Inside a Brooklyn church where immigration activism is the Gospel

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (RNS) — On a recent Sunday, minutes before their afternoon service, members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church gathered around a wooden table in the entrance of their Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, sanctuary for one of the congregation’s most sacred rituals: a potluck meal. Congregants filled their plates from aluminum trays with rice and beans and chicken stew, then took their seats for a meal that has, for a few years now, helped bind this tight-knit community together.

Among those attending was Silvia Feliz, who first walked through the doors four years ago, not for fellowship but for a food basket. The Dominican caregiver was new to the U.S., battling depression and searching for work. Now the vice president of the church council, Feliz helps run the church’s clothing donations and food pantry and sometimes cooks for the communal meals.

Good Shepherd’s unapologetic support for immigrants is what made her plant roots in the congregation, she said. The church, led by the Rev. Juan Carlos Ruiz, who emigrated from Mexico and became a U.S. citizen in 2001, has been built around the conviction that supporting and advocating for immigrants is inseparable from the Gospel.…