One of my favorite 18-minute presentations at Q was by Jeff Johnson, minimalistically titled, “Hip Hop”.

Jeff’s talk was brilliant and I can assure you that even among the list of elite speakers present at the gathering, he captivated the audience to the point that we were breathless at times, as though inhaling and exhaling would keep us from hearing his powerful words. One memorable quote came when he accused even the “multi-ethnic” body of Christ still classifying African-Americans who they don’t go to church with as “niggers”.

“They’re not ‘niggers’ if they go to church with me, but they’re ‘niggers’ in the street. They’re not ‘niggers’ when we’re worshiping; they’re not ‘niggers’ because they know Jesus. They’re not ‘niggers’ because they’re saved. As if their blackness was somehow eradicated once they accepted Christ.” He paused smiling and looked around the room filled with mostly white, middle-class, suburban, megachurch-is-the-solution-minded folk, and said, “Some of you are so uncomfortable right now!”

The tension in the Tabernacle erupted in laughter, but the point was made. The notion of ethnic diversity in church is a sterile one at best; at worst, it’s leveraged as propaganda — “Oh we have a Thai person here who came to Christ, please tell us about the depravity that the Lord delivered you from through the work of our church! And do share with us some of your recipes for pad thai, I love exotic cuisine!”

Jeff continued to talk about hip hop as a language of a community, a multi-ethnic and global community, and how we as the church can begin to embrace hip hop by acknowledging “them” as “us”. He drew a full circle from his intro when he opened up his talk with Don Imus, to declaring to the well-churched audience…”This has nothing to do with Imus, but everything to do with Imus, because I — am — us.”

I attended the “talkback” session with Johnson afterwards and he was equally quick and articulate. While I have no video from it, you can check out the clip below to get a taste of the man’s energy and clarity. I believe we, as Asian Americans, have a lot to learn when it comes to identifying with “the other” and including “them” into “us”. Thank you Jeff, thank you for speaking for us and to us.

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Still processing…unlike DJ, I’m slow-drip. If you were still looking for a taste, check out the video found on YouTube:

Noticeably absent at Q was the on-stage presence of Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latinos. Although at the very least, 2 of the presenters were African American, and of course, diversity and multi-ethnicity were stated as key values by a number of people. Comforting? Maybe…we’ll see.

What was set as a premise was the notion of 7 Channels of Cultural Influence (pdf). They are, in short:

1. Media
   – television / radio / publishing / newspaper / Internet
2. Arts + Entertainment
   – artists / film/ literature / music / performing arts / sports / theatre / video game
3. Business
   – advertising / mktg / pr / biotech / ecommerce / finance / law / medicine /nanotech / science / services / tech
4. Education
   – schools / college / university / continuing ed
5. Government
   – executive / judicial / legislative / military / political commentators / public policy / advocacy
6. Church
   – local churches / parachurch
7. Social Sector
   – educational / family / foundations / marriage / religious

The presupposition that there is a single, monolithic culture is problematic because it does not take into account subcultures. Thus, even if there are arguably these seven channels of cultural influence (highly debatable if the church would even qualify in certain demographics), they are duplicated in each subculture. Some would even make the very valid case that American evangelical Christianity has become a subculture unto itself, and thus, even when they convene to “impact” the culture at large, they only can sit atop their own box and make observations with field binoculars.

The reason why many of the Asian American pastors and leaders who attended the Q felt they walked away emptyhanded, is that despite all the great ideas and the high-powered speaker list, very little of it is applicable to the Asian American context. Don’t get me wrong, great ideas and inspiration abounded, but readily applicable? Not so much — not without a lot of processing and decompression.

In essence, while Q was indeed the coolest “Christian” conference I’ve ever attended, its existence perpetuates some of the problem inadvertently. First of all, there is a tendency from the industrial model to assume that there are “best practices” to church, even as believers and church leaders. Secondly, the industry of Christianity is dictating how Christian communities should be formed, rather than the community itself. In other words, programs are leading people. Our intentions are good, but when we commoditize who Jesus is, or perhaps more to the point, people who tell us what life with Jesus is like, we create subculture heroes, and then they themselves can’t get out of the box that we proclaim that we are trying to get out of. Or perhaps we hope that they can pull us out of the box with them.

We end up as American Idols, rather than artists — masters of a craft, willing to suffer for our art, wrestling with ourselves to make room for our expression, where we don’t care if we’re starving or not. Q doesn’t give me the sense that it will be a place to incubate great ideas, but rather I fear it could be a center for continuing Christian industry. Ultimately, this is not what real innovators do, this is not where the most creative people convene, this is where they give their voice and share their success, but it is not the crucible for their vision.

I have no problem with Q, please don’t misunderstand. I’m just trying to figure out where it stands in my mind. These aren’t final thoughts…just initial ones.

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I have thought of him everyday since I first heard the news and saw his face.

I have read a dozen news articles (here’s one from Newsweek), run across scores of blog entries (thank you elderJ and Anthony Bradley), heard a couple of sermons even (thanks DJ), and seen more than my share of videos on YouTube of him. I have wept, prayed, shuddered, become more resolute, let the moments fade and yet this mourning is not fully lifted.

I don’t have much new to say, except that I linger here because his face is so familiar to me, the narrative of his life so tangible to me, and that loneliness and even some of the rejection he faced is not so far from me.

Interestingly enough, in DJ’s last post, “Takedown Power of Racism”, there is an audio snippet of a conversation we had over BBQ and sweet tea in the heart of Loganville, where “David 2″, a Caucasian, said pointblank when he first heard of the shootings, he thought it had to be “a white guy” because “that’s just what white guys do.”

Somehow the thought snuck into my mind that if we as Asian Americans “do white” better than whites (economically and academically), would we take on their sociopathology as well? Where out of our cultural DNA is this coming? And don’t say “sin” — that’s too easy.  Sin has roots. There are varieties and permutations of sin. There is a history and physical to each sin. Where is ours coming from? What is the particular DNA of our Asian American expressions of sin?

I see Asian American churches as potential centers of healing and reconciliation for those historical and cultural “roots of sin”, and yet so many times, our churches stay silent on those subjects, as though teaching about sin in general will fix the problem. Which is all the more amazing that Jesus would ask the blind beggar, “What do you want me to do for you?” At first reading, I thought, “Isn’t it obvious?” and I heard the Spirit whisper back, “Is it?”

I mourn because it is too late for some, but there is hope. Lord, I want to hear my own heartbeat again.

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A new friend shared with me the following this morning. I believe that for those of us who work with families and teens, the key thing to remember is persistence. When someone doesn’t open up on the first dozen phone calls, visits, youth retreats, etc., keep digging in.

A team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been studying “Korean American Mental Health in its Familial Context.” Their preliminary findings available on the web include:

“ … hints of some [adolescent] behavioral problems (e.g., suicidal ideation, minor conduct problems such as stealing and running away from home) that appeared to be related to family pressures and strains. However, these instances of adolescent behavioral problems did not for the large part manifest in overt family dysfunction, as the adolescents and parents appeared to “contain” and manage this suffering. We nonetheless consider this type of evidence as pointing to the significant level of psychological suffering among Korean American parents and children despite the manifest resilience they exhibit. To have the whole family succeed in the immigration enterprise involves much psychic energy, pain, tension that must be managed by both parents and the children in order to contain and domesticate the individual frustration and to sustain the family. … We have documented that these sufferings and struggles are largely kept private within families and are accessed by researchers ethnographically only after repeated contacts. For the rare families that publicly acknowledge and attempt to seek help for the “fall outs” (in the form of adolescent externalizing behavior), there are virtually no resources or accurate information to assist the parents and the children successfully negotiate these family crises.” [my emphasis added]

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Ken Liu attended the LeadNow conference and surfaced some issues in ministering to Asian American young adults (20-30’s):

Perhaps one of the biggest issues Asian Americans (AAs) have to face is parental expectations. I don’t know what the stats are for AAs, but I’m willing to bet that the average age for marriage among AAs is much higher than the national average. From my observation, academics, career advancement, and financial stability must come first. To pursue marriage while in school or early stages of career development is usually frowned upon even though for many of our parents did the very same thing! Such priorities and expectations take our AA young adults from school to school and city to city which is obviously not conducive towards finding a mate. On top of that, for Christians, there are so few AA churches that serve this demographic.

After a period of time, the parents start bemoaning the fact their kids aren’t married yet without realizing that they are just as culpable. With these pressures and unfair expectations in mind, how do we create and cultivate a community that meets their needs and connects people to one another?

Would it be too easy to say that therefore we need more next generation Asian American churches?

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The Q was the most unique and lively conference I’ve ever attended, and despite the fact that I still felt some dissonance between American evangelical notions of “industry” vs. “community” (more on that later), it was incredibly productive for new ideas and inspiration. The bonus was getting to meet some of the finest Asian American pastors in the country today, thanks to L2 Foundation’s generous sponsorship.

Perhaps one of the coolest features of Q was that each speaker had only 18 minutes to present their idea. Even the most profound and revered leaders were forced into brevity, which brought some soul to their wit, and forced their ideas to the surface. And similar to the “Kawasaki Method”, no matter how disinterested you might be in the presentation, you could at least look at the countdown clock and think to yourself, “Only 6 minutes more to go. I can do this.” Boredom was certainly not an option, at least not for long.

The following video is from one of those presentations where I wish I had more than 18 minutes to hear about their story. Needless to say, I came home and my wife and I purchased two pairs. I think a very compelling case needs to be made for Asian Americans to not only build churches or be good Christians, but to leverage businesses and organizations to support thee notion that church is not to be sequestered as a sphere of society, but is to impact every corner of it. Not just to manufacture and sell shoes, but to put them on the feet of those who have never known shoes.

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You come in such sweet-looking packages…

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Still getting back into the blogging saddle after a weeklong retreat with Lionshare Leadership Group and DJ’s well-documented Q Gathering. More posts on the way…

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