Mutuality Framework

Background and Introduction: A Shifting Center

The church’s approach to mission must adapt to a rapidly changing global context. As the center of global Christianity has shifted to the Global South, this same shift is well underway in North American cities. African, Asian and Latin American diaspora Christians are migrating and planting churches as part of the greatest movement of peoples in the history of the world. First- and next-generation diaspora churches and Christians represent the new spiritual and numerical center of Christianity in North America and one of the greatest hopes for renewing the church and transforming the city.

Yet we operate in parallel, hidden universes that rarely intersect. Diaspora churches and leaders often remain on the margins, under-resourced and isolated while struggling to reach and disciple the next generation. We don’t know each other. Most non-immigrant American churches are also ignorant of the global church present in their own neighborhoods, attempting to reach the nations (both abroad and here) on their own with parallel efforts that miss the spiritual vibrancy and the cultural expertise of diaspora believers. (Think of a White, suburban church doing mission trips to Ghana while missing the thriving Ghanaian church across the street).

Furthermore, immigrants are often seen as objects of mission rather than as active missionary agents at the center of God’s purposes in renewing the church and revitalizing cities.These two worlds are often invisible to each other and operate independently from each other while they both hold gifts the other desperately needs.

With all this as context, we believe a fresh missional imagination is required. We believe that mutuality is a missional framework suited for bridging these divides and adapting to these massive shifts in a changing church and a changing world.

What is Mutuality?

What are we talking about when we say that we seek to foster “mutuality in mission,” whether between diaspora Christians and the broader, non-immigrant North American Church, or between different generations in the immigrant church, or between the Global North and the Global South?

Here is a short definition:

Mutuality is both an attitude and an approach to mission which seeks to recognize the dignity, gifts, and agency of “the other.” It seeks to practice reciprocity and live into the reality of interdependence, that together we are a reconciled family and the body of Christ. Mutuality seeks to avoid the distancing involved in “top-down” and “us-them” approaches by subverting the world’s power imbalances. Rather than doing mission from a place of power and control, mutuality seeks to create space for mutual flourishing by embracing weakness, vulnerability, and mission “from below.”

Through the practice of mutuality we seek to create an ecosystem of Kingdom collaboration for the sake of the city. It is an inherent aspect of what the New Testament calls koinonia, or fellowship. Speaking of the differences in the body, particularly the ethnic and cultural barriers between Jews and Gentiles, Paul says in Romans “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you” and “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” What does this look like in the context of mission and diaspora in our global cities?

We see four key elements of mutuality in mission: friendship, gifts, service, and structures. First, there is a commitment to friendship symbolized by a table and shared meal. Second, there is the receiving of each other’s gifts symbolized by the flame of the Spirit. Third, service and an intentional inversion of power imbalances symbolized by a towel and foot washing. Finally, mutuality must be reflected in kingdom household structures symbolized by a physical shared home. Let’s look at each in turn. At the end of each section are reflection questions for each of our three primary audiences.

1.Commitment to Friendship:

From the very beginning in Genesis, God reveals himself as a relational God. Over and above one-way transactional approaches or charity models based on the unidirectional exchange of money, in mutuality there is a priority given to the building of deep, two-way friendships. These kinds of friendships between diaspora and non-immigrant North American Christians are all too rare. They require a degree of vulnerability and embracing of weakness that go beyond “meeting needs.” True friendship requires stepping down and being able to also receive from “the other.
It requires a boldness from those used to always being on the receiving end to step up and offer their gifts in kind. These kinds of friendships involve both bold giving and humble receiving (Phil 4:15), both speaking and listening. Those with more power who are used to doing much of the “giving” and speaking (usually non-immigrants) begin to take a posture of “receiving” and of deep listening. Those used to being quiet and to listening (often immigrants) are encouraged to speak and share.

The symbol of friendship is a shared meal at a table, a shared cafecito. Why was it such a scandal that Jews and Gentiles would eat together? Why did Jesus himself spend so much time eating with those other religious leaders despised? Eating together breaks down barriers of language and culture like nothing else can. And ultimately the passover meal is used by Jesus to symbolize our reconciliation with God and one another.

• Immigrants: How can you prioritize building relationships with American non-immigrants before asking something from them? How can you intentionally build friendships with the next generation in your church?

• Non-Immigrants: What would it look like to prioritize building friendships with immigrant leaders in your city before seeking to serve them or involve them in an event or program?

• Next Gen: Do you have friendships with other Christian 1.5- and second-generation folks from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds in your city? How can you intentionally build friendships with the first generation in your church?

2.Receiving each other’s gifts

Revelation 21:6 states that “The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into [the new Jerusalem].” Dr. Robert Chao Romero, speaking on this passage, says that each ethnicity and each nation have unique treasure and glory which is part of their worship of God.This cultural treasure or “glory” is a reflection of the glory of God in and through each of us as God’s unique children. These treasures are things such as food, dance, music, thought, literature, architecture, and also the intangible lenses and perspectives each ethnic group brings to the body of Christ.

In stark contrast to this, a kind of scarcity mindset can exist among diaspora Christians where they don’t feel they have anything to offer non-immigrants or have been made to believe they must check their culture at the door of the church building. Many non-immigrants start with a theology of deficit when thinking about the diaspora community. Questions such as “What do they need?” reflect this mindset.

White American non-immigrants also, at times, are unsure of what gifts they can offer the immigrant church. Other well intentioned non-immigrants are afraid of offending or of repeating colonial mistakes of the past, and so are hesitant to engage immigrant churches altogether. In Pentecost, however, the Holy Spirit is poured out on all flesh. Everyone has gifts to give (Eph 4:7), and we need each other’s gifts for the whole body to grow into maturity (Eph 4:13). Immigrant Christians indeed bring treasures from the global church that the broader North American church desperately needs, such as passionate prayer, a real experience of suffering and the supernatural, and a deep commitment to evangelism and service.

There are also theological, artistic, and traditions of worship to be shared and received from the global church. What could it look like for us to sing each other’s songs (and not just the latest Western worship hit)? What could it look like for the different beautiful strands of global theology in our city to come together as a single tapestry? The North American church has important gifts to offer in service as well: gifts such as facilities, administrative expertise, finances, children and youth programming, mental health resources, and so on. To whom much is given, much is required (Lk 12:48). Surprisingly, though, in the Kingdom, those with supposedly the least to give are often the most generous (Lk 21:4). The symbol for these gifts is the flame of the Spirit.

• Immigrants: Can you name the unique treasures you and your church bring? What gifts does the non-immigrant church have that could strengthen you and your church?

• Non-Immigrants: Can you name the unique gifts you bring to the table as a North American, non-immigrant Christian? What about the gifts the diaspora church has that you and your church need?

• Next Gen: You can have the best of both worlds! Can you name the gifts that come from your parents’ cultural heritage(s) and background(s) and also the gifts that come from growing up in the US? What about the weaknesses or sins of each?

3.Inversion of power imbalances

Why are immigrants and people of color absent in the leadership of so many prominent mission and church planting organizations? Why are immigrant and next gen authors, speakers, leaders absent in so many playlists, conferences and libraries? How can we reverse this trend? The first conflict in the New Testament church involved a power imbalance involving an unjust distribution of resources between two distinct cultural and linguistic groups within the church (see Acts 6:1-15). Part of the solution that the early church came to was raising up leaders from the disempowered group (see the choosing of deacons in Acts 6:7).

The closing foot washing ceremony at the annual Diaspora National Conference is one way we seek to demonstrate the value of mutuality.

Similar leadership imbalances are often at play between immigrants and non-immigrants and between the generations within diaspora churches. Pursuing mutuality in these contexts seeks more than establishing equality within existing frameworks. Mutuality seeks to upend those frameworks and to live into Mary’s proclamation in the Magnificat that the birth of Christ ushers in a new upside-down Kingdom. God has “brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). In Kingdom relationships the traditionally weaker party is given a special and “greater honor” (1 Cor 12:23) and invited to step boldly into their God-given identity as key agents of kingdom mission, as co-leaders and co-laborers. Mutuality seeks something more challenging than equality: the strong, in humility, descending and coming under the weak and the weak ascending and taking leadership. This is all in imitation of the incarnation, Jesus’ descent and self-giving and then his resurrection and ascension (Philippians 2). The symbol of this is the towel with which Jesus washes his disciples feet.

• Immigrants: How can you practice washing (symbolically and literally) the feet of the next generation in your church?

• Non-Immigrants: What could it look like to intentionally “make a seat at the table” for diaspora leaders in the city? What could it look like to come under the leadership of the global church by sharing or even giving up positions of power and influence?

• Next Gen: What does embracing a lifestyle of service for the sake of the weak and vulnerable look like practically for you?

4.Household structures

True mutuality requires that individual acts of inversion and service such as foot washing be likewise accompanied by transformed structures. The gospel calls for changed hearts and changed systems. Through the cross, the wall of separation dividing Jew from Gentile is torn down and a new family is birthed (Eph 2:11-18).

This wall was a physical barrier in the structure of the temple that marginalized the gentiles, physically distancing them from worship in God’s presence. As a new, spiritual house of prayer for all nations, the early church sacrificially shared resources with one another, even selling properties to give to those in need so that “there were no needs among them” (Acts 4:34).

For everyone in a family to flourish, certain shared structures need to be in place for all. These structures can either facilitate mutuality or reinforce painful divisions. For example, if one brother sleeps in his own room with a king-sized bed while three other brothers sleep on the floor in a shared room, this inequity can only breed enmity. And yet, these kinds of same divisions persist within the body of Christ. Resources are not equally distributed. A large percentage of global-majority churches and immigrant churches in the US do not own their own buildings, nor have multiple paid, full-time pastors. Resources that are commonplace in English-speaking contexts, like multiple translations of the Bible in the same language, can be a rarity. Many church-planting networks and global mission organizations have very few immigrant staff or leaders of color. What are we to make of these disparities in the body? What would it look like for local churches and broader networks to be organized in such a way as to truly share resources and live as a reconciled family between immigrants and non-immigrants?

First, for structures to promote flourishing in multicultural contexts, they must be nimble and flexible (like the bamboo scaffolding used around buildings under construction in parts of Asia) to accommodate differences and adapt to cultural contexts and diverse ways of communicating and operating. One-size fits all models tend to favor certain groups or ways of operating.

Second, often within large churches or organizations, new parallel structures need to be established that exist to promote a just distribution of resources that go beyond one-off charity responses. An example of this could support networks for certain ethnic or affinity groups that come with specially designated budgets and staffing. Another is providing forms or instructions for speakers of languages other than English. The symbol for this area of mutuality is a shared physical home, a household.

• Immigrants: What structures or barriers have you experienced that limited your flourishing?

• Non-Immigrants: What could it look like to truly see all your resources as given by God for the sake of others?

• Next Gen: What resources do you need to be empowered to live out your calling in the church?

Mutuality Towards What End?

We believe that mutuality should lead us outward in collaborative mission in our cities and world. The unity-in-diversity of the Trinity naturally flows outward in love to the world. Mutuality opens a window to the world. Diaspora Christians can uniquely help the broader church in North America learn anew how to engage with and stay connected to both a global perspective and to God’s mission. Diasporans by their very presence challenge and subvert ethnocentric and paternalistic approaches to mission in the broader North American church. The broader, non-immigrant North American church can help the immigrant church reach out beyond their cultural and ethnic enclosures and disciple the next generation. Mutual partnerships can deepen the church’s identity as truly global Christians while at the same time deepening the sense of stability and belonging in the US for diaspora communities.

We believe that mutuality can lead to fresh missional collaboration in areas such as intercultural church-to-church partnerships, diverse and unified city-wide prayer movements, innovating immigrant and multiethnic church planting, creative resource sharing, vibrant multicultural worship, global theological exchange, and shared youth initiatives where we are together discipling the next generation and serving the city.

What does this all look like in practice?

Some Practical Implications of Mutuality: A Vision for a Church United in its Diversity

1. Rethinking Global Mission Models

Outdated, one-way (“West to the Rest”) mission models must give way to new reciprocal and polycentric models of mission that take into account that there are now Christians in every country on earth, that the majority of Christians live in the Global South and that migrant-missionaries are already taking the gospel from “everywhere to everywhere,” including here to North American cities. New mission models, thus, must include aspects of both sending and receiving and redefine who counts as a missionary. This can look like reciprocal (back and forth) trips and relationships between churches in the Global South and North American churches. A church in Kenya can send a yearly team to minister in Houston alongside a partner church. Interns and missionaries from churches in the Global South can be received by partner churches in the US, immigrant and non-immigrant alike. Parachurch groups can retool and contextualize their training in order to empower diaspora churches and missionaries in areas such as intercultural agility and reaching out to Muslims. Diverse missionary teams also become the norm. Globally this looks like Chileans and Koreans serving together among unreached people in India. It looks like intentionally diverse, short-term, global learning trips where US Christians (immigrant and non-immigrant) travel together to learn from the global church and not necessarily to give or evangelize. Finally, global mission must increasingly be rooted in local partnerships. Churches that have missionaries in or do trips to, say, Guatemala, should seek out local Guatemalan churches and Christians to learn from and partner with both here and there.

2. Reimagining Local mission

Similarly, no longer should any church or parachurch ministry attempt to reach a certain immigrant population in their city without partnering with and learning from churches and Christian leaders from that same community already present in their city. For example, any church seeking to reach out to Indians (whether locally or globally) should not attempt to do so without building partnerships with the Indian church both here and there. As is the case for global mission, diverse local mission and church planting teams should be the norm and standard.

3.Moving from Sharing Space to Sharing Ministry

This involves moving beyond “tenant/landlord relationships” and seeking creative kingdom collaboration in contexts where churches from multiple backgrounds share the space building. What could it look like for immigrant churches to not just rent space from the non-immigrant churches, but to share life and ministry together? Combined youth groups, shared outreach events, special multilingual worship services can flow from the trust that friendships between the pastors of different congregations engenders. Older, more established immigrant churches who own buildings can open them up to newer immigrant church plants from other backgrounds.

Examples include: Kingdom City Church in Houston with multiple different congregations sharing space; Hyde Park Church in Austin with English, Mandarin, and Spanish language services.

4.Developing Diverse Leadership Structures

Mutuality involves changed hearts and changed structures. Following the Acts 6:1- 15 example, ministries “to” or “for” the nations (whether locally or globally), should also be led “by” the nations. Conferences, networks, ministries and churches that don’t intentionally seek to include first- and second- generation diaspora in key staff, board, and other leadership roles risk irrelevance and missing out on one of the major moves of God in our day and on the tremendous gifts and blessings of the global church.

5. Creatively Sharing Resources

How can staff, buildings, and financial resources be creatively shared between immigrants, non-immigrants, and next gen? In parachurch ministries or networks, ongoing financial structures such as “Legacy Funds” and other creative endowments can fight against funding and resource inequality for leaders and churches from immigrant and next gen backgrounds. One example in the parachurch world is Intervarsity’s Legacy Fund. A percentage from what all IV staff raise goes to support non-White leaders, for whom fundraising is often more difficult.

6. Prioritizing Next Gen Leadership Development

The diaspora next gen is the already present-future: 50% of children under 18 in Houston and 30% in Austin have at least one immigrant parent. This is a unique opportunity for collaboration between immigrant and non-immigrant churches. This can look like combined youth retreats and multichurch children Vacation Bible Schools. Sunday school can be shared for churches that share the same building. Finally, equipping the diaspora next gen young adults (1.5, second, and even third-generation twenty-somethings) as bicultural bridge builders and global Christian leaders in an increasingly multicultural world must be a priority.

Next Gen Initiative Coordinator Fatima (Filipino) and 2026 Next Gen cohort member Melanie (Cuban) attend a conference in Atlanta, GA in Oct 2025.

7.Collaborative Church Planting of Next Gen and Multiethnic Churches

Because of their in-between background, diaspora next gen are natural leaders in multiethnic spaces and are leading the way in planting multiethnic congregations around the country. This can be seen as a natural progression and downstream result of thriving immigrant churches. One example of this is the Advance Initiative church planting ministry that seeks to empower the Indian diaspora to plant multiethnic churches, such as 7Mile Road, a diverse church in Philadelphia led by a number of second-gen leaders.

8.Developing Global Theology and Global Worship

Our training curricula, podcasts, libraries and Sunday worship playlists need to start reflecting the treasures of the nations. They need to be freed from Western cultural captivity and begin to center diaspora and global majority church voices and lenses. Why would we settle for anything less? We must all learn from Latin American, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and Asian authors and theologians. Let us begin to sing not just translated Western songs in different languages, but also songs written by the global church in different rhythms and scales, played by different instruments. How can the thoughts in our minds and the rhythms of our hearts—as much as the color of our skin—reflect God’s beautiful mosaic?

Conclusion

Mutuality is at the heart of the Diaspora Network. We have designed our yearly national conferences and cohorts to model and help participants actually experience mutuality, not just hear about it as an idea. Throughout our programming we seek to foster environments where prayer, conversation, and deep listening can be practiced leading to mutual transformation and to ongoing relationships. Key to our ethos are shared meals and the receiving and sharing of gifts of language, culture, art, and worship in events such as our Nations Worship Festival. We pray that fresh ideas and imagination can be stirred and emerge as we seek to join God in what he is doing through the diaspora.

** An important note on terms and definitions: For our purposes “diaspora” includes the categories of immigrant, refugee, asylum seeker, international student, etc.— anyone who is foreign-born. Diaspora also includes second- and sometimes third-generation groups (“next gen”) born in the US who continue to build and maintain cultural identity ties with one another and with their parents (or grandparents) country of origin and cultural heritage. We try to avoid “either/or” language that contrasts “ethnic” churches with “American” churches. Diaspora churches are “American” or (more accurately) “North American,” both in terms of geographic location as well, usually, in terms of literal citizenship. Furthermore, all churches are “ethnic” and so either monoethnic or multiethnic, including churches that are predominantly White and of European descent. Many diaspora churches are “multiethnic” in that they include a number of different ethnic groups or nationalities from a region. For example, many African churches worship in several languages and bring together people from several different neighboring countries.

Endorsements for Diaspora Network’s Framework for Mutuality :

“I wholeheartedly endorse Diaspora Network’s framework of Mutuality. With deep theological grounding and missional honesty, it names what the global church urgently needs today: a decisive move beyond outdated, one-directional models of mission toward a shared posture of reciprocity, dignity, and interdependence, rooted in gospel-shaped koinonia. Mutuality affirms diaspora Christians not as objects, recipients, or projects of the non-immigrant church, but as full partners and co-laborers in God’s mission, bearing essential gifts, agency, and spiritual authority. This is not a call for a mere pragmatic adjustment, but an invitation into a deeply Christ-shaped, gospel-fluent vision of mission—one that embodies humility, redistributes power, and seeks the flourishing of the whole body of Christ.”

Robert Guerrero, VP City to City NA, Confraternidad Avance Coordinator

“The mutuality framework is a necessary next step to understanding how God is at work in our generation through people on the move. It is new and novel for some, but it is also as ancient as the church in Antioch in Acts 11 when we were first called Christians. This framework is a clarion call that the global church has emerged on American soil!” - Daniel Yang, National Director of Churches of Welcome at World Relief

“This framework of mutuality by the Diaspora Network is a timely message as it invites the body of Crist, both the diaspora and local American churches, to revise their mindset and practices of mission in our globalized world today. This comes with my recommendation to all who want to know and follow Christ in His mission through mutuality among His body.” - Dr. Mehari Korcho, author of Ethiopian Diaspora Churches on Mission

“This framework for Mutuality is both informative and empowering to everyone in the equation. It acknowledges power imbalances and gives insight and resources on how to restore balance. I love the intentionality behind the questions that acknowledge the different ways each participant needs to be addressed and answer. I think it’s a great tool to educate and train leaders to engage in mission so that their blindspots are not a hindrance from Gospel centered partnerships with those who come from different ethnic groups from around the world.” - Mekdes Haddis, Author of A Just Mission: Laying Down Power Embracing Mutuality, Director of Racial Justice and Reconciliation at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)

“As our society becomes more fractured and divided, it is more critical that today’s church live out the Kingdom reality of “unity-in-diversity” our Savior prayed for in John 17. The framework of mutuality spells out how the U.S. church might practice this biblical value as a growing number of immigrant congregations bring a rich diversity to its body. This framework exhorts the U.S. Christian community to see this growing diversity as a gift to be stewarded, not a challenge to be managed.” -Peter Cha, PhD, Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative