Recently, while at a dinner with an Asian American professor of Christian Education, I had the chance to talk with him about various Asian churches and second generation problems. Just before our conversation was cut short by the main event of the evening, he said to me, “We will soon see how the first generation responds to all these issues”. He leaned back and lifted his head towards the podium.

Before the speaker opened her mouth, I leaned in towards him and said, “You’re assuming we can wait.”

The “young lions” of the second generation are not willing to wait. As I spoke with Peter Nguyen of Asian American Intercultural Ministry on the phone last week, and to John Lee the week before, the phrase that I hear over and over coming from these two 20somethings is–I don’t want to sit here and blow a bunch of hot air over this, I want to do something about it right now. I don’t care if we fail, I don’t care if we make mistakes, but things cannot stay status quo; we should do something. Quit all the talk, they say. Peter is excited about planting AA churches nationwide, and John wants to do a worship leaders conference like yesterday.

While the first generation questions our motives, qualifications, our lack of experience pointing out the fact that we’re overgrown youth ministries, the mavericks are ready to move onward.

And frankly, we can’t afford to wait.

The kingdom is a multifarious symphony. They’re not all going to keep planting churches, they’re going to write books and songs, plays, and screenplays. Lead social enterprises and plan cities. It’s not going to be all talk or blogging. And I, for one, can’t wait.

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“Under the culture” is what the word subculture really means, which bothers me about Asian Americans becoming this hybrid of sorts as we assume it is a viable, sustainable identity. After all, there is Asia, and there is America, so in many ways, it would be so much easier for us to subscribe to either of those dominant cultures, but when we carve out a middle way for ourselves and for our churches, could it be that we are endangering the very thing we are trying to protect? Obviously, in the postmodern world, we are a nothing if not a respecter of niches, but when there is this overarching consumerist, atheistic culture, and we quickly move to protect our culture, our subculture, by going underground, in what strange ways will our own manufactured culture be distorted, perverted, and deformed?

Out of Ur had a recent post that interestingly cites Japanese church history and asks the question of whether or not this is happening to the American Christian subculture. Will Christians around the world recognize us and our brand of church? or as with the Japanese Christians (Kakure) who went underground in the 16th century, will they say:

“Although the faith followed by the underground Christians had the outward appearances of Christianity, the vital content and spirit of the religion evolved into something entirely different…It would be more accurate to call it a folk religion altogether Japanese in spirit and content.”

The writer of the post makes the point that “ironically it is our zeal to protect our faith that leads to its loss.” But I think that statement is not complete. It’s not zeal…it’s fear.

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TheCuttingTruth is now writing for the NextGener.Asian Church. Woot!

John Lee has been true to his blog’s namesake with his incisive commentary about Asian American Christians and the ways in which we handle church. One thing is for certain, it may not be comfortable to face the points that he brings up, but it can be very refreshing and challenging. I would say a lot more, but I’ll let him speak for himself with his posts.

So please welcome “The Cutting Truth” to the blog…

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The Pew Research Center released a 45-page report this week entitled: A Portrait of “Generation Next” — How Young People View Their Lives, Futures, and Politics.

Of course, while I’m assuming that Asian Americans were part of the survey (ethnic demographics are not detailed in the survey methodology), it will be interesting to see how our traditional churches can attract this next generation to hearing the Gospel. I think the growing number of Asian American church plants across the country will reveal increasingly diverse models of churches to accomodate them. Which to me, reinforces the question that we’ll be exploring for the Skypecast, are Asian American churches necessary, optional, or an unhealthy diversion?

A new Xanga blog, The Emerging Truth, makes a case for the latter, (alas, he won’t be able to make the Skypecast) abut even then, with so much at stake with the next generation, I think we really do need to be able to have a conversation on the possibilities and limitations of the next generation of Asian American churches.

So with no further ado, here are a few excerpts of note (emphasis mine):
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About half of Gen Nexters say the growing number of immigrants to the U.S. strengthens the country – more than any generation. And they also lead the way in their support for gay marriage and acceptance of interracial dating.

One-in-five members of Generation Next say they have no religious affiliation or are atheist or agnostic, nearly double the proportion of young people who said that in the late 1980s. And just 4% of Gen Nexters say people in their generation view becoming more spiritual as their most important goal in life.

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Asians have had trouble assuming the stereotypical, Western modes of leadership. And like it or not, it tends to weigh on us like a self-fulfilling prophecy when we try to spread our wings. In the corporate world, it’s been called the “glass ceiling”. And already the question has been brought up of “Why are Asian American Executives Scarce?” by Dan Woog.

And yet, there seems to be something attractive about the Asian styles of leadership, take for instance, this line from a Harvard Business School professor:

Humility is a very uncommon trait in the American CEO. It is sometimes found in Asia. It is often a trait of the most effective leaders, as it was in the best-respected of all American political leaders, Abraham Lincoln.

Asian leadership, from Prof. Donald Quinn Mill’s pen, is stylistically unique today, but is developing into three different prototypes in the business world. Furthermore, he concludes with this interesting statement:

Styles of leadership are currently different between Asia and America. Culture colors the way things are done, but less so what is done. The differences in styles most markedly reflect the stage of development of the economies and companies of Asia. As Asian companies seek access to world capital markets, they will move toward professional managers who will employ leadership styles more akin to those now used in the United States.

And so it seems that in order to be a rising leader, you would think that Asian Americans would somehow be able to converge the stylistic, cultural strengths to be great leaders. In fact, that is perhaps where a group like LEAP has been significant over the last 20 years or so. But I wonder, despite our unique strengths of leadership, if the Western model of leadership will prevail in business, after all, cultural distinctions are seen as economic inefficiencies, and inefficiency is to be reduced, often by our very own Asian industrial engineers.

But what about Asian leadership in church? Sam Metcalf brings up some interesting questions in his blog, on this post about Asian church leadership issues, namely:

• How can new generations of leadership emerge in contexts where status, shame and saving face are such predominant values?

• Authoritarian leaders who abuse their followers are unfortunately the norm, not the exception in this part of the world. How can such a dysfunctional cultural paradigm be replaced by biblical, servant leadership?

How’s that for hitting close to home, eh? Aren’t these the same Asian leaders that in business were humble and concensus-seeking? My, my, my — we are a complex bunch.

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