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Archive of "Ministry" Category
Secret to Lasting Longer in English Ministry
During my recent visit to Austin, I had met Ken Liu at Chesterbrook Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in VA. Here’s an impromptu interview of him sharing the trade secret for lasting longer in English Ministry. [Thanks @DJChuang]
He’s made it past 5 years!
Unheard of?ConferenceSpotting
I’ll be headed out to Austin, Texas tomorrow to join 2000+ church leaders at Verge 2010. Should be interesting since it’s the first “missional” church conference of this kind. I’ll be hanging out with the good folks at Vox Veniae as well as DJChuang and David Park (NextGenerAsianChurch.com).
You can follow the live stream through DJChuang.com as well as through his tweets on @djchuang247. He and David Park are part of the official Verge Social Media Team.
But you can also follow @laurencetom @abcpastor for my live tweets
as well as Live twitter tweets on twubs + use official hashtag #verge10 There’s other significant conferences that I still need to follow up on like NA-CCCOWE. Co-wha? Way back at the beginning of December back in 09, a little event took place that gathered many Chinese churches together in North America. The conference also had a separate English speaking track that focused on “The Challenges and Future of English Speaking Ministries in Chinese Churches.” It was a momentous gathering of leaders. While abcpastor.com goes through a facelift I’ll provide a separate page to include some of the dialogue, documents, and future plans from the NACCOWE event. I know many of you have been asking for it. I’ll make good on it soon.
My 2010 conference itinerary so far includes:
EPIC, Jan 15-18
Verge, Feb 4-6
Ecclesia National Gathering, Feb 16
The Ideation Conference, Apr 5-6
The 99% Conference, Apr 15Any other suggestions?
How Asian American Culture Affects Faith
DJ Chuang recently posted an interview with Brent Wong, a 5th-generation Asian American of Chinese descent. Brent’s searching and questioning may resonate closely with the experience of many Chinese Americans even several generations down the line. You may not speak Chinese or even eat Chinese food but how do your parents respond to your steps of faith?
What cultural aspects transcend language from generation to generation? There’s the academic expectations, the lack of affection and praise…
Many believe Chinese families are close and tight but very often it’s more about order. Our upbringing affects the way we communicate and gives clues to the pains and longings of our hearts.
What other aspects can you identify?
And how does that affect ministry and shape the way you do ministry?Seeking Reconciliation after Deadly Vipers
It’s been a week after the Deadly Viper controversy and much dialogue and movement has happened. Moving toward reconciliation Mike Foster & Jud Wilhite have posted their conversation w Asian American leaders as well as Soong-Chan Rah. A conference with Zondervan was also conducted which included Ken Fong weighing in. This is definitely bigger than Mike & Jud or Zondervan could have ever anticipated.
What more is needed? Well. Much. Much. More. It’s beyond Mike & Jud but Deadly Vipers has certainly been an undeniable catalyst for change. If anything it will serve as a great case study in marketing on many levels including conflict resolution through social media.
Let me first say that I appreciate the many non-Asian voices that have added not just their voices to this important conversation but the steps to sincerely seek deep reconciliation and the faith to move towards the vision of a better ‘country’.I think the question that many Asians bring up is, “Do White people get it?”
“Will they ever get it?”This is about all of us and not just demonizing the “White Privilege” of Caucasian men. I am capable of insensitivity, prejudice, and worse. Our church is far from perfect. Our church bumbles and stumbles our way in the ministry of reconciliation but we’re committed to engaging in both conversation and actions – even if we know we’ll fall short. But we’ll keep trying because we know that the ministry of all things reconciliation is not an option but part of our discipleship. – From Eugene Cho
In race matters as well as in real relationships, we’re never going to get anywhere unless we step into the world of another person who is different from us. Becoming like Christ means we willingly step into another person’s reality just. I say this often, I never realized how ‘Chinese’ I was until I married my Italian-German wife. I thought I was more Italian than Chinese growing up in Brooklyn but living with my non-Chinese wife has forced me to confront things about myself. This is how I begin my response to Chinese leaderships that think to be an multi-ethnic church is merely the task of the American born in their church. Not that I think this should or shouldn’t be the goal of ethnic/immigrant churches but becoming a multi-ethnic church will challenge us in ways we cannot begin to imagine and typically fail to acknowledge. It’s a ‘nice’ thing to dream about. Unless we’re willing to step out, reinvent our ways of thinking and have our social consciousness challenged it will always remain a dream. We like being around people just like us. Once we’re doing life on life with those different than us be it their skin color or socio-economic status or something else will we really taste what Christ came to do – deep reconciliation. I have to ask church leaders, are you really committed to building ethnically rich dynamic gospel communities or clusters of likeness where we have lots in common and oh yea Jesus too…
Anyways there’s been some great movement amongst Asian American Leaders about what we need to do next. I had a great tokbox session last week with some great voices including headsparks (Dan So), elderj (Joshua Settles), djchuang, jadanzzy (Dan Ra), NextGenerAsian Church (David Park) including Eugene Cho and Bruce Reyes-Chow who popped their heads in now and then. We discussed identity formation for the next generation of Asian Americans in the church and we want to follow up from that conversation with “Asian American Women and the Church”. What an appropriate next step.
So if you’re around this Thurs 11/12 10p ET / 7p PT tune in on TokBox. I’ll post details on that soon.Non-Asian Responses to Deadly Vipers
Skye Jethani: Hidden Racism?
Jonathan Brink: Confronting the Enemy Within
Ed Cyzewski: How White Christians Can Deal with Racial InsensitivitySeeking God in Deadly Vipers
I need to say something but struggling to put together the words I think would be helpful regarding the escalating Deadly Viper controversy initiated by Prof. Soong-Chan Rah about the book Deadly Viper Character Assassins: A Kung Fu Survival Guide for Life and Leadership. Deadly Vipers has entered into a much bigger conversation than the authors and publishers (Zondervan) could have ever imagined challenging the message they desire to communicate. The book itself at first glance didn’t bother me too much. It wasn’t really on my radar until ProfRah called it out. In fact the book was first published in 2007 but it seems like the authors Mike and Jud kick started a campaign to grow the community this year. I had briefly met Mike Foster this year at The Idea Camp. I’ve always been a fan of his projects from Ethur to XXXChurch. I believe he loves Jesus.I think I’m more bothered by indifference and many of the comments that say this isn’t a big deal and people are just over reacting. Is this where faith leads us? Why do we operate on the shallow end of such a deep and rich faith? Now the term racial reconciliation is kinda tired and reconciliation itself tends to not get any deeper than an apology. I think God has in mind much much more. But it’s hard and costly.
We’re called towards oneness.
Our vision is shalom – That’s not kumbaya around a campfire.We all bring our own set of lenses into things. It’s difficult to know how people will receive what we say and do even if we mean well. We can’t ignore how we affect others especially a whole culture. I wouldn’t quite call Deadly Vipers outrightly racist but it’s appropriation of Asian images and stereotypes in its marketing is in my opinion destructive. Soong-Chan Rah highlights Deadly Vipers offenses that you can read about here.
I witness the injustice caused by stereotypes and racism on a regular basis working in immigrant communities. Stereotypes and racism created ethnic enclaves like Chinatown and continues to perpetuate them. It drives people and whole communities towards isolation and mistrust. Stereotypes do hurt and perpetuate the worst not the best in people or culture.
It’s naive to think that we’re past racism. I was enraged one day in the playground when slightly older non-Asian boys used racist language with my 3 yr old son. I kindly asked the boys to never use that kind of language again. I admit I began judging when I found that the boys were part of a group of church families getting together in the park. Where do they learn that from? Though my son may not have fully grasped what had occurred it made me feel like I’m still not really fully ‘American’ or like everyone else. On another note, my week started with an NBA commentator saying “Nice dunk by the Chinaman” about Nets, Yi Jianling. That was just weird and unnecessary.
Real conversation needs to take place beyond blogs and twitter. I don’t think the ‘dialogue’ on ProfRah’s blog was helpful but I’m thankful that Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite seem to be moving in the right direction. They’ve issued an apology on the Deadly Vipers blog and the most disturbing part of the Deadly Vipers marketing to me was the video posted on facebook which has been taken down by the time of this post. A real conversation is set to take place soon and I hope to post the results on this blog soon. I just want to say here that I love you guys. Really I do. I’m not writing to rip on you guys or judge you but to do what I can to bring real reconciliation and advance the kingdom. I want to see the beauty and power of Christ shine through you and the cracks of our brokenness.
Real conversation and change needs to happen with the publishers as well. I’d like to see Zondervan think deeper beyond target markets. This isn’t the first time this publisher has shown insensitivity to Asian culture. We’ve been through this before.
So let’s go deep and get the conversation going for real change. If we really want to see a different tomorrow that’s in line with God’s idea of the future established by Christ we need to go deep and make sacrifices. We’re all broken and in need of second chances. This is where Christ gets to show us something we would have never expected and build his Church his way.
Some thoughtful responses:
Daniel So/Headsparks: “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
Eugene Cho: “deadly vipers, mike foster, jud wilhite, soong-chan rah, chuck norris, joyluck club, angry asian man, wanna be ninjas and everyone else”Ancestor Worship, Taiwanese Christians, & Contextualization
Ed Stetzer is blogging his Taiwan visit and sharing his missional discoveries along the way. There’s some real good stuff on the growth of the church in Taiwan and the mainland but most interesting is a look [with video] into ancestor worship and the challenges of contextualization.
Taiwan Video 1: Meeting and Learning from Pastor Chen
Bluegrass and Contextualization in Taiwan
Taiwan Video 2: Ancestor Worship and Taiwanese ChristiansInterview on L2Foundation Blog
Last weekend I had the honor of being interviewed by DJChuang for the L2 Foundation Blog to discuss in short being an ABC Pastor in a Chinese Church. It was my first encounter with a Flip cam. I want one now.
Watch Interview with Laurence Tom or “LT” with DJ Chuang
The Challenges and Future of English Ministries in Chinese Churches
Compelling?
PALM(Pastoral & Laity Ministries), CCCOWE-USA (Chinese Coordination Centre on World Evangelization), CCCOWE-Canada are partnering together for a conference on the Challenges & Future of English Ministries in Chinese Churches. Stuff that we’re passionate about here at abcpastor.comThis should be quite interesting and serve to be a viable gathering ground for ABC pastors or pastors/leaders of EMs (English Ministries) in Chinese churches. Let’s meet finally face to face.
Why don’t we begin the dialogue here or on twitter [twitter.com/abcpastor] prior to the conference so we can fast forward our interactions?
• Share what topics you want discussed at this conference
Conference Details
Location: Tuscarora Inn & Conference Center
3300 River Road Mt. Bethel, PA 18343Rev. Jim Cymbala of Brooklyn Tabernacle speaking on Wednesday afternoon and evening, Dec 2.
Registration: $50 (by August 1, 2009) $70 thereafterMitzie Mackenzie (1920-2009)
The community of Chinese Christian Church + Center will deeply miss Mitzie.
We’ve spoken about being “transcultural” or “Third Culture” on this blog. Mitzie’s life truly was transcultural. As Dave Gibbons (NewSong) would put it, she had the mindset and the will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort. As we mature in knowing Christ’s character, we discover that he has called us to love and serve cultures and people unlike our own — may it be racially, or socioeconomically.As a 20 year old white girl she stepped into Chinatown and gave over 60 years of her life to serve this community never being fluent in Chinese. She always said she was Chinese at heart.
Respect. Imitate. Live.
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Events
"HERO" An EPIC MOVEMENT EAST COAST Conference January 15-18, 2010, Philadelphia
Verge Missional Community Conference,
February 4-6, Austin, Texas
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