One of the motivations of this blog was to get issues of being Asian American and Christian out on the table. At the time I started this blog, I thought it was quite characteristic of Asian culture that while there were a slew of Asians who were technologically savvy, they were unwilling to write on these issues and more comfortable shopping for car kits or reading up on the latest gadgets. Of course, that’s not all true, everyday I find many people are engaging in discourse about these issues and I am humbled by the amount of brain power and spirit-filled wisdom out there.

So here are a few good reads, articles, and blogs…hopefully some you haven’t read yet!

First is Anthony Bradley‘s latest post, “Why Blacks Are Leaving Evangelical Ministries: The Failure of Racial Reconciliation”. I think the issues he brings up are just as significant for we as Asian Americans to explore lest we simply adopt a false “colorblind” (read white) approach to church.

From another African American brother’s blog, whose commentary on Korean culture has been absolutely soul-pricking comes two posts in particular: one on suicide in Korea and the ways in which we swallow up dysfunction and wipe our mouths clean; and another on the Korean obsession with success in the educational system and how that leads to a culturally understood sense of corruption.

L2 Foundation’s blog posted a wonderful story about reconciliation between Japanese and Korean worshippers at Urbana –a glimpse of heaven on earth. Definitely worth the daily inspiration!

Here’s an article that should inform us that skin color still matters. This study released on the AP only a few days ago shows us that immigrants get paid more or less relative to skin color.

And of course, on another immigration note, even if you’re East Asian and have a lighter skin tone, it certainly doesn’t guarantee you anything– “Undocumented Korean Family Faces Harsh Winter.”

Peter Ong posted this on “The Five Streams of the Emergent Church“, while Bruce Reyes-Chow posted his “Five Rules of the Emergent Church“. All of which seems very timely since this is going on in my backyard.

Hopefully, it’s not too late to harp on this, but I think it’s really a bold move. Peter Nguyen, my new friend in the Florida area is starting up AAIM, and to that end he wrote an open letter speaking to what he called the Five N.E.E.D.S. of our generation. DJ Chuang has graciously put together the responses (One and Two), one of which I got to be a part of along with Co “Bumble” Ho.

ElderJ, who is a great friend, had an excellent post about Hierarchy & the Church, which is a tough, tough subject to broach, much less seek answers on, but I’m glad I have friends like him to challenge me.

Racialicious, an anti-racism blog and non-profit, recently posted something very interesting about”the high rates of interracial marriage among Asian-American women and its implications on community-building and Asian-American feminism.”

Finally, this is more of an APB to help us locate the creators of this site, LeadershipAdvice.com. There is a lot of good material on there, although it doesn’t look like it’s been updated recently or any contact information. Thanks to DJ for that find. Please leave me a comment if you know who set that site up and if they’d be willing to collaborate more.

Well, that’s it for January. I’ll gather up links for next month as they come along related to race, culture, and faith. Keep blogging~

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It’s always fun to find new information, and in a rare find in the local paper, I thought this was worth posting. This article would seem to lend support for the multi-ethnic church, but really, what does that mean? I’ve added hyperlinks and bolded a few things to make it a bit meatier. Enjoy.
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By JOHN BLAKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/29/07

A major study on church growth discovered that thriving congregations tended to be multiracial, embraced vibrant worship services and avoided major conflict.

The “FACTs on Growth” report, (PDF) based on a 2005 survey of 900 congregations and online is the culmination of a five-year study that attempts to answer why some congregations grow and others decline.

The findings, recently released by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, challenge the conventional wisdom that only conservative suburban congregations are growing.Minister C. Kirk Hadaway, the report’s author, says the study learned that 48 percent of churches in the “downtown” or “central city” reported growth.“As inner-city areas become more gentrified and redeveloped, the churches that are left there are doing better,” he said.

The study also found that congregations were most likely to grow if they:

• Attract a larger proportion of men, who tend to be less religiously active.
• Use drums or percussion during worship service.
• Establish a church web site.
• Adopted a specific plan to recruit new members.
• Offer support groups such as marriage counseling, 12-step programs and wellness programs.

One of the most surprising findings revolved around a congregation’s theological orientation and its [Read more...]

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Here in the South, I get this question a lot, “Where are you from?”
To which, I usually respond with a derivative of, “Well, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, I’m Korean.”
Occasionally, I’ll get this follow-up question to that, but only occasionally. “Which one? North or South?”
And on both accounts, having grown up south of the Mason-Dixon line, like Henry Cho, I can say I’m “South” Korean.

One of the things that’s fascinating to me as an Asian American who went to elementary school in Oklahoma, then middle school and high school in Florida, college in Tennessee, and who now lives in Georgia, is the ways in which Asian Americans who grew up a much more Asian-enriched locale view themselves.

I have cousins in California and have visited for extended periods of time, and it really “feels” different. There it seems that being Asian American full-time is feasible, the subculture, and the context for maintaining a bi-cultural identity seem to be much more tenable in that environment. In fact, there even seems to be some fluidity between Asian ethnicities, where Koreans kick it with the Vietnamese and will go to Chinatown, each having a greater access to one another’s cultural nuances.

Compared to cultural po-dunk villages of Broken Arrow, OK and Ft. Pierce, FL– Los Angeles and New York City were like Meccas. To be Asian American in the hinterlands where I grew up, well, let’s just say, required a different set of tools to adjust and to form our identities. In fact, in many ways, as I explore the Internet now as someone who is a student of this fluid thing called identity and culture…it’s downright fascinating to see what is available to our youth now. Especially with YouTube! Back then, I very much could identify with the “Average Asian” bit — courtesy of FoxTV’s MadTV, perhaps you’ve seen it?:

There were very many times where I’ve felt like the “novelty” in some of the circles I ran in. Sometimes the butt of jokes and other times, the resident amateur Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita). Obviously, that could be infuriating and there were definitely times where I felt angry while still being the “Average Asian.”

At some point, however, like rainwater seeks the sea, I sought more like me. People who didn’t have to ask how to hold chopsticks and who knew how to squat, for example:

Or perhaps a place where people wouldn’t stutter when handing me Asian Chicken Salad, as I have felt, perhaps never as demonstrably so, but bewildered as Margaret Cho.

Interesting how Margaret Cho is perhaps the most recognized Asian American, but because of the stances that she takes (gay rights, extremely liberal), she is almost on an island of Asian  American consciousness. Her bio is worth a read however, as her life begins in somewhat of a stance against the patriarchal notions of church. The majority of us are not able to quite relate to Cho. Some are still wrestling with how to get a date with the female half of our kind, as they seem to be popular among non-Asians with little recourse for us. Check out this short blurb about a white guy asking his Asian friends if that’s OK with us.

The next short film by students at UCSD makes very entertaining light of that and seems to be gaining quite a following. Well done WongFu Productions!

And then further search on YouTube leads us to Asian women telling why Asian men don’t get the date.

Of course, I don’t know what it says about me that I married a South Indian-American. Although it is a most interesting thought to think of what the identity formation journey will be like for our children. Even for myself, it has been, at times, an uncomfortable journey of looking at myself and around me and being able to talk to those aspects and negotiate my way around, sometimes without others that look like me. There have been times, growing up with only Sundays at church where I felt like I felt my ethnicity was a positive, inclusive trait. This video on Youtube made me wonder if my child will say some of the same things…

Which leads directly into those types of short films that capture some of the tension that I’ve wrestled with in terms of being and becoming Asian American. And this is the generation where more sophisticated dialogues are possible. Check out the introductory video played at the Asian American Alliance 2006 Meeting entitled Culture Shock:

The matter of identity is an important one. As an Asian American Christian, someone who is of Asian descent living in Ameria and worshipping a Jewish messiah, there is a lot of explaining that has to be done. To understand where I came from and how I came to know this freedom and new identity in Christ should play a large part in what I am to be and do here. These three critical descriptors: Asian, American, Christian, that I use to define myself should be three cords drawn together to give me a stronger sense of God’s purpose and design. And because of the eternity placed in my heart, I want to dive in to glorify God in my heritage and in my weird, bi-cultural, postmodern American life. I want to re-evaluate my culture in light of the gospel, but that means I have to know my culture a little more, not to simply throw it out wholesale, but to embrace things that are good and true. Asians were never heathens, they were lost, but now I am found, and there are more to be found!

This is a practice, a fun and visual cultural biopsy (to borrow from my wife’s vernacular), so that I can negotiate better with these three aspects of me. This is my generation and this is your people, O God. Be magnified in us.

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Thanks to Comedy Central’s Video Podcast, I found out about Sung Hee Park just recently, the alter-ego of Suzanne Whang. If you’re still wondering who she is…check out her comedic stylings here:

” class=”autohyperlink” title=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8chy13ES810]” target=”_blank”>www.youtube.com/watch?v=8chy13ES810]

What an unusual feeling it was to watch someone do what she was doing. It was as strange as watching this white guy do an impeccable Korean accent and give unusual insight into the married lives of Koreans as Master Po.

As is the case, it seems that art is able to make commentary about racism so easily, pointing out our expectations and prejudices, the absurdity of it all. And amidst the laughter, I think it is so telling that Suzanne (I don’t know about Master Po), understands exactly what she’s doing and trying to present. You can read the full interview here — I’m just pulling a couple of excerpts, but what if Asian American believers took this to heart, to express the gospel in uncommon ways?

[Read more...]

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John Lamb of HispanicNashville, supplied me with this post that should strike a chord with some of us as it relates to generation gaps. The author of a new book claims that people of all generations really just want the same things, despite our differences in behavior.

While the book closes the generation gap in employment, I wonder if we could say the same for church, especially a cultural church, where the culture demands one generation doesn’t have the same priority as the other. So while it’s true that…

1. All generations have similar values.
2. Everyone wants respect.
3. Trust matters.
4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy.
5. Organizational politics is a problem — no matter how old or young you are.
6. No one really likes change.
7. Loyalty depends on the context, not on the generation.
8. It’s as easy to retain a young person as an older one — if you do the right things.
9. Everyone wants to learn — more than just about anything else.
10. Almost everyone wants a coach.

The real clincher is this last point:

Conflicts between generations are really a matter of who has clout and who wants it.

Perhaps what we have is not so much a generational gap in our churches as opposed to a “clout gap”. Of course, we’re the perpetual youth ministry, they never let us be anything else! “Respect your elders” really takes the cake here in the case of generational ministry, because aren’t we assuming that our elders are godly, humble, and unselfish people?

I mean, what would have happened if David, annointed to be the next king, submitted to Saul? Or if Joseph gave up his dreams for fear of offending his older brothers? Or how about Jacob foiling his elder brother’s plans to inherit the blessing?

[Read more...]

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Feel free to listen to the audio provided by DJ Chuang below and availble for download on DJ’s post…

Skypecast flaked out on us at the very last minute, but thanks to DJ’s quick thinking, at least nine of us were able to carry out a conference call conversation via Skype. You live by the latest and greatest technology, you die by the technology.

In the spirit of the book, Conversations: Asian American Evangelical Theologies in Formation, which urges average, ordinary people to take these types of conversations into our own settings to reproduce dialogue that is so necessary and constructive to putting these theologies into action.

In any case, for a group of Asians gathering without the presence or promise of food (a notable feat!), we were able to make the time fly with presenting the three different perspectives on the validity of the Asian American church (with much thanks to Ben and DJ). Ben Pun clearly made the case that AA churches are necessary to reach non-believing Asian Americans. DJ added the nuances of how AA churches present a strategic opportunity across the evangelical landscape for Asian Americans to take ownership and demonstrate their faith. To the final perspective, Asian American churches as an unhealthy diversion, I tried to make the point that these exclusive environments create a sense of competition that not only takes us far from a true sense of worship, but the short-staffing, the lack of resources, actually also prevents the church from developing and equipping future leaders.

One of the great things following the perspectives, besides the impromptu conversation that took us to new places, occasionally silence (all meditative, I’m assuming), was to hear what’s coming down the pipe in terms of future conversations.

Be sure to read elderj’s review of the conversation, as I think he brings up great points to think about.

So enjoy this first conversation as we get next month’s topic in line. Looking forward to hear more from you and getting more people on the call next time. Thanks again!

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January 21st – 9:00pm (Eastern) / 6:00pm (Pacific).

Next Gener.Asian Church Skypecast – Jan. 2007

The above link will take you to the Skypecast. If you’re still wondering what a Skypecast is, click here to find out how to listen in and take advantage of the toll-free, Internet-based conference call.

This month’s hour-long Skypecast coincides with the introduction DJ’s wiki of Asian American church plants as we delve into three different perspectives of the validity of an Asian American church.

Is the Asian American church — necessary, optional, or simply an unhealthy diversion?

The format for the Skypecast will be as follows:

• Brief Introduction (5 min) – David Park
• Asian American Church as Necessary (12 min) – Ben Pun
• Asian American Church as Optional (12 min) – DJ Chuang
• Asian American Church as Unhealthy Diversion (12 min) – Presenter3
• Time for Discussion – Open to floor (20 min)

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