I like these points a lot. However, I don’t agree.

There are pretty good ABC-OBC (American born Chinese – Overseas Born Chinese) seminars, at least in churches I know, that address parent-teen issues specifically in the intergenerational Asian and Asian American context, in the U.S. I know an ABC that even leads one.

The Taoist and Buddhist traditions are usually shared when I am with new Christians, perhaps not so openly, but YES. And the elder Asian pastors DO mention this sometimes in sermons.

It may not be addressed, but interracial marriages and courtships have made their way prominently into my predominantly black-eyed, black-haired, yellow-skinned (aka Asian) church, although less obtrusively than one might expect. (Some Asian-specific interracial dating was not even legal about 30 years ago, I’m sure some elders are still traditional and have a hard time with this, but YES, in church, we have a couple, they are pretty sweet, no pun intended

As for one’s motherland, cultural heritage, ethnic identity, language and other parts and parcels of the Asian American ASIAN experience, we share that in fellowship a lot. We have varying degrees, from ones who came from Hong Kong at age ten, who speak a Chinese dialect daily at home, to those who are “bananas” with fluent English….. but we are just the way we are, and need not feel inferior for our relatively
young identity.

The last point DOES bug me a bit. It’s true, in the worship, I really don’t “feel” myself – I am an ABC, too, who understands and speaks a little Mandarin, but honestly English is my only forte – and it would be REALLY awesome if we the church – a place where we can share our vulnerabilities, weaknesses, confusion, brokenness, ethnic identity crisis, interngenerational conflict, AND build each other up, keep each other up, bear each other’s burdens, share intimate details of this godly life, keep each other in a godly walk, etc. – could lead in the direction of Asian American specific ministry. To not do so – and to simply “adopt” an ongoing worship theme – would be suppressing our truest expression.

Nevertheless, we should really be GRATEFUL that the Lord has made us the way we are – without having to crave for something we don’t have in our “displaced” heritage – and yet feeling at home in the church.

Now that question is, what is that truest expression?

Yes, I am deeply pained by the fact that, even though there is no lack of Asian American churchgoers, and I live in a state with a HUGE Asian American Christian population, we have yet to come up with a significantly historical, emblematic, ethnic-specific worship theme(s), transnational or intercultural or intergenerational identity that is strong enough to attract passerby, not just to out strong sense of identity, but to the WAY in which we seek the Lord, and share that LOVE.

Of course, this is really two topics in one – worship in the faith – and identity as Asian Americans. The church is an excellent arena for these two paths to converge, and I only hope that we do not waver.

“Ghettoes are enclaves of similar people groups living deliberately separate from the larger culture and other people groups. Your accusative tone inferring that the larger culture forces this separation is without support. Ethnic enclaves are created by choice, not by force.”

I have a difficult time agreeing with this statement because history has shown a very loose interpretation of the word “choice”. It’s ironic we’re talking about the word “ghetto”, because the history is often associated with Jewish communities in Europe – whose “choice” about where they could live was often be killed / persecuted / harassed… or live next to other Jewish people. Oh, and I doubt the Jewish ghettoes of Nazi Germany were ethnic enclaves of choice either, unless you like your “choice” being dictated to you by the barrel of the gun.

Other historical examples: “Indian” reservations, Chinatowns, the intentional concentration of African Americans in inner city public housing units.

Yes, ethnic people just love “choosing” to live together… =/

Ultimately, our worship should be an honest reflection and response to who God is and the story of his grace to us. For instance, Miriam’s song after the crossing of the Red Sea is something particular and special to the Hebrew nation. African-American gospel music — particularly the spirituals are songs that NEVER could have originated from the European experience; the burning question for us is…what is our response? Is it Hillsong? Integrity? Maranatha? Passion? Is our song the same?

On the one hand: Is our response nuanced to our collective 1.5-2.0 generation experience? Should there even be a response that is unique since we went to the same schools, hold the same jobs, etc.? And if there shouldn’t be, then yes, I’d agree with Warren that the assimilation is complete and we should just melt into the pot, and if Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan compete in the Olympics for the USA, then maybe we should too quit playing the game as though we are different.

On the other hand, we are in the unique position of interfacing our mother cultures to our father faith, and that might be a wonderful place to explore how that sounds and breathes in this place that likes to program discipleship. We might be criticized for not drinking the Kool-Aid, but that might be because they’ve never tried Bacchus-D or Pocari Sweat or all that other stuff!

just food for thought to keep the dialogue going and to help david get to 50 comments on this thread…

“please don’t take this as a direct comment to you. when we talk about issues of race, racism, and racialization in our church or in general conversation, we have to talk about ‘white privilege’ – particularly in the US and western context. it’s not an attempt to demonize white people since the root of racism and prejudice is human depravity. yet, with about 60% of the church that i pastor being part of the ‘white’ demographics, there are ‘anglo’ brothers and sisters within my church who get really upset. i have to remind them that the message that i’m trying to convey is not that they as individuals are racist but rather, we live in society with ’systemic racism.’ and in this systemic racism, we have to acknowledge that there’s such a thing as PRIVILEGE as males or as Anglos…

I hope there are other options.”

I have just spent a week at Rockbridge with Intervarsity on a summer conference, where I participated in the worship track. We had three well qualified leaders that hit hard on multicultural worship throughout the week. I skimmed this post halfway through the week and it hit me that there is not a tightly defined definition of what “asian worship” looks like, at least within the musical worship realm. It kind of bothered me so I brought it up, seeing as it would be a perfect place to talk about it.

The general response was agreement, and the loose conclusion that we came to was that I might just be living in the time where asian worship can be more clearly defined, perhaps even by myself. Of course I don’t know how I would go about doing that, but would any of you agree that the definition of “asian worship” might be more defined in say, 5 years or so?