PORT ARTHUR?Brent and Savannah Sorrels moved to Texas in 2005 to work with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as strategy coordinators in Port Arthur. Having served as IMB missionaries in Costa Rica, the Sorrels expected to put their Spanish language skills to use with the area’s growing Hispanic population. But as they prayer-walked through area neighborhoods, the couple discovered large communities of unreached Vietnamese immigrants in Port Arthur.

“When we first came we tried to reach everyone,” Brent Sorrels said. “We had big maps of the city blocked off. But we kept running into Vietnamese, and it seemed no one was doing anything to reach them.”

BUDDHISTS & NOMINAL CATHOLICS

There are 5,000 Vietnamese immigrants in Port Arthur, a city totaling 60,000. “We are not big, but we have a lot of diversity,” Sorrels said, noting that among the 5,000 Vietnamese, about 60-65 percent are Catholic and the remainder are Buddhist. Many practice ancestor worship in addition to their official religion.

“We are still learning about them, but I found that Buddhists are more open to studying the Bible than Catholics,” Sorrels said. “Somewhere in the family history they stopped being Buddhists and became Catholic. They feel like they’ve gone as far as they need to, like they’ve made all the conversion in their family history that is necessary. They are much less open to studying the Bible even if they don’t know the Bible or don’t read it.”

While only 10 percent of the worldwide Vietnamese population is Catholic, Sorrels attributed Port Arthur’s high percentage to several factors.

“A lot of these folks were from the same part of South Vietnam?a heavily Catholic part of Vietnam,” he said. “Another factor is Catholic charities helped settle the Vietnamese here.”

Key to the work of a people group missionary is intimate knowledge of the different subgroups comprising a people group. Blanket missions strategies to one people group often fail. The Catholic/Buddhist divide among the Port Arthur Vietnamese is an example.

“We worked on a translation project to have some Bible studies designed for Catholics,” Sorrels said, noting a partner church in Houston translated the studies into Vietnamese. The studies worked well in reaching Catholics, he said.

“You can assume a lot of things with Catholics regarding the Trinity, sin, and who Jesus was and what he did?coming, living, and dying and paying for sin?that helps us as a common point that we don’t share with our Buddhist friends. We tried to use the same Bible studies with the Buddhists but it wasn’t getting past their worldview issues at all?we were assuming too much.”

“So we are currently using Bible stories, beginning in Genesis, and assuming our folks are literate. And in doing so, we have them read the Scriptures together and then have them ask questions,” he said. “We are teaching them the Bible, but we are also teaching them to obey the Bible and what changes should appear in your life as a result. And we are asking them to share their faith at the end of each lesson.”

Currently, Sorrels leads four storying groups with 16 attendees. The groups are facilitated with the help of a few local men, two of whom Sorrels hopes will become leaders for a movement among the Vietnamese. A new study in English recently began for second-generation Vietnamese. During the summer Sorrels utilizes two Vietnamese-speaking interns conducting English classes

The group recently baptized its first disciple, who was kicked out of her home as a result of her decision. But Sorrels has hopes for more baptisms soon.

“We have a 17-year-old atheist who accepted Christ in the last week or so,” he said. “And my hope is we’ll have a few more accept Christ by the end of summ

As a Christian evangelical, well-known researcher George Barna believes “obedience to Jesus Christ is the ultimate solution to all of humankind’s problems.” And yet, he argues in his new book “The Seven Faith Tribes,” that aggressive evangelization of the nation’s majority “tribe” is not the solution to returning America to greatness.

“Should the masses embrace Jesus as their Savior, the nature of our culture could be radically transformed?but as our past experience has shown, having tens of millions simply accept Christ and then live in ways that do not reflect the values Jesus taught gains us little ground,” he explains.

Instead, he helps readers understand the seven dominant faith tribes of the United States in order to show that many of the answers to America’s problems relate to rebuilding a sense of “shared moral values and community.” Barna believes Christians collaborate with non-Christians in order to solve a variety of societal problems, including an unstable economy, strained global relationships, compromised national security, ineffective public education and the redefinition of marriage.

After making a case that America is on a path to self-destruction, Barna explains how the faith of Americans can be categorized into a series of segments he refers to as the seven tribes. He provides an overview of each faith group, noting the values that unite them, subtitling the report to offer research on “who they are, what they believe and why they matter.”

‘CASUAL CHRISTIANS’

Not only is the book helpful in understanding how to work with fellow Americans from a variety of faith tribes to achieve common goals, it provides an honest recognition that the largest faith tribe?Casual Christians?may contribute the majority of members within a typical Southern Baptist congregation. Recognizing just how casually they regard their faith is eye-opening.

“As their name implies, casual Christians are rather laid-back about their faith practices,” Barna writes. “Most of them have one or two religious behaviors that they strive to practice consistently,” he says, referring to prayer, church service attendance and Bible reading, but fewer than 18 percent regularly engage in all three.

“Rather than allowing the Christian faith to shape their minds and hearts, they have chosen to fit Christianity within the box they have created for it. The outcome is a warm, fuzzy feeling about their faith of choice because it has been redefined according to their needs.”

Therefore, Casual Christians are not necessarily the group from which to draw support for pursuing a different moral course in America.

“Despite their stated discomfort with the current moral condition and direction of the nation, their proposed solution is for people to adopt greater tolerance,” he explains, noting that they are more likely to emphasize liberty and happiness.

‘CAPTIVE CHRISTIANS’

While Casual Christians account for 80 percent of Americans who self-identify as Christians, the second tribe, which Barna calls Captive Christians, accounts for just 16 percent of the total adult population. “Captive Christians do not just talk the game, they walk it,” he explains. He credits them with being the tribe that most closely tries to understand and follow biblical teachings, regarding the Bible as their handbook for life.

THE OTHER FIVE

The additional chapters addressing the other five tribes are particularly helpful in understanding the beliefs and practices of other faith groups. Barna guides readers to understand the extensive redefinition of Judaism in an American context and its enormous influence despite its small number of adherents. Mormons are the focus of another chapter, representing the only major faith group that was birthed in the