Rev David de Verney (c) Louise Van der Merwe

Church and Worship

We may all be worshipping the same God, but when migrants arrive in the UK they can soon find the different expressions of worship an extra culture-shock, especially if they can't understand what's being said.

While a traditional British service will usually last around an hour, for example, Fe'ao and Iesinga were more accustomed to two or three hours of worship, Tongan-style.

So, as well as the British-style services Iesinga holds in her own church, she and Fe'ao attend a monthly Tongan service where they can speak their own language and worship for as long as they want.

Christians across the UK are working out their own ways of accommodating different worship cultures.

The Reverend Irfan John, who works with ethnic minority congregations in Wales for the Methodist Church, recently started Cardiff's first Urdu worship service.

"I prefer to worship in an Urdu worship service rather than an English because I understand my own language 100 percent and English is my fourth language - that is why we started Urdu worship," he says.

"In Cardiff, we have Arabic, Persian and German, Korean and Chinese languages and we decided to work together with other churches. So, if other churches find Urdu- speaking people in their church they can recommend us, and we can do the same with other languages. This enables people to feel comfortable."

Others have bi-lingual services, like Denham Baptist Church in Norfolk, whose 80-strong congregation includes a group of between ten and 12 Portuguese migrants.

Still others have a combination of both. All the services at mega-church Hillsong UK are translated into four languages: Spanish, Portuguese, Hungarian and Korean, supported by a "welcome to London" team who provide one-to-one practical help and guidance to migrants.

And Wesleyan Christian Centre pastor, the Reverend Elson Parris, may be a Barbadian living in north London, but that doesn't stop him also overseeing a Portuguese congregation, which blossomed after he prayed for more diversity.

The church has an English service in the morning and a Portuguese one in the evening, with a monthly joint celebration.

"We help them to integrate by having the different services, which helps them get used to the surroundings and the different culture and cultural mix," he says.

"We try to create an atmosphere where each culture can engage and enjoy each other."

Eurides Carvalho, who arrived in England from Portugal in 1996, enjoys this diversity. "It is very interesting how that in one church you can have loads of different races and cultures and they have only one God," she says.

"We can worship in our own language and our own way."

The Reverend Geoff Reid, Team Leader for Touchstone, a Methodist service that works ecumenically to help asylum seekers and new migrants in the Bradford area, sees this diversity as very positive for the Church.

"One of the effects of people of different nationalities and ethnicity joining the local church is that they become more open to learn and relate to Christians of different backgrounds," he says.

"And this, in turn, has encouraged them to think about what their Christian responsibility is to their city and to reach out to people of different faiths. It took Christians of a different culture to open them up to what was on their doorstep and I think that is very healthy."