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Entry tags:	eunice or, helen lee

Handling the Facts

Silent Exodus - Can the East Asian church in America reverse flight of its next generation?

August 12, 1996
by HELEN LEE

PRESSURE POINTS
On top of the intense attention paid to native language, ethnic discrimination, and immigrant needs, Asian-American Christians grapple with additional pressure points concerning the demands for leadership equality, the role of ethnic identity in the church, and the importance of spiritual development. Unless theses added difficulties are solved, they have the potential to hinder church growth among younger people.

These younger people, often influenced by Western ideals of democracy and equality, tend to differ with Asian cultural views on hierarchy and authority. In the Asian culture, you have a slow giving over of authority and control to the younger generation, says Robert Goette, director of the Chicagoland Asian-American Church Planting Project. “Often the control resides with the parents until they die.”
Scholar Tseng agrees: “Unless the first-generation leaders are able to give second-generation pastors the freedom to lead, their young people will not go to these churches. First-generation pastors need to be aware of this dynamic.”

Second-generation leaders also note their responsibility in this process of partnership with the first-generation leads. “The relationship between the first and second-generation pastors has to be stronger,” says Grace Shim of Parkwood Community Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a second-generation, Asian-American. “If there are two pastors who are willing to compromise and put aside cultural differences, there’s hope.”

This is fairly significant. The understanding between the two needs to be developed as well as the realization that one cannot do without the other - the first generation's strength and weaknesses are coincidentally opposite the second generation's weaknesses and strengths.

I'm not sure any of this is truly happening right now at ACCC since we're primarily focused on our congregational needs. It's something I'm stressing within our Sunday School committees but this is because it's more self-evident as we meet every time with the parents of our students, many of whom are first generationers.

Another area in which older and younger generations frequently differ is the preference of the first-generation members for a monocultural setting, while the younger generations often feel restricted by such rigid ethnic-identity boundaries.

While Peter Cha, also of Parkwood Community Church, was serving as a young adults’ pastor in a first-generation Asian church setting, he began to see a growing number of non-Koreans coming to the church as well as an increasing number of interracial marriages.

“The first-generation Parents began to complain to me about it,”Cha says “The nature of the immigrant church is that the mission of that group is to provide for the needs of the first generation. And while they want a vibrant second-generation ministry, they find it hard to deal with the side effects, like having non-Koreans come.

But today’s Asian-American live in a society where they are typically spending less time in a monocultural setting. And even for those who are fully Asian in their ethnicity, acculturation has often made the ethnic-enclave atmosphere of the first-generation church unbearable for them.

When Grace and Tony Yang moved to Southern California, they spent many Sundays hopping from one Korean church to another, but the process of finding a good fit was difficult. “Most churches we went to didn’t have services in English,” says Tony Yang, a second-generation Korean-American.

Gibbons, who left the Korean church setting to plant his own independent church with a more multiethnic flavor, believes that the younger generation require churches with a broader cultural vision in order to feel comfortable.

"Today’s busters think that if you’re not being multiethnic in your endeavors, you’re not for real,” he says. “They see the diversity everywhere else in society, but if they don’t see it in church, they think the church is superficial.”

The ethnocentrism that "appears" in Asian Churches is debatable, as is its efficacy. If they don't reach out to other ethnic groups, they're seen as selfish, but if they do, those in the original ethnic group might feel neglected. Either way, it's a me-first attitude - whether one is benefiting or not - and centers more on our individual rather than our corporate worship. This might be something further down the road in a congregation's maturity. Not that discussing it early on isn't beneficial on some levels, but I'm just not sure it is really of main concern to ACCC at this present time.

A third pressure point concerns providing quality spiritual education and training for the younger generations in First-generation churches. Due to the lack of teaching resources in Asian in Asian churches, or the decision to conduct services and reaching times in Asian languages, the quality of spiritual instruction of young people receive often falls short of their needs. “Parents assumed that if you just sent the kids to church through high school, they’d come out being good Christians,” Global Mission’s Lee says: “We all thought our kids would go to church in college. That was a very naive thought.”

I can't lament how true this quotation is. Parents, Christian and non-Christian, fall prey to the sin of laziness or cowardice or whatever that merely sending their children to or attending church - the building or structure rather than the body of Christ - is what will keep their children 's heart right with God. Not their own habits and ways of life, not their interactions and mentoring of their children, not constantly strengthening their marriages (if applicable), not constant prayer, but bringing their kids one day of the week to sing songs, play games, and listen to some charming dude stand up in the pulpit to give humorous anecdotes and life lessons in the name of Jesus.

We as a church need to raise leaders. Period. This is one massive requirement, as well as in all related areas, that ACCC falls short. We are short of leaders because we simultaneously do not train people to lead and do not care for the leaders if they so choose to sacrifice and submit to service. There is immense joy in service and I do ultimately believe that service is the missing ingredient in our sanctification, but when we do not exhibit this joy, complete and good, then I cannot blame others for hesitating beyond what they should hesitate about to serve.

Further, I constantly debate and am still debating as I look into the next Sunday School quarter, if we are making service palatable or convenient enough to attract those not serving to serve. What of sacrifice or devotion or commitment? None of this is portrayed when we provide cookie-cutter arrangements for people to serve in the most fashionable manner possible and not disturb "the life" that is away from the church. I do realize these statements are singed with judgment in both myself and others, but the question and not my presentation of the question still stands unanswered.

I am leaning towards seeking in body and in prayer those young adults (beyond undergraduates) to serve in a fuller capacity in conjunction with (and not only) heavily utilizing our strong college groups within ACCC.

In addition, Asian parenting styles are frequently based on the Confucian values of hierarchy and authority. Charles Rim, a 29 year old coordinator of young programs at Oriental Mission Church in Los Angeles, says, “The kids don’t own the faith. They come to church because they are forced to. They can’t differentiate between Asian culture and Christianity, and then they often develop a hatred of the culture which they then extend to Christianity.”

Identity. Perhaps now would be a good time for me to retract my earlier statements on the identity of the church but I won't because I think these are two distinct yet related issues.

No matter how much one might want to control their lives and the lives of their children, time does pass between when the parent came to faith and when their children might come to faith. That said, it would be extremely detrimental that the parent choose to force upon the child his/her faith in the context in which they first believed. The child neither understands your background, nor your experiences that led to conversion, and thus to package faith with culture rather than focusing on a mustard seed of faith to help give depth to culture would lead to a misrepresentation of Christ's pursuit of us and the message of the gospel.

How sad that some children feel that to reject or not fit in their Chinese culture is equivalent to abandoning their faith. Yes, this is a personal issue but we must do our best to clearly proclaim His message in His words.

Gibbons also notes that the second generation has to take responsibility for its own watered down faith. “We have been given ministries on a silver platter. We have had all of our ministries provided for us, which has resulted in a weak Christianity.”

Agreed. The English Congregation is really made up of the grown children of the Chinese Congregation's first generation members. There has been no sacrifice in order to worship in our currently building, there has been no sacrifice to build or continue financial support. I don't know which came first but I think this is strongly tied to not realizing Christ's sacrifice for us in mind, body, and Spirit, and therefore we do not value the first generation's sacrifices enough to realize its necessity for our generation.

One big thing I remind myself (from Francis Chan sermon - surprise, surprise) is that in the parent-child relationship, we must not settle for our children to mature into faiths that are 'on our level', but we must continually hope and pray they seek Christ as the ultimate example and not merely pursue an infinitely lesser idol in us as parents or us as teachers.

ENDING THE EXODUS
As Asian-American Christian leaders have assessed their congregational need and opportunities, they have undertaken three principal means of solving their problems: renewing traditionalism, developing a multiethnic approach, and planting new churches.

The first two I agree to and believe we are approaching in different ways. The third I think - as well as outreach and missions - we fall short of hearing and responding to His call to make disciples of the ethnic groups. Planting churches, outreach, and missions are not separate, distinct goals outside of our personal obedience to God, but rather have meaning and purpose when seen through the lens of the gospel.

Julia Y’s, a youth pastor at the First Methodist Church in Flushing, New York , has chosen to sacrifice for the first-generation church. “I get tempted to leave the Korean church millions of times,” says Y’s. “But it’s helped to build my character, learning to be a servant.”

The same thing for me. Since coming to Atlanta, I've had many thoughts before serving of leaving ACCC because of its many inadequacies - its lack of a 20s/30s ministry (or anything older), no true direction outside of an empty slogan for the year, and individuals who seemed tired, weary, and not renewed with each meeting/worship. But praying and ultimately deciding to stay and serve rather than criticize has had an enormous benefit to myself and hopefully those I am serving in whatever ministry. I am learning how to be a servant and how to consider others more important than myself; and with every sacrifice in time, tears, sweat, and salary, I draw nearer to the ideal of unconditional love to the point of death that was lived out in Jesus.

Others in the first-generation, traditional church setting have tried to develop what is called the “church within a church” model, where the English ministry forms its own autonomous body within the first-generation context. Lee’s GC is an example of a first-generation church that has tried this approach, and he believes it has aided the church in keeping more of its young people than it could have without the independent leadership of the second generation.

A handful of Asian-American churches, rich in many resources, are developing into multiethnic congregations with a wide range of Asians and Non-Asians as members. Originally a Japanese-American church, Evergreen Baptist Church in Rosemead, California, today is a congregation of 1000 with ministries to many races and generations.

In contrast, church planting in the Asian community can be a delicate matter. Before planting New Song Community Church near Los Angeles, Gibbons obtained the blessing of first generation Korean Church leaders, explaining that he was not trying to steal their young people but was partnering with them to reach unchurched Asian Americans. “This is where the Asian-American churches have erred so far,” Gibbons says, “we have not gotten the blessing of the first generation leaders.” Nonetheless, church planter Goethe estimates that there are 20 second-generation Korean-American churches and about 70 more pan Asian-American churches, nearly all of them relatively new congregations.

This may sound harsh but I could care less if we are joined to or are completely independent from the mother Chinese congregation. I do prefer to remain in the current arrangement (i.e. being supported by the Chinese side) but If we do not have the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as our focus/foci, our assembly is meaningless. We start with the infinite then move towards the finite. We appreciate rivers because we have seen the ocean. We know life because we seek Him who gives it. Moving in the opposite direction is futile.

CALL TO PARTNERSHIP

The success of churches such as new Song in forging new partnerships between generations has given a measure of hope to those ministering to younger Asian-Americans. However, many Asian churches in the United States do not have ready access to the financial and personal resources to duplicate New Song’s success. Other leaders are cautious predicting that it may take years to reverse the generational exodus of young Asians from their home churches. Due to the lack of young Chinese-American pastors, for example, scholar Ling says, “I don’t think we’ll see vast improvement for another 10 or 20 years.” Meanwhile, Goethe says more non-Asian churches should view Asian-Americans as an un-churched people group for specialized evangelistic outreach. “We shouldn’t assume that just because these Asian-Americans were born here and speak English that they will want to come to our Anglo Churches.
While innovative strides have been taken recently in the Asian-American church, a formidable task remains in retaining and reclaiming Asian-American young people. Gibbons believes that the key may be for the younger generations to look at the legacy native Asian churches have already left, and then follow their example.

“The reason the Korean church is thriving is because of its commitment to prayer and willingness to sacrifice,” he says. “We of the younger generations need to be given the same opportunity to sacrifice, and we need to stress this value in our churches, so that we are willing to die for one another. Then , maybe we’ll be able to accomplish great things in the church.”

This could potentially lead into a very long critique of strengths and weaknesses of Chinese and Korean churches but I have neither the time nor the experience to do this topic justice. I'll save that for Ferdinand and all the free time he has.

Still, the Chinese church on this planet earth lacks servants, whether they be full-time pastors or tent-makers (those who support themselves in order to serve a ministry) or whatever. We need to seriously return to scripture to see what the call is. Are we to wait until we are spiritually mature (as if it could be gauged by human standards) or receive a God-sent e-vite to leave all and serve in the most glamorous developing country on earth (as if ignoring the calls to serve in simple matters actually makes it easier or trains us to hear/answer the sudden call to bigger missions)?

This also plays into the culture and its (and our parents') effect on our faith. The quote in the next article is so accurate it hurts.


Understanding & Mentorship to Support Second Generation Church Leaders
While many Chinese churches in the United States celebrate the tremendous growth over the last few decades, uniting the first and second generation ministers has become a common concern.

Eunice Or
eunice@gospelherald.com
Saturday, Feb. 11, 2006 Posted: 5:37:AM PST

While many Chinese churches in the United States celebrate the tremendous growth over the last few decades, uniting the first and second generation ministers has become a common concern.

In the latest issue of the magazine published by the prominent mission organization Gospel Operation International for Chinese Christian (GoIntl’), Director of the U.S.A. office Rev. Jeffery Lee has discussed the issue in his article "Ministering with English-speaking Ministers."

Many Chinese churches are experiencing an exodus of English-speaking second generation, Lee sharply pointed out the crisis. He explained that many Chinese churches have neglected the need of the second generation. While the dominantly Chinese-speaking churches built by the first generation immigrants are lack of the resources to provide pastoral care for the second generation, they appear reluctant to spend money on the ministry.

The lost of the English-speaking second generation directly results in the shortage of second generation church ministers - the young talented ones needed by Chinese churches to nurture the native generations to come.

Even among the very few second generation church ministers, they have encountered many obstacles while co-working with the first generation Oversea Born Chinese (OCB) leaders because of the differences in culture, Lee said.

One of the very obvious problems in the Chinese churches is that first generation Chinese tend to have their expectation for the second generation leaders, which could be very different from that of the church.

For instance, many Chinese parents overemphasize on academic achievements but neglect spiritual growth of their children. More than considering the second generation minister as someone who takes care of children and help spiritual formation, parents even expect the second generation ministers to teach their children to become obedient to them and excel in school. While the second generation ministers are supposed to be a role model for the children, parents do not encourage their children to learn from the ministers in terms of serving the church.

This makes me want to cry because it is so true. There's really nothing to be said short of praying for the casting out of idols our culture holds in terms of profession, financial security, or power and fame for our children and consequently our success as parents. If the lack of full-time ministers, whether seminary taught or not, is not addressed in the present, if our lukewarm attitude is not corrected and redeemed through Christ's blood, the future outcome of Chinese churches beyond the first generation may just follow the way of the Laodicean church.

I realize the weight and respect we give to those trained in seminary, but perhaps it is time ACCC and other similar bodies consider hiring those without seminary degrees to work in the same full-time positions. As presented in a recent Perspectives' class, the gospel spread initially because of those who testified in life and death the resurrection of Christ. They had no classes on theology and few would be considered educated by any standard. As the church developed on earth, so too did the institution of seminary training - to the point where now, those without a degree from an accredited seminary are viewed as unqualified to serve - and the only reason I say the latter is because I must confess this is an opinion which I hold. What are we to do? Is the deficit of Chinese-American pastors so large that we must call upon the lay to serve in their stead?

Furthermore, first generation church leaders tend to have unreasonably high expectation for the second generation ministers. Due to language barrier, the first generation church leaders cannot communicate well with them to point out their problems and give guidance. Church members also do not respect the young leaders very well.

Lee suggested that understanding of other church members and mentorship by the senior first generation church leaders are the two important keys to resolve conflicts.

I don't think the first generation truly understands the impact of their lives in modern day Chinese-American culture. It obviously begins individually with mentor/mentee relationships but both sides need to unite in Spirit if there is any chance to further glorify His reputation.

Parents should be able to appreciate the heart of serving of these young second generation ministers, teaching their children to learn to love God from the role model, Lee said. First generation church leaders must understand that the second generation ministers grow up in a very different culture. and try to adapt to their ways of doing things. They must also embrace the insufficiencies of the young ministers.

Lee explained how mentorship is important to support second generation ministers. First generation church leaders and members must take initiative to show concern to them. Building up a close mentorship network enhances communication so that they can understand each other better and to avoid conflicts. Young ministers can also receive guidance and advices.

"Chinese churches with dominantly first generation immigrants should become humble and support the second generations to serve God. By fulfilling God’s will, we glorify God and benefit many people on this world. The number of second generations that are willing to dedicate in serving is very few, so they are very precious. We must encourage them, understand them with patience, so that they can keep their heart firm to love God and serve God," Lee concluded.
 
Agreed. May He give these words meaning and give us ears to hear and minds to understand.