The issues surrounding immigrants and refugees are complex, confusing, and often controversial. Many churches are hesitant to engage these communities. Building upon a biblical foundation, the Acts 17 Initiative will teach churches both the gospel mandate and the facts surrounding current immigrant issues, the refugee crisis, and how Christians can get involved. 

The Acts 17 Initiative realizes the challenges in ministry and evangelism efforts to our new immigrant/refugee neighbors. We will work to equip churches to overcome these challenges and train them for a variety of missional endeavors. We uniquely approach equipping churches as we continue to be ministry practitioners. We have a strong committed to local churches as the Acts 17 Initiative is a ministry of the local church, Clarkston International Bible Church, and desire to serve local churches to minister the Gospel to the nations in their unique community context. 

The redemptive work of God through the migration of nations to the U.S. often means refugees and immigrants arrive here as committed Christians. The Acts 17 Initiative will encourage those believers to minister to their own communities and ethnicities in ways that only they can with the goal of producing disciple-making churches in their neighborhoods and even abroad.

Loving, welcoming, and serving the nations that are our neighbors means confronting injustices they face and advocating against policies that hinder justice and the Church’s mission. Advocacy is being a voice with/for the voiceless, standing in the gap to present the realities of injustice for the vulnerable locally, regionally, nationally, and around the world to those in positions of influence to change the situation. Proverbs 31:8-9 calls believers to advocacy: “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 
The vulnerable that the Acts 17 Initiative that will primarily focus advocacy efforts on are immigrants and refugees.

The Acts 17 Initiative is committed to developing strategic networks and partnerships to encourage collaboration with like-minded immigrant/refugee and ministries and churches to pursue church planting, evangelism efforts, ministry equipping, leadership training, and researching people-groups living in the U.S.