About this Event
🌎 WHEN THE STRANGER CALLS
Stories of Courage and Home
📅 Saturday, September 26
🍽️ Free Community Dinner | 6:00 PM
⛪ Worship | 7:30 PM
📍 Irvine United Congregational Church
What does it mean to seek home, safety, and belonging when the place you call home is no longer secure?
This September, The Gospel Project brings together theatre, dance, live music, and preaching for a powerful evening exploring immigration, identity, family, culture, and the courage it takes to build a life across borders.
🎭 THEATRE | Zero Tolerancia
Experience a staged reading of J.D. Rodriguez’s Zero Tolerancia, the story of an immigrant family confronting the terrifying possibility of separation while caring for their 14-year-old son, Danny. The play brings the human realities behind immigration policy into the intimacy of one family’s home.
💃 DANCE | Brown Baby
Choreographed by Gabriel Mata in collaboration with an all-Latino cast, Brown Baby draws upon family rituals, social gatherings, cultural memory, and movement. It is a celebration of identity, ownership, and pride, an embodied assertion of what it means to move through the world in a brown body.
🕺 ORIGINAL SOLO DANCE
Joshua David Estrada Romero, Founding Artistic Director of Fuse Dance Company, will share an original solo dance work reflecting on family, heritage, and the immigrant experience.
🎶 LIVE MUSIC | OC Mariachi Company
We are thrilled to welcome the OC Mariachi Company, bringing the rich sound and spirit of mariachi music into this evening of storytelling and worship.
🎤 MUSIC FROM IN THE HEIGHTS
Music from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights will bring its celebration of community, heritage, home, and belonging into our worship.
🙏 HOMILY | Rev. Dr. Sarah Halverson-Cano
Pastor Sarah will invite us to consider what our faith asks of us when we encounter the stranger, the immigrant, and the neighbor searching for home.
❤️ Come experience the deeply human stories behind borders and policies. Together, we will reflect on what it means to welcome the stranger, honor the stories we carry, and create belonging in a world where so many are still searching for a place to call home.
🍽️ Dinner is FREE, but please RSVP so we know you're coming:
https://forms.gle/Ux3L94U2bGumxt9t5
All are welcome. Come hungry. Come curious. Come ready to listen. 🌎❤️
Event venue & nearby stays
Irvine United Congregational Church, 4915 Alton Parkway, Irvine, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.