Abe Gebeyehu Interview, Part 1
www.CrossCulturalVoices.org
Feb 3, 2026
John Yoder: Hi everybody and welcome to Cross-Cultural Voices. My name's John.
Robin Karkafi: And I'm Robin.
Maisee Vang: And I'm Maisee.
John Yoder: And today our guest is Dr. Abe Gebeyehu, who is both a pastor and a counselor here in the Minneapolis area. Dr. Abe, welcome. We are so glad to have you with us on our podcast today.
Abe Gebeyehu: Thank you for having me. Thanks for this great opportunity to be connected with you guys.
John Yoder: So Dr. Abe, tell us where you grew up and how you came to the US.
Abe Gebeyehu: So originally, I'm from Ethiopia. Ethiopia is located in the East African, horn of Africa. I was born and raised there in Ethiopia, in a little a town a hundred kilometers from Addis Ababa. That's where I was born and raised in Adama or Nazareth. So that's where I finished high school as well. And then after that I moved to the capital city, Addis for my high higher education before I moved to the United States.
John Yoder: When did you get married and where were your children born?
Abe Gebeyehu: I got married when I was 30 years old. My wife came to the US the year after we got married, and then she was back and forth until I got the chance to come to the United States.
And in that transition, my oldest son was born here in the United States. Around the age of 32, I moved to the United States. So I have two boys. My oldest one is 25 years old, and my younger one is 23. They are two years apart.
My oldest one got married two years ago. He lives in Chippewa, Wisconsin. He’s a director at the YMCA. He's really doing great and he loves Jesus, and his wife loves Jesus as well. He married a Caucasian woman, but they are very connected.
And we gave her a name. We don't call her even our daughter-in-law, we call her our daughter-in-love. We are very connected. We love her as family. We are assimilated very well, with her family as well. And we're working together.
My youngest son and his wife started dating when they were in high school, since ninth grade. So I was a part of their journey, as they were trying to understand each other, assimilating into each other’s culture, for both sides of the family to come together.
So God really helped us in a very amazing way. And they are doing great. They're really thriving in their lives. And my youngest one graduated a year ago from Carlin University. Now he is working in San Francisco at the headquarters of Walmart. He is really doing great. They both love Jesus. They're really connected with their family, with their friends, and with their extended family as well.
John Yoder: Dr. Abe, that's just wonderful to hear about the way that God has moved in your family. You have planted a church. So tell me the name of your church and the story of how it got started.
Abe Gebeyehu: So when I moved here to the United States, after four years, I started a church called the EECMY Church. It's a branch church from my home country.
I have been pastoring that church for over the last 12, 13 years, mainly focusing on the first generation population.
Our service was fully in the Amharic language. So God really helped us in so many ways. Here in the Twin Cities area the last 12-13 years, he used us in so many ways. I can mention some of the things that God has done through our church.
I don't know if you guys heard about the March for Jesus. That is one of the biggest events with Twin Cities churches coming together. I was the one coordinating that program.
And we also had two big events for July Fourth. The Independence of America has to be based on the biblical perspective, not historical perspective only. And we organized so many churches on that perspective, and we had a rally at the capital, over 50 churches coming together. We had a prayer at the capital, worship time, and the word of God was preached. So we had a great moment. We used that platform in so many ways to pray and support the community.
For the last 12 years, I've been seeing how the second generation or the 1.5 generation of immigrant youth and young adults are disconnecting from the first generation because of cultural differences and the language barrier. And then also because of differences in biblical perspective. And seeing all these challenges, I believed it was time to rebrand our church.
Rather than focusing on the first generation, it’s better to have the space that can accommodate the second generation or the 1.5 generation youth and young adults to worship together with their family, with their parents, and then to bring the truth of the gospels in a very practical way.
I have seen so many challenges of the youth and young adults. They stay with their parents until the age of 18. Because they are under the supervision of their parents, they have to stay at the church. But once they are 16 or 18, these kids are not coming back to the church to connect with Christ.
They’re moving in different directions. They don't like the way the church worships and communicates with them, how we interpret the Bible, how we live out our practice of the Bible. We need a better way to accommodate these youth and young adults by creating a service in their own language and using their own practices, with no judgment, having a space that they can use any way they want.
It should be a holistic service. It's not only spiritual, but also includes emotional wellness, social wellness, physical wellness, and all aspects of the human life domains. It's better to bring those practices into their lives. So by focusing on these insights, we rebranded our church to the name Home for the New Generation Church.
It has to be a home. It's not a house, but it's a home. They are welcomed in any way, without any judgment.
Because in our community, I have seen so many ways that our kids feel like they’re being judged—like how they cut their hair, how they dress, how they talk, how they eat. It's everything. The first generation is judging the second generation, and the second generation doesn’t want to hear it. And that's why there is a huge gap between the two generations.
So that’s why I'm trying to build a bridge between those two generations. That is why we call it Home for the New Generations Church.
John Yoder: So Dr. Abe, what does that look like? You began with a church that is completely in Amharic, and now you've got a new generation that strongly prefer English. What does that transition look like?
Abe Gebeyehu: It's very challenging. It's not easy. It's very challenging. It's challenging especially to even to convince the first generation. They ask, why? Why don't we have the whole service? Why is the whole thing in English? Why do we have to do this and that? They’re used to the tradition where youth and kids go to Sunday School, and the first generation have their own full platforms of service that don’t accommodate the younger generation.
So they have their own spaces. They go downstairs. So they have Sunday School. That means they don't see their parents worshiping. They don't see how their parents are connecting with the Holy Spirit. The younger generation needs to sit down with their parents and worship as a family. That's the most important thing.
Many of the first generation of our church people understand English. I know they understand English because they work in a place where they speak English, right? Whether they go to work, or go to the market to buy their groceries, everything is in English, right?
I don't mean that they don't have to respect their own language. But how long will we let that language barrier cause us to lose our generation by not accommodating how we communicate the biblical perspective? That is the most challenging thing. So yeah, it's very challenging.
It sounds like it's getting better, but there are so many challenges. Some of the original members left the church. There are so many folks who left the church. They say they don't want this kind of mixed approach to worship. They prefer to go to a place where they have fully Amharic language services.
John Yoder: So you believe so strongly in reaching and empowering the second gen in their mother tongue of English, that you're willing to let some of your people go and worship elsewhere?
Abe Gebeyehu: That was not my choice. But I don't have a choice. Pastor John, as a first generation person, I believe that God has invested a lot in our lives. It's time to give back. It's a time to share this grace to our youth and young adults.
Who is going to take over the next steps of the church movement? Who's gonna take over our next steps of discipleship? Who's gonna take over the next steps of the Body of Christ? Who's gonna do that?
I mean, if we think rationally, it’s time to give back. It's time to invest in our kids' lives. There's no choice. You know what I mean?
We can keep our church as it is--learning and preaching and singing and worshiping. But how about the next generation? Who is gonna take over? Who's gonna take this mantle? Who's gonna entrust this mantle to them to continue the Body of Christ? Who's gonna do that unless we equip them, unless we have a space for our youth and young adults?
Maisee Vang: Thank you, Dr. Abe, so much for sharing. I really respect what you are doing at your church right now. And I love the idea that you have called this place a home to welcome the second generation. My question for you is, when you were rebranding to allow this to for the second generation as well, did you receive any help from anyone such as someone from the second gen, or was this more all you?
Abe Gebeyehu: Thank you, Miss Vang. This is a great question. Of course I have a very tough calling. It's a very tough transition in rebranding the church.
So many people said, Wow, what happened? You know what I mean? Not only the people around me, even the people who've not been around me, who’ve known me as a pastor for the last 12-14 years running, the EECMY Church.
They're questioning as if I am detached from Christ! Seriously. Then the Holy Spirit told me, you are changing the shoes. You're not changing the feet. There's no way you can change the feet. If your shoes don’t fit well, you can change them. But you can’t change your feet.
Christ is the center of how we think, how we believe, how we dedicate our lives. There is no way we can modify that part. But we can change the shoes. This is how I challenge so many people. I've keep telling them. And they keep asking me why, why, why, why?
Of course there is a why. Some people are looking for a straightforward answer. I've been telling them, okay, if you wanna listen to me, this is the way how we can expand the kingdom of God. We need to focus on our younger generations. There is no choice at all.
There are so many people who questioned me and challenged me. And some left. I got a few supporters, starting with my wife. She’s been a great support. I had to convince her. We had to pray together. We had to start believing this is what we want to do This is what God is expecting from us.
So we started to pray together, and then we launched it. There are so many people who distanced themselves from me, including my senior pastor, my spiritual father. He distanced himself from me. So there's nothing I can do. This is what God put me in my heart. And then I stick to it. But now some people are slowly coming to connect with us, to support us.
Maisee Vang: That's great. Thank you so much for sharing. I believe that when it's something that God has put in your heart and it's meant for you to do because that you know in your heart that's what God wants you to do, I believe that the blessings will come. Amen. So I commend you for that.
Abe Gebeyehu: Amen. Thank you. Thank you.
Robin Karkafi: Dr. Abe, do you feel like, building on that, like is there anything that the previous generation does or did or that the newer generation could learn from them at the same time? Is there something that this younger generation appreciates?
We've heard themes of authenticity, and of people being genuine. Is there something that the previous generations have had to adapt to, like you said, a rebranding to help reach this newer generation? And what did that look like? Is there's a give and take between all generations? And what are some things you notice around that? Around the way they communicate?
Abe Gebeyehu: Yeah. Yeah. Robin, this is a great question. I think if I heard your question correctly, the answer is of course there are. There are so many good qualities that the first generation has and the second generation needs to learn from it.
Of course we do have them. They include dedication and commitment. We are very dedicated. We are very committed for Christ. That dedication or commitment are great lessons for the next generation to learn.
We also have lots of discipline. We discipline ourselves with prayer, fasting, giving to the church or to others. This is a great thing that the second generation can learn from the first generation.
And then there are things that the first generation needs to learn from the second generation too.
The first generation needs to learn the way things are changing. Things are changing, things are evolving. Christ is not evolving. The Holy Spirit is not evolving. He's the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Our God is an almighty God. There's no way we can rebrand him.
But the way we worship, the way we connect, the way we experience the Holy Spirit, the way we experience Jesus, it is totally different. The first generation has to understand.
Let me tell you guys a very interesting practice we have in our church. We are sharing the church building with another church. We are in partnership with them sharing the building.
They host an event every Friday and Saturday evening. Young people come regularly. They have a sober dancing program. These young people have been dealing with substance use for over 10-12 years. They have gone through treatment. They’ve come up with the term sober dancing. Sober dancing means they are sober. They're not drinking, they're not using drugs or alcohol. They only drink some soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages.
They come to the church, they want to dance there. They wanna be in the church because Friday and Saturday evenings are the most triggering times of the week for them, when they’re most likely to be dragged back to using substances or alcohol.
So they're challenging the way we’ve always done things. It’s so different that many cannot accept it.
But I’m so glad we have a space for these young people. I spend time with them, I pray for them. We pray together and they begin to be part of the church.
Now last week at New Year’s Eve, they were downstairs. Upstairs, they were watching a movie, drinking soft drinks, and enjoying relationships. Because New Year’s Eve is one of the triggering days they could have wound up in a bar, right? Or somewhere else.
This is why the first generation needs to learn how to reach out to the youth and young adults. We must learn how to connect with them.
John Yoder: So Dr. Abe, you, one of the things I really appreciated when I visited your church a month ago, is how you reach out to others.
You're an Ethiopian background church here in the US. But you not only love and serve your own, you serve the Latino communities as well. Can you tell us just a little bit about that?
Abe Gebeyehu: Yeah. What we do is, like in our church building, every Tuesday and Thursday there is a meal service program.
Volunteers cook food in that building, and then also bring groceries. So we are delivering these hot meals and groceries to the community.
People who are not able to leave their homes or who have other issues get groceries delivered to their door. So we deliver them. We provide those services. That is a great way to share the love of Christ in our community.
Some of them are disabled. Some of them don't have transportation. Some of them because of immigration status are afraid to leave their homes. So we have their home address and deliver essential groceries. That's how we are serving them. We might also pray for a few minutes. That's a great way to share the love of Christ.
John Yoder: And I just admire that about your church. It is such a great model that in the church of Jesus Christ, we are here to love and serve people of every ethnicity. And I just want to commend your church for that.
Thanks Dr. Abe, for sharing with us the story of coming to America, planting your church, and reaching others. But next time we want to bring you back and hear the story about how you became a counselor, and the needs that you see in our communities.
