"The integration journey is more complex than I ever imagined. Especially the children of these families - they don't always know where they belong."
Prosper, refugee from D.R.C., speaking on Australian church integration of refugees and migrant families.
Churches in Cultural Transition
Helping churches welcome refugees with understanding, sensitivity, and confidence.
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Churches in Cultural Transition (CCT) is all about equipping churches to receive refugees into their communities with genuine care. This is done through open conversations, practical training, and guidance that helps churches understand the cultural difference refugees bring and the challenges that they face.
When refugees arrive in a new country, almost evrything about their lives changes: language, customs, daily routines, and even how community or faith is expressed. Church culture can also feel unfamiliar or overwhelming. This means integration can be difficult not just for refugees settling into a local church, but also for churches trying to understand how best to support them.
Refugees often face many challenges when rebuilding their lives, such as:
- Stuggling to find stable and fair employement
- Legal and documentation issues
- Social exclusion or discrimination
- Economic pressure in the host country
- Difficulty finding affordable housing
- Barriers to education or learning a new language
- Trauma, grief, and emotional stress
- Identity struggles for young children of these families
Prosper and his family arrived in Australia in 2023. Fleeing from the D.R.C., they experienced severe persecution and were sponsored by Philoi on a humanitarian visa.
He now serves as the coordinator of Churches in Cultural Transition. Through this project, he works closely with migrant pastors across Australia, creating spaces for dialogue, mentorship, and mutual learning.
As he sits with these faith leaders – many of whom carry the weight of displacement and cultural dislocation – the conversations consistently return to a recurring theme: the urgent need for churches to become bridges between cultures, offering not just spiritual refuge but practical pathways to belonging, identity, and community in a new land.
Because of these challenges, churches play an important role in offering stability, compassion, and belonging.
"This is a very big concern of the church but also migrant families experiencing parenting challenges in this new context...
To many migrant communities, the church is the main hope for the survival of the younger generations and a ground of reconciliation in case of family disputes."
We work with churches across Australia to develop training modules and workshops that help communities grow in cultural awareness and sensitivity, so they can welcome refugees with confidence and understanding. We also collaborate with churches and organisations in Brazil, Canada, and New Zealand that are facing similar challenges and seeking better ways to integrate refugees into their church families.
Our goal is to work with churches to remove the barriers that might stop refugees from feeling comfortable or safe in a church community.
We aim to help churches respond with sensitivity, especially toward those who have suffered because of their faith or come from persecuted Christian communities. In short, CCT exists to help churches become safe, welcoming places where refugees can heal, belong, and grow.
The donations made to CCT will go towards providing tailored training, consultation, and workshops.