Of the 300,000 Protestant churches in the United States, an estimated 7,000 churches have a majority attendance of Asians. Many of these congregations reach multiple generations using multiple languages.
Through our partnership between Leadership Network and L2 Foundation, I’m delighted to announce the publication of Asian American Churches: An Introductory Survey! This introductory report provides an overview of the distinctive characteristics and top ministry issues among Asian American churches (including what’s going well, new ministry opportunities being pursued, and key challenges).
A couple of highlights from the churches surveyed:
- Asian American churches are diversifying ethnically — 79% have at least 10% non-Asians in attendance
- Active church planting to reach more people — 61% are planning to launch new churches
- Missionary zeal is evident — 61% send out career missionaries
Download and read the full report. We’d love to get your feedback! How does this compare and contrast with what’s happening in your church?
Question: how did you choose the churches to survey? I noticed that 51% of the churches were Korean and 16% were Chinese. Is this indicative of the breakdown of Asian churches in America?
Well, looking at your survey I was surprised at how many churches were ethnically diversifying and churchplanting. I wouldn’t have guessed that there were so many churches like that among Asian churches in America.
Good question, Ben. Our survey was a limited-size survey based on those we could reach over the Internet. Here’s how we did the survey: we invited 190 churches to participate in the survey via email and I also posted survey invitations on 3 blogs. We had a total of 88 responses, about 46% ! This is a very good response rate, and I think this suggests a strong desire for Asian church leaders to learn what is going on out there among churches like theirs.
The percentages in the survey results may or may not be representative of the whole Asian American church landscape, but they are likely representative of our sample size. For example, 100% of surveyed churches has a worship service in English. This is probably not true for all Asian North American churches.
that’s really cool; and 46% is very high;
i tried to download the survey but was told the site wasn’t available when i tried to register; will try again later.
DJ,
The missional zeal in AA churches is very encouraging. Is there any color to whether that is directed to within the AA community or branching out into the broader society?
Andre, the survey was intended to take a quick pulse on what’s happening, so it didn’t drill-down to specific details of where that missionary zeal is directed.
Based on my limited experience with immigrant Chinese churches, many of those churches will send missionaries to the Asian diaspora; that is, Chinese churches will send missionaries to reach Chinese in Europe or South America. I’ve heard that Koreans in both America and in Korea are particularly zealous in sending missionaries all over the world to all kinds of people.
English Ministry in a Chinese Church…
It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. In my research for Leadership Network and L2 Foundation (cf. Asian American Church Report), I’ve found different churches that are effectively reaching next generation (English-speaking…