a little off the point of your post… but i randomly thought about something similar on sunday and casually wrote down – “pay your youth pastor enough to afford a car with automatic windows and a/c”

at a Chinese Missions conference (2007/2008?) a panel of former and current youth directors/pastors urging the parents attending the discussion to pay their youth staff better.

many youth pastors (and other minstry folks) spend much of their own money to help facilitate the ministries they're involved in. some buy season tickets to basketball games to take their youth group kids. others buy a minivan (even tho they're single) to chauffeur kids to/from church activities. often, none are subsidized by the churches they serve at. and they are paid so little that i often wonder how they can afford the necessities in life.

so maybe one way to start is to pay pastors enough to afford the smaller luxuries that many would consider a “need” – like … automatic windows and a/c

…
i've also heard the chinese church “waits” 7 years for a youth pastor. perhaps it's even longer now? i wonder what the avg wait is for korean churches? compared to non-asian churches and mega churches (asian or not)?

In high school the Lord laid His hand on me and called me into the ministry. When I told my father, his supporting comment was, “You'll never make it.” So I worked my way through college and seminary. My own church never considered me for any position, so I looked for a position, from the Bay Area to Seattle and was finally offered a part-time youth pastor's position in Seattle. We believed it was God's door and accepted it, packed and moved up to Seattle. We found our 'bread and butter' job at Boeing. Two years later we were put on full-time as an associate, and served another 8 years.
Since then we have served at Chinese churches along the west coast. We believe we were serving our Lord, and the churches, especially the ABCs, were our charge. We did not serve because the work conditions were so favorable, but because our Lord opened the door for us to go. We faced rejection, being ignored by church leaders, etc.. But this is our 48th year, serving a wonderful Master. Gratitude for this life seems to dominate my heart.
Joe Wong

@Daniel, great thoughts. Thanks for writing them out on your blog post.

@dannyyang, sorry to hear of the rejection – that never feels good, for whatever reason. I've heard that even my Dallas Seminary degree is too liberal and progressive in some (small) circles.

re: someone mentioned alot of asians at seminary. i get the sense that within the korean church, the pastor has higher status than in chinese social circles.

http://danielkeng.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/on-t…

–Parental and worldly expectations.
Immigrant parents often push their American-born children to accomplish great things in academics, instilling in them a value of hard work and achieving success. Parents do not consider pastoral ministry to be an acceptible career. While it is okay for others to be pastors, their children should be doctors and lawyers to support the church and support them in their old age. Because of this, many do not seek out the Lord’s calling on their lives, reducing the supply of Chinese-Americans even considering full-time ministry as a vocation.

–Hurts experienced in churches.
As it has been well-documented, many Americanized Asian-Americans can speak of hurts that they have experienced in churches that are led by the immigrant generation. An alarming majority of those who grew up in these churches do not return to them after college, many of them leaving the faith altogether.

–Pessimism regarding the immigrant church.
Concerning the bilingual, immigrant church model, the prevailing mood among American-born Chinese seminary students I interact with is one of extreme pessimism. Many of them consider the bilingual church beyond repair, and that they do not want to go back to these types of churches that they grew up in.

–Other ministry desires.
Many ABC seminary students/ministers are currently looking for other kinds of ministries, whether in more progressive “multi-ethnic” churches, para-church ministry, or in the mission field. Whether this is affected by hurts experienced in the immigrant-led church remains to be seen.

this reminds me of the old list you and timothy tseng used to moderate. hope it catches on. keep up the good work