Every Tribe and Tongue: International Worship at Westminster Presbyterian Church
By Erin Jones
Screenshot 2025-04-03 at 9.54.42 PM

Each Sunday at 11:00 a.m., the sanctuary of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is filled with the resonance of an organ as worshippers stand and open their hymnals. 

Outside the sanctuary, across a warm lobby space and down hallways of children’s ministry, the church’s gymnasium is filled with another style of worship. Pounding drums and syncopated clapping fill the space as 150 worshippers stand, sway, and dance while they sing. By 11:00, the Swahili service will have already been underway for 30 minutes, and will continue long after the 12:15 benediction in the sanctuary. 

Most of those who come to the Swahili service are Congolese refugees who have resettled in the Lancaster area. They are not a separate church, but part of the Westminster congregation. Westminster ruling elder and pastoral associate John Mwaura leads the service in Swahili, though some of the English-speaking pastors preach occasionally with a translator. All the church’s children attend children’s ministry and youth group together.

Nor are they the only group to enjoy worship in their heart language at Westminster. The church’s 8 a.m. service provides Burmese translation in real time via earpieces for about 20 families. 

As Lancaster County has seen an influx of refugees from many nations, Westminster has decided to welcome the nations into its church family.

Lancaster County’s large-scale reception of refugees dates back to the 1970s when waves of refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia settled in a region of the U.S. best known for its Amish residents. Westminster Missions Pastor Tucker York believes the prevalence of Mennonite communities factored into the resettlements.  

“If you go back a generation or two, I think the U.S. State Department saw Lancaster as a good place to settle refugees, largely because of the Mennonites, the agriculture, the jobs, housing, the manufacturing, and then that Mennonite culture of kindness and service and receptivity,” he said.

A 2017 BBC news report cited Lancaster County as taking in 20 times more refugees per capita than anywhere else in the U.S. In 2017 Westminster saw an influx of Congolese refugees join their community after being resettled in Lancaster, but their ministry to refugees began several years earlier, when the church first sponsored a Burmese family.

Connie O’Connor, along with several Westminster members, was a regular volunteer at Water Street Mission in downtown Lancaster when she noticed an increasing number of refugees visiting the mission’s clothing drive. She was also on Westminster’s Great Commission Committee and proposed that the church sponsor a refugee family. In March 2011, Westminster sponsored a Burmese refugee family, the first of many to join the church community. 

Word spread, sparking interest among other refugees. O’Connor and her husband contacted Mission to North America’s ESL coordinator, Nancy Booher, who helped the church establish an ESL program. They also started a simplified ESL worship service on Sunday mornings. 

Getting the program started took some time, but the welcome refugees received from Westminster members was warm and immediate. 

“Even if it took a while to get started, and the language was a barrier, I think the refugees always felt love in our church and felt welcome, and word-of-mouth to the refugee community spread,” O’Connor said.  

By the end of 2012, the church had around 40 Burmese worshippers. While some left to join other local Burmese churches, many ultimately returned to Westminster so that their children would benefit from the children and youth ministries. The added translation assistance helped the adults follow along in the Sunday service. 

In late 2016 and early 2017, a large population of Congolese refugees resettled in Lancaster, many from Tanzanian refugee camps. Five Congolese families began attending Westminster, but more families soon followed.

“When we started this ministry, it was an outreach ministry to help the Congolese,” Mwaura said. In partnership with Church World Service, an organization that works to assist resettled refugees, Westminster volunteers worked first to help in practical ways, through ESL, tutoring, transportation, housing, and navigating job applications. 

As the more Congolese attendees came, Westminster realized it needed to care for the new congregants in their own language. 

In 2016 Westminster began holding its Swahili worship service. MTW missionaries Dan and Janet McBride came to Lancaster from nearby suburban Philadelphia to assist in the first year.

Then, in God’s providence, Mwaura and his wife, Rebecca, returned from Kenya and joined the ministry. Originally from Kenya, the Mwauras had been members of Westminster since the 1980s, and speak Swahili fluently. Mwaura had recently retired from working in higher education, and his experience and expertise in psychology helped him to pastor a congregation that had, in many cases, suffered immense trauma. His expertise also prepared volunteers to better assist these communities.

Though united around a common language, the Congolese congregants come from different denominations, including Pentecostal, Anglican, Catholic, and Muslim converts. Mwaura said the Congolese are renowned for their musicianship, so about three-quarters of their worship service is music.

“Worship is very charismatic, more Pentecostal. We have to adhere to our doctrine of the ‘Westminster [Confession]’ and the church government, but we really allow them to be who they are.”

Annually, the whole congregation gathers together for a multilingual international service, which has become a highlight of the church year. The sermon is translated into both Swahili and Burmese, and special music is presented in multiple languages and styles. 

The children and youth have been integral in building cultural bridges and unifying a multicultural congregation. 

“Children are a key to that,” York said, “Children just have that universal ability to get along and play together.” 

In addition to ESL and citizenship classes, the church has an active tutoring ministry for the school children. Jim O’Connor, Connie’s husband and a ruling elder, estimates about 45 children are picked up for tutoring as part of Church Fellowship Nights, which takes place each Wednesday during the academic year. The church provides dinner, and the students participate in the youth activities and kids club. 

“It’s just an amazing ministry. It’s such a blessing,” Jim said. “The families love it. The kids love it. The church loves it.” 

Building international relationships between children benefits both America-born and immigrant families, and the church congregation is more attuned to the local community outside the church. The volunteers are also blessed through their work with the refugees and consider it a great blessing from God. 

I think serving refugees has changed our church and made our church more like heaven,” Jim said. 

Meeting the needs of refugees requires a robust team of volunteers, but Westminster has found an effective model by pairing an American family with a refugee family. That pairing provides relational bonds and a point of contact for questions with navigating new systems of healthcare, employment, and finances. 

“We realized those that were really adopted by the American families adjusted very well to this country, and it was much easier to navigate their own lives.” Mwaura said, adding that a number of those once newly resettled have now bought their own homes. 

The mixing of cultures, language barriers, and logistical challenges have not come without growing pains, but underlying all of it has been the love of the family of God for one another. 

“Love drove this ministry,” Mwaura said. 


Erin Jones is a byFaith contributing writer.

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