcome exists to encourage, educate, and equip women to follow God into biblical welcome toward immigrants. Sometimes that means inviting our churches to come with us. Sometimes it means faithfully taking the first step ourselves.
Your compassion doesn’t have to begin with politics. It can begin with prayer, Scripture, proximity, and obedience.
So pray. Learn. Speak with grace. Bring practical ideas. And then go love your neighbor.