Arabic Baptist Church of NKY holds state’s first Arabic language church service in Florence

By Mark Maynard
Kentucky Today

Arabic Baptist Church of Northern Kentucky held its debut service Sunday in Florence, becoming the first Arabic language church in Kentucky. It came to fruition through much prayer and cooperation.

The Northern Kentucky Baptist Association (NKBA), the Kentucky Baptist Convention (KBC), Florence Baptist Church and the North American Mission Board all played a role in making it happen.

The encouraging first service, led by pastor Amer Safadi, attracted 55 adults and children on Sunday morning in the space provided by Florence Baptist.

“Relational bridge builders are one of the critical components to seeing the church multiplied,” said Rob Patterson, the evangelism team leader of the KBC. “It has been an incredible joy over the past year to help create connections between Amer Safadi and leaders within the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association. Brother Charles Frazier and the NKBA have a burden to see churches planted, so they received Amer with enthusiastically open hearts.”

Safadi, who pastors a church in nearby Cincinnati as well, is a volunteer missionary with NAMB. This is the 14th Arabic-speaking church he has planted.

“Our plan was for two years to launch the church in northern Kentucky,” he said. “We need to do more evangelism work in Florence. We have four to five families we have visited regularly.”

Frazier, the associational mission strategist of NKBA, said it is believed that the Florence area has 6,000 Arabic-speaking immigrants living there.

“For me, this is definitely a great experience, a new experience,” he said “I feel very blessed to be able to be part of this, support this and devote energy to this. This is the biblical mandate, taking the gospel to the nations. There are many nations represented in northern Kentucky.”

Safadi’s mission is to pastor the two churches while making plans to launch others throughout the United States. An Arabic pastor from Cleveland and a ministry partner from South Carolina came to Sunday’s service to be part of it.

“I’m here to equip the leaders to lead by themselves,” Safadi said. “Equipping, leading and giving them the potential to lead. I’ve helped to plant 14 other churches with NAMB. Last year we had 42 Arabic leaders (being trained) and this year we have 65 Arabic leaders from nine different states. This is the vision God gave me from Jordan (where he lived).”

Patterson said he has been “personally blessed” by Safadi’s testimony.

“He is truly a catalytic leader. God used him to spark a multiplication of churches across the Middle East and having answered God’s call to plant churches among Arabic speaking refugees. The Lord is using him again to see churches planted in Ohio, Kentucky and across the U.S.”

The KBC’s role included helping determine where the most Arabic speaking people lived in northern Kentucky.

“As the evangelism team worked with Amer for demographic mapping, it became evident that the highest concentrations of Arabic speakers are in neighborhoods close to Florence Baptist Church,” he said. “When we reached out to the pastors about the possibility of hosting, what a blessing to hear, ‘This request is an easy yes!’”

Florence Baptist Pastor Travis Kaiser provided the space for Arabic Baptist Church, which will meet on Sunday mornings at 11.

People who speak the Arabic language are an ever-growing presence in the United States. There are more than 1.35 million Arabic speakers in the U.S., making it the sixth most common language spoken in the country and catering to almost 0.5% of the U.S. population.

About half of all Arabic speakers in the U.S. (53%) live in just five states. California has the highest share of any state at 17%, followed by Michigan (14%), Texas (8%), New York (7%) and New Jersey (6%).

Of the 4.5 million population in Kentucky, nearly 15,000 (0.33%) are Arab speaking.

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