Syrian Journey: Choose Your Own Escape Route
This is an interactive role-play that invites participants to experience the vetting process for Syrian refugees. Even if you don’t have power point, your youth or adults can use their smart phones or a laptop in small groups of 2-3. Each will be asked to make choices that affect their path through the refugee experience. Gather them together after the experience to talk about the eye-opening aspects of their journey as they walk a mile in the shoes of a Syrian refugee. Made available by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The Church Leaders’ Guide to Immigration published by World Relief https://www.worldrelief.org/church-leaders-resources-download/
This guide is one of the single best resources for clergy who are considering preaching to address anti-immigrant, anti-refugee bias. It provides extensive background information but also reflective answers to questions like:
The people in my church seem more focused on economic, social, and political concerns than on what the Bible says—I’m a pastor, not a policy expert or an academic: how do I respond to these questions, and what sort of public policies might a Christian support?
How can I be a good steward of my influence in addressing issues like anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim rhetoric without risking that my preaching will come across as partisan or politicized?
I know this is an issue that we need to address, but I’m not sure how to do it without driving people out of my church. How do I best go about this to minimize pushback from people in my church who don’t think we should be showing any sort of compassion to immigrants?
Sojourners Matthew 25 Toolkit
A good resource to use as you begin to involve your congregation in helping immigrants. Ideas range all the way from prayer support to offering sanctuary to an immigrant facing deportation. https://sojo.net/sites/default/files/matthew25.toolkit.immigration.pdf
Teaching Tolerance: Ten Myths about Immigration
Accurate information to help you dispel the misinformation that feeds discrimination.
Teaching Tolerance: Injustice on our Plates: Immigrant Women in the US Food Industry
Based on interviews with 150 women from Mexico, Guatemala and other Latin American countries, these personal stories put faces on conversation about immigrants. The materials advocate neither a pro- or anti-immigrant stance. Rather, they encourage students to focus on the facts surrounding immigration, learn from the voices of the women themselves and consider whether basic human rights are dependent on legal status. Each lesson may be used as a standalone unit.