May is API Heritage Month! So I thought I’d celebrate our culture, but in a round-about way. I want to boast about two perceived weaknesses of API culture—especially in the context of American mainstream culture–so that God’s redemptive power and grace might be revealed.

The first is the lack of physical affection and emotional nurture given to us by our parents.

Few of us, especially those with immigrant parents, got verbal praise. And I’m sure that even less of us got hugs and kisses after the age of 7. Consequently, we feel wounded and insecure, longing for unconditional love from our parental units. If those smarmy kids in TV sitcoms got hugs, why don’t we?

The good news is that our API parents do love us. They just show us in a different way—through food. According to the news, an Asian food craze is sweeping the nation. But we’ve long known that APIs love to eat, and love to eat everything that crawls, walks, flies or swims.

I was at the zoo in Melbourne, Australia a while back. Now Australia has some bizarre animals with cool names, like” wombat.” Besides having pockets, their animals own features like duckbills and webbed feet. As I walked around, a group of tourists from the PRC were behind me. At each exhibit, they would remark, “That’s good eating!” and “That’s good in stew…” They wanted to stir fry every creature there!

Our ability to cook all kinds of dishes stems from the joy we receive from taking care of our families and feeding them well. This display of love isn’t unknown in the Bible. In fact, we know God’s love because He feeds us daily and He feeds us well. We celebrate the Lord’s Supper because it’s Jesus’ way of offering himself to us, just as our parents offered us food.

Instead of asking, “How are you?” , my grandmother always asked me, “Have you eaten yet?” That’s how I knew her love—she would always want to be sure that I was cared for and fed. This month, let’s celebrate API love through food—that selfless giving that is concrete and filling (James 2:15-17).

The second weakness is our quietness. In the U.S. people who post themselves on youtube and “represent” are admired, while the quiet ones are ignored and hit glass ceilings.

“Oh no,” you cry. “Don’t raise that model minority stereotype. We’re still celebrating Jeremy Lin’s shattering of stereotypes, as he went against all odds. Wait, that’s another model minority stereotype…”

(If you want a real stereotype that hurts APIs, it’s that we’re cheap. Ask any retail or food service person what they think of APIS when they enter their establishments. They automatically think we’re cheap and we’re going to bargain. It doesn’t matter if you’re Korean, either, because they’ll think you’re Chinese. We’re racially profiled “SWA,” or shopping while Asian. We just don’t know we’re getting bad service because we’ve never known any better.)

So what’s so great about being quiet? Well, despite Americans’ penchant for awarding the assertive and confident, being predisposed to quietness helps to develop a lot of biblical qualities. Blessed are the meek. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Indeed, the quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of the ruler of fools. So this May, let’s follow our culture and be still, and know that the Lord is God.

APIs have lots of cultural traits that American evangelicalism doesn’t necessarily promote, including a sense of shame, mutual obligation, and hierarchical relations. But in each of these perceived weaknesses that we may have, God can use and redeem.

Let us not be quick to reject our culture simply to replace it with evangelical culture that is Americanized.  He may even bless the rest of the church with these API cultural gifts.

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Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is a month to celebrate and pay tribute to the contributions generations of Asian and Pacific Islanders have made to American history, society and culture.

… Why was May picked as the official heritage month? According to the Library of Congress, it was chosen “to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.”

A few things I found about this month:

President Obama’s Presidential Proclamation — Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, 2012.

UCLA compiles this 2012 Statistical Portrait of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Other Pacific Islanders

The U.S. Census Bureau will host a forum with the Asian American Justice Center on the Asian population at the Rayburn House Office Building. This event will highlight statistics from the American Community Survey and 2010 Census, providing a portrait of the Asian population in the U.S. Following the presentation, an expert panel will discuss the statistics and their implications. When: Wednesday, May 2, 2012; noon to 2:30 p.m. (EDT) The event will be broadcast on the Census Bureau’s Ustream channel at www.ustream.tv/channel/us-census-bureau. Viewers will be able to submit questions via Facebook and Twitter (#ProfileAmerica)

Asian American & Pacific Islander Christian women leaders are gathering this week for the 1st national conference May 3-5, 2012 near Los Angeles. This event will empower women leaders through a safe, honest and challenging environment for women to grow their voice and to learn from other women leaders.

And to our team of contributors here at NextGenerAsianChurch.com: what makes our heritage as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders worth celebrating? What are you and/or your community doing to celebrate?

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Much of the article covered a detailed comparison of Western vs. Eastern cultures. Then, Hung suggested an approach that can work better for Asian Americans and even makes an argument based on the Trinity, and that’s where it really gets good. Here’s the excerpt from the article (towards the end of the article up to the conclusion that goes on to suggest references for further study):

… The incongruence between the direct use of idiocentric based psychological concepts of individuation, differentiation, and boundaries for allocentric Asian Americans is reflected in C. Kagitcibasi’s (1997, p. 19) definition of the Western individualistic view of self as “self-contained, individuated, separated, independent self defined with clear boundaries from others” and the Eastern collectivistic view of self as “relational, interdependent self with fluid boundaries.” The fluid boundaries, family integration, and interdependence that are characteristic of an Eastern allocentric self will be considered unhealthy from a Western view of healthy family functioning that advocates clear boundaries, individuation as the family goal, and differentiation of self. Thus, those with interdependent self-construals may have a different need for separateness and understanding of differentiated oneness because of how they view the self and the relationships with others (Kwon, 2001). They may view family problems as a lack of integration or connection to support networks rather than a lack of individuation (Chan, 1996; Tamura & Lau, 1992). As such, applying boundaries and achieving the separateness (in unity) of the individual’s identity apart from the group characteristic of differentiated oneness will be more of an issue for Asian American families (Tamura & Lau, 1992). To further consider this issue of application, the final sections of this article will integrate all three preceding analyses.

Applying Differentiated Oneness to Asian American Families

In helping Asian American families, Christian counselors not only need to be sensitive to differences in relationship dynamics between Eastern and Western cultures, but also, as with families of any ethnicity, should encourage values, thinking, and behavior that are consistent with God’s discovered and revealed truth. In the realm of revealed Scriptural truth, differentiated oneness does seem to align with the theological emphasis on both connectedness and separateness in relationship as demonstrated in the Trinity and the body of Christ metaphor. In the realm oF discovered scientific truth, the basic concepts related to differentiated oneness, individuation, differentiation, and boundaries seem to be supported by empirical research, but without clearly showing direct cross-cultural applicability. These findings seem to confirm the discovered truth within this article’s cross-cultural analysis, which suggested that individuation, differentiation, boundaries, and differentiated oneness cannot be directly applied to Asian Americans without adjustment for cultural differences in their self-construals and family values.

The integration of the results of the psychological, theological, and cultural analyses leads to several implications. First, while the concept of differentiated oneness has not been completely refuted in psychological research and possesses significant theological support, Scripture does not provide specific guidance as to the exact balance between separateness and connectedness that families must achieve. As such, families have the
freedom to uniquely manifest diversity and unity in their relationships, and counselors can help Asian American families discover the right balance of separateness and connectedness for their particular unit and needs (Chan, 1996). For example, employing differentiated oneness to obtain a better balance between separateness and connectedness may help culturally conflicted families adjust to the more individualistic mainstream American society (Chang & Yeh. 1999). Also, this paper’s analyses can help counselors understand cultural barriers to achieving this balance. Western families will likely struggle with separateness at the expense of connectedness; Asian American families will likely struggle with connectedness at the expense of separateness. Thus, for Western families, counselors can advocate boundaries to create greater separateness but within the context of connectedness (as family systems theory advocates and as opposed to approaches that portray the use of boundaries apart from connectedness). For Asian American families, counselors can advocate boundaries to allow for more separateness, whatever they perceive it to be, in their connectedness and to balance competing subsystem needs without disconnecting certain relationships to maintain others (Tamura & Lau, 1992). For example, structural family therapy’s prioritizing the marital relationship over other family relationships must be balanced with Asian Americans’ need to maintain healthy connections with tbeir extended family and to not alienate an elder subsystem.

Recognizing tbe problems associated with using boundaries in collectivistic cultures, Rev. Soo-Young Kwon (2001) advocates in Korean American ministry relationships what pastoral psychologist Carrie Doehring (1995) refers to as _relational boundaries_, in which individuals value the needs and rights of both self and others, leading to mutual empowerment. The self is defined as an individual in empathetic relationship, rather than as an independent self regardless of context or an interdependent self only in relational context (Doeliring, 1995; Kwon, 2001). Because relational boundaries seem to allow for a balance between connectedness and separateness (Doetiring, 1995), they may serve as a useful concept to help Asian American families achieve differentiated oneness.

Second, even though each family has freedom to uniquely manifest a balance of connectedness and separateness, because Scripture emphasizes oneness not based upon sameness and affirms the value of both the individual and the community regardless of their cultural context, one aspect of differentiated oneness relevant for Asian American families must be negotiating their relationships so that the individual members’ cultural values are respected. Christian counselors can help individuals assess and prioritize their values (versus family values) and develop ways to either accommodate or assert themselves within tbe acceptable constraints of the family rules (Ko, 1986). Individuals (and also families) can choose which cultural values are more valued in any situation, since both individualistic or collectivistic orientations have strengths and weaknesses (Triandis, 1995). At the very least, counselors can help individuals avoid feeling ignored or misunderstood by their family by facilitating communication that allows their voice to be heard (Jung, 1984). In this way, individuals can express their God-given uniqueness without threatening their identity in the group (Chan, 1996), the family’s inherent diversity will be revealed, and the connectedness that often characterizes Asian American families can still be maintained.

Third, because Scripture grants freedom to manifest differentiated oneness according to a family’s cultural values, counselors must be aware of tbe differences between Eastern and Western cultural values and the impact that ethnic identity plays in self identity. This awareness will help counselors to better understand the source, nature, and potential resolution of intergenerational conflicts often experienced in Asian American families. Awareness of cultural differences will also help counselors not only to recognize counselees’ potential reluctance to change, but also to manage their expectation regarding the progress of change. Moreover, integrating this cultural knowledge with other discovered and revealed truth as modeled in this paper, counselors will be better equipped to critically analyze and adapt relevant Western-based counseling techniques to address counselees’ specific cultural needs.

From the Asian American family’s perspective, realization that intergenerational conflicts are often a result of the clashing of opposing cultures (resulting in differences in communication, motivation, etc.) may help them gain a better perspective on their perceived disunity. In such cases, counselors may reframe the situation not as a threat to unity but as an opportunity to display true biblical unity, in which diversity is essential to a healthy, functioning family.

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As the title suggests, in this short video, James Choung presents a compelling biblical case for why our ethnicity matters.

I agree with NG.AC contributor Helen Lee‘s note on James’ blog, “Boy, do I wish this video had been around in the 1990s when we were wrestling with this on our campus!” For me, this would have been really helpful while studying in seminary where, in retrospect, the amount of ignorance about race and reconciliation was staggering.

For many of us, whether it’s in church or on campus, it is altogether too common to hear phrases such as the following thrown around:

Race doesn’t matter in God’s Kingdom.

I don’t see race, I just see people.

Why do you people exclude yourselves?

As James notes on his blog, “Ethnicity Matters is a seven-minute reflection on the biblical foundations for ethnicity. In this short amount of time, it can’t cover everything. But I hope it’s a helpful conversation starter.” Keep an eye out for a discussion guide, which is on its way.

I’m seriously considering keeping this video bookmarked on my phone so that I can watch it with folks who raise the aforementioned objections (or, they can read the FAQs here).

Click here to view the embedded video.

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[re-posted with permission, originally on Facebook as Part A and Part B]

Dr. Daniel Law, an early retiree, is the Associate Director of Development for the China Graduate School of Theology (Hong Kong), operating from the US. A former biology professor and principal information analyst in the pharmaceutical industry, Dan has served in over 6 different Chinese churches throughout the US since the late 60’s.

Thoughts On Authority and Leadership in the Chinese Church

by Dr. Daniel Law

Leadership As An Issue

Weak leadership, or the lack of it, has been raised as one of the major issues facing the Chinese church today. Many lay people are secretly wishing that their pastors are more equipped to lead. Others, including the clergy themselves, have complained that our pastors are not given the authority to lead. The latter is a serious charge, since as far as we know, most Chinese churches are functioning more or less on a democratic principle, with leadership shared between the clergy and the lay. However, a lack of (or weak) leadership, or an inappropriate handling of authority, can result in serious conflicts in, or stagnation of, the church.

Authority vs. Leadership

A clear understanding of what authority and/or leadership is may help provide some insights on the current problem. Authority can come with a position, can be given, but should not be taken for granted. In the pastor’s case, his authority is based on his calling from God, his professional training (in Bible, theology, counseling, church management, etc…), and his faithfulness to his call as a servant of God. As shepherd for his flock, his spiritual leadership is to be respected and honored. However, a pastor can and will lose his authority as shepherd if he betrays his calling, or behaves in ways unbecoming of a servant of God. A pastor can seldom succeed as leader and shepherd by relying ONLY on his claim as God’s servant. Ultimately, a pastor has to earn his authority and respect.

Similar thing can be said of the lay leaders (elders, deacons or deaconesses) in the church. They are but servants called by God to serve with and help the pastors. Elders and pastors are in fact in the same role category. As servants of Jesus Christ, they are expected to labor as members in a “spiritual leadership team”.

While the pastors, due to their training as clergy, are “experts” in God’s word, they (particularly if young) may nevertheless be quite deficient in many aspects of administering a church, such as staff supervision, strategy formulation, management of projects and processes, counseling and human relations. In these areas, it may become appropriate for the experienced lay leaders to be involved or even to lead. The pastors therefore should respect the lay leaders and depend on them to complement their ministries, especially in areas where they are deficient.

The smooth and efficient operation of the church depends on a team-work between the clergy and the lay. An honest respect of gifts by both parties will make this team-work a highly successful proposition. An absence of respect will almost certainly bring havoc to the church.

Leadership, on the other hand, is a character trait. It can be in-born to a certain extent, but must be acquired via learning, education and experience. Leadership is empowered by authority, but authority is not leadership. A person can become a leader without (humanly given) authority. Further, authority alone never makes a person a leader, because leadership exudes from the being, the character, and the moral fiber of a person. It is what he believes, says and does, in front of and behind people. It is how he understands himself, others and accountability; how he puts his learning to work; how he understands management and team-work; how he thinks and plans and executes; and how he communicates, motivates and mobilizes others to accomplish his or his organization’s goals.

Leadership in clergy and lay alike is to be honored and respected. This is God’s teaching. God endows certain individuals in His church with the gift of leadership to be blessings to the whole Body of Christ.

Leadership and the Church

If a church indeed has been shown to be weak or lacking in leadership (spiritual leadership included), perhaps it is due to one or more of the following. Knowing their causes, and being alert to their potential ramifications, may help the church overcome many of her impending problems and conflicts.

1. Role confusion – failure to understand and accept the pastors’ spiritual roles in the church; as well as the roles of the lay leaders, practiced often collectively as the church Council. In the church, the pastors and the lay should not be in competition. Role clarification and stressing mutual submission may help here.
2. Failure to lead when called for – both pastors and Council may be afraid to face issues and to supervise for fear of confrontation. When leaders are hesitant to lead, the church suffers.
3. Insufficient skills – the leaders may simply have not yet learned how to lead; or have insufficient training on the theology, sociology, psychology and art of leadership. The solution lies in an honest appraisal of the leadership. Seek help and receive more training.
4. Disregard of protocols – Council or pastors who do not follow commonly accepted protocols in decision making and/or in church practices are inviting conflicts in churches.
5. Weak “Constitutional” tradition – many churches, especially the independent ones, operate in a semi laissez-faire manner, paying little attention to their constitutions, rules and guidelines. This can become a cancer to many smaller and independent churches. As a church grows, she must lay down guidelines to safeguard her beliefs and operations. Related to this is the lack of a good leadership culture. When mentors or good role models are absent, a church often becomes disoriented and adrift. It may flounder for years and can not grow.
6. Submission and authority – an un-Biblical understanding and attitude towards submission and authority, made worse by character conflicts, or brought about by past unhappy experiences in a local church or elsewhere, can often rack havoc and bring tremendous damages to a church. Consider the following scenarios:
   Scenario 1: An assistant pastor is rebellious towards his supervising pastor whom he considers inept;
   Scenario 2: A ministerial staff refuses to be supervised by a lay person in the Council (“How can a servant of God be supervised by one of his sheep?”) due to a poor understanding of accountability and submission;
   Scenario 3: A staff’s strict interpretation of his job, not being flexible to walk an extra mile. A ministry has become a job to him.
   The issue of submission and authority can be a huge topic in itself. Suffices it to say that I do believe in submission. However, I am convinced that much more can be accomplished, and with greater harmony, when the leadership (clergy and lay together) is willing to down play its authority, and practice Biblical accountability instead. All submissions in Christ’s church must begin with a healthy dose of humility. All must submit first to Him and His word.
7. Reality of growing pains – as some of our churches become too large and complicated, their “structure and organization” become cumbersome, overly-taxed and outdated. These churches will need to learn to cope with and grow with their growth, to work better and smarter, and to adapt and change themselves and their church structures as needed.
8. our sins – this of course is an issue as old as Adam. It is a known fact that most conflicts in church are not doctrinal in nature, but are due to sins of the flesh. It will take courage for the leadership to collectively return to the Cross to resolve this crucial problem before the church can resume its growth.

Where Are the Solutions?

I humbly offer the following for our church leaders’ consideration:

1. Returning to basics – a return to the Biblical basics, teaching and stressing unity, submission, humility, accountability and the pursuit of common visions.
2. Closer walk with God – under the spiritual role model, teaching and leadership of the pastors, practice a closer walk with God. Deal truthfully with our pride, selfishness, egos and sins.
3. Re-commitment – re-commit our lives to God, to the church, and to each other.
4. Improving one’s “serve” – each Council member to do a personal assessment of himself/herself. Acknowledge one’s deficiencies. Aggressively seek specific training or tutoring to improve his/her “serve”.
5. More training in management and team-work – do not despise the M – management – word. By it, I mean much more than supervision. I mean planning, implementation, control, and leadership, etc… Some pastors will probably say that their job is only to preach and pray. But that’s an incomplete understanding of the pastor’s roles. Good leaders are often good managers, and are always well trained.
6. Accepting scrutiny – resolve to accept supervision of, and scrutiny from, others. Beware of someone – pastors particularly – who does not accept scrutiny (or in a secular term, reviews), and who puts himself above criticism. No one in the church is above scrutiny.
7. Forming a learning community – resolve to form a pack, to become a supportive and learning community to pray, study and learn to serve better, knowing that “two is better than one”, and that we all have rooms to grow.
8. Growing together in Christian bond – challenge each other and hold each other accountable to grow in an open, constructive and transparent environment.

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 For further insight into these practices, check out “The Gatekeepers“.

I really appreciated the Steinberg expose as basically the one thing we can really do to get our kids ready to go to an elite institution is to encourage them to “shine” on their own (start up a charity, write a novel). In the “Gatekeepers” it was exciting to see the mind of the admissions officer as they searched for those few movers and shakers that they wanted to see on their campus. And what I got was that those kids who started their own charities, completed novels, or worked on the next great scientific discoveries were the ones they searched high and low for.  In fact a good buddy of mine attended Brown and he talked about these whiz kids and geniuses.  At the same time there were children of alumni, children of celebrities/rich and famous, the “scholarship” students.  My friend told me of “the gentleman’s “C”". We were talking about someone famous, who I remarked, “surely this person couldn’t have graduated from an Ivy?” And he told me about the gentleman’s C. Definitely elite schools are in “a league of their own.”

I know that I have read inflammatory Xangas by students who didn’t get accepted to their choice college, and jeolously write how they couldn’t believe that their “minority” friend (non-Asian) got into that same school.  I can admit, I was young once too.

I wonder though that we as a society strive too much for fairness. Life is not fair and perhaps a “no” from one school is a sign that God has something better. It’s not fair that Paul Gausol is 7′ and I am not…but perhaps God didn’t intend a pro NBA career for me!  A friend recently told their son – No, as he was accepted to an Ivy, but they as parents felt that their son was not ready to go all the way to the other coast. They wanted him closer to home. They told me, “is 18 some magical number that we can just send our children off on their own?”  I didn’t say anything as I thought of the Amish practice of rumspringa (which I guess I wouldn’t practice now that I am a father).  I wonder if there is something about sending off your child and see if they come back to the fold…

Ok, sorry for the tangents…but I sort of see the dilemna of the elite institution of higher learning. You have alumni that you admit because their children have an example, a network that will  help them succeed. They also want the “cream of the crop” students, and at the same time, yes they want diversity. And to get diversity, unfortunately they discriminate.

 edit–I guess as I use the word discriminate it is not in the most inflammatory usage of the word.

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Last week, my Pastor linked to Timothy Lo’s post which “outed” me. I remember telling someone on writing here,

“Y’know I   haven’t written for the blog since 2009!”

And I cannot believe that  three years have flown by!

I wanna say I am a different person than when I first started here. But I still think the same in some ways. Not sure what I can offer but I added to a meme once* (see below).  What more can I say about myself? To reference DJ’s post from April 4, “I’m a Cantonese Boy”. Ironically my wife is part Canto/part Shanghai (like that video). Well not totally Shanghai but close…We have a daughter who is “tree!” (Three).

Last year we suffered the miscarriage of our 2nd daughter. She was about 20 weeks old. We named her Joshlynn Hope Woo. Joshlynn is the female form of Joshua, which means “The Lord is Our Salvation”.  Jesus is a form of  Joshua! Our testimony is that our Hope is in Jesus who is our salvation. And I wrote that in our yearly family newsletter last year to testify to that.  I wish I had asked on that newsletter, “Is Jesus your hope? Your salvation? So I write that here.

Well, what more can I write? I am going to graduate from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. I am an intern at Mandarin Baptist Church of  Los Angeles. I grew up in El Paso, TX. Came to know Jesus at the El Paso Chinese Baptist Church (formerly: Grant Ave. Baptist Church).

I am among some great bloggers, I hope that I can pull my weight! Thanks again and hope to read and write with you all through the days, months, and years.

Edit-My Blog and Twitter.

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Transcript of what Elder Chiv Taing said, as translated by Pastor Amra Phou:

On behalf of the first generation . . .
We do have that dream
Of coming to the land of opportunity
And, you see, we came from a war-torn country
And we came here
And we tend to have that protectiveness,
Not allow the second generation
Not allow, our children
To be led by the Lord
We tend to be too protective
And we failed to recognize the leading of God
To move to the next generation

And on behalf of the first generation
I would like to apologize for that

Let you go, let you go . . .

I would like to seek forgiveness from all of you,
On behalf of the first generation
I should have recognized the power of God
And allowed God’s work within the church
To prepare the church, to build a bridge
For the next generation
And from this conference I will go back
And educate my people
And let them realize that we need to let go of the next generation
Allow God to work
To build a bridge to bless throughout generations
Not just words, but I’m going to go back, and commit to pray to the God of Jacob
To lead you guys in the way of the Lord

You guys, its O.K.
God bless you guys from now on
And be strong

And I would like to bless you
And encourage all of you to continue to be the light of the world
And the way you continue to serve each other,
The first and second generations
And allow God to lead all of us
Thank you.

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