I’d love to continue the conversation here — add a comment below — and also in person at the Multiethnic Church Pre-Conference @ Exponential this April 26-29 in sunny Orlando, Florida. Let’s talk live over lunch (if it helps, lunch is on me.)

Subscribe to the podcast of the Multiethnic Church radio show to listen to past shows and listen live on Thursdays at 1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT. It’s a live call-in show, too, so dial-in with your comments and questions.

One of the first basic things is to have a church website that people can easily find on a search engine like Google. You can get a FREE church website audit and check out Tweepback.com for a custom mosaic of your Twitter followers or followings.

Imei Hsu is a performing arts of the dancer variety via hipsforhire.com | @hipsforhire | hipsforhire.blogspot.com, bellydancing to be more specific, and also a registered nurse, and also a psychotherapist counselor via seattledirectcounseling.com. You can also find her in the social media world at ustream.tv/channel/video-nurse | @VideoNurse | youtube.com/yourlilchinagirl. Yes, she gave a shout out to @chrispirillo.

Wish her the best as the premiere of Video Nurse launches on Mondays at 5:00pm Pacific — watch at ustream.tv/channel/video-nurse. Here’s a previous episode, Video Nurse Talks About Eating Disorders:

On his web page at www.tyndale.ca/~dwong/viewpage.php?pid=32, Professor Wong shares his workshop outline, recommended books, and links to a PreachingToday.com article by Matthew D. Kim titled “Asian American Preaching.” Click over and add a comment to continue the conversation.

[update] ISAAC has posted a report and downloads from the Art of Preaching in Asian American Settings workshop.

The executive summary: share your idea with others who can help. Go ahead and take the next step with your idea. Let’s not worry about how to protect an idea — share it freely for the good of the world.

And the Social Media Team will keep all of us in the conversations both online and on-site: Jonathan Dodson, Vince Marotte, Chris Marlow, Brad Brisco, Charles Wear, Kent Shaffer, Milfred Minatrea, Steve McCoy, Jonathan McIntosh, Andrew Jones, Bill Kinnon, David Park, and me. There’s also a Verge team blog at verge.posterous.com

The podcast of audio interviews with select speakers is being rolled out now. Interviews with Dave Gibbons and David Garrison are online already. More to come. Subscribe to the podcast feed in RSS format or in iTunes.

Dave Gibbons, pastor of NewSong Church ::

David Garrison, missionary pioneer and missions leader ::

Plus, listen to my interview with Michael Stewart (one of the Verge organizers at the Austin Stone Community Church)

And one more thing. I’ll be there in Austin, so get registered and we can meetup. A little birdie has even mentioned a tweetup is in the works.

Watch this interview to hear what Kyle wants to do to change this situation:

Kyle (on twitter @kylelreed) may very well be right, if a young person can’t find a mentor in their church for the Kingdom of God, they’ll find one elsewhere outside the church. So, add your comment below and get this conversation going!

Here are 3 good tips for how to do an interview well from 2 veteran radio interviewers:

1. Listen to who you’re interviewing
2. Don’t ask a question and then give an answer
3. Give time to answer

[Parental advisory:: 1 example mentioned in this video may be too much for the easily offended]

Video via How to do a good interview with @docrock & @LanaitheDJ and linked at wetoku blog. And there was 100 invites to private-beta wetoku over there for the takin’.

Thrilled to hear of @countrycuban‘s new job and how they’re fearlessly trying all kinds of things to help people reach their potential. To join in on Flamingo Road Church’s new stereo sound, go to frclive.tv this weekend !

Do you have any questions for @countrycuban ? Add a comment below and I’ll make sure she stops by to answer.

In this video, we find out how Michael became the infamous @churchbartender and why he didn’t quite make it to The Idea Camp DC Edition in person, though he did participate with The Idea Camp via the internet. We really need to find better language than “in real life”, because people did participate online in real life, even though they weren’t physically in the same room.

To make good on the title of this blog post, I used the brand-new private-beta web app called wetoku at wetoku.com and conducted this video chat there. The web app automatically records the chat, and provides the embed code that you can copy & paste into your blog or website. Very very handy! No need to download and install extra software. No need for post-production.

This kind of web app is something I’ve been searching for for months. So glad someone was able to put it all together! Thank you wetoku!

part 1 above, part 2 below — talking about moving from blogger to self-hosted wordpress and a mention about #thenines free online conference for church leaders on 09/09/09 http://thenines.leadnet.org

The wetoku web app is in private beta, and I wish I could give out invite codes here. For now, you can get invite codes over at makeuseof.com.

1. Pastor Kevin Doi (Epic Church) was recorded via a FlipCam fixed on a table-top tripod.

2. Pastor Seth Kim (Harvest Mission Community Church) was recorded on a Skype call via Pamela, combined with photo slide show in Windows Movie Maker:

3. Pastor David Kim (The Garden) was recorded via a Logitech QuickCam clipped on top a laptop screen with a Blue Snowflake USB microphone:
   
4. Pastor Yun Choi (New Life Community Church) was recorded via a Skype video call, with audio recorded using Pamela, and video recorded using CamStudio, combined using Windows Media Maker:
   
5. Pastor Brad Bell of The Well was recorded via this FlipCam being dynamically held by a 3rd person, in this case, my 12-year-old son:
   

djchuang: What’s been your most surprising reaction to someone who’s read your book?

Dave: That they love it! I honestly thought the book was okay. I guess we’re our worse critics.

djchuang: How do you encourage (the majority of) people who don’t like change, especially in the midst of a changing culture & changing world?

Dave: It’s definitely the work of the Holy Spirit! To ask people to enter into pain and suffering, eat foods they don’t like, hang out with people that make you uncomfortable is counter-cultural. I would say the key is for the one who does understand third culture to start living out the third culture life. Personally, before the movement became church-wide, I felt God telling me I had to live it out more intentionally. So my family and I moved out to Bangkok. It starts with leadership and prayer. As one engages real suffering and poverty, clarity emerges.

As you live out third culture, invite others with you on the journey. I still remember taking a group of friends with me on a third culture vision trip about 5 years ago. We have never been the same. The impact now goes beyond personal to people all over the world.

Also visit the other 10+ blogs that are part of this blog tour, where Dave answers other questions. Plus, you can watch my 15-minute interview with Dave Gibbons, visit his website at DaveGibbons.tv, and download a free sample chapter from The Monkey and The Fish. (or via Scribd)

By the way, davegibbons.tv is now powered by wordpress too!

Plus, Eugene Cho interviewed Dave this past weekend; watch the video at eugenecho.com >>

DJ: Thank you for playing a vital role in being a part of a team that put this book together. What did you enjoy most about the book project?

Helen: The project began while I was living in rural Iowa, where my husband was teaching at a small Christian college in the northwestern part of the state. As you can imagine, I was dying for fellowship with other Asian American Christians, so when I was invited to participate, I was overjoyed. We met at the same location, the Renaissance Hotel in Long Beach, for each of the three years we convened. Our times together as a small group of about 15 people were characterized by great discussions, times of sober reflection and hearty laughter, and of course, wonderful dining experiences! I loved being able to soak in what was happening in Asian American ministry with people who were so gifted and committed to their respective congregations. It was a joy to listen and learn from them all. I was extremely honored to be a part of it as the only non-pastor or professor.

DJ: I’d imagine many Asian American Christian leaders would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall at one of those Catalyst forums mentioned in the book. What memory stands out for you as a forum participant?

Helen: In the evenings, after the “working” part of our times together, we spent a good portion of the evening hearing from one another on a personal level. We had the chance to just listen to everyone’s stories, struggles, praises, and prayer requests. It was just a special time of sharing and the trust we all had to reveal what was going on beneath the surface was truly refreshing and restorative. And did I already mention the great food we consumed? Let’s just say that we all have a new understanding of what the word “churrascaria” means.

DJ: What topic(s) had to be left out of the book due to space and length?

Helen: Actually, I did a whole chapter on “Preparing for Asian American Church Leadership” that had to be cut. It’s available at the Intervarsity Press website for free download: www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3325

Please feel free to pass it on to others! The more the better!

In my chapters, I felt we could have expanded so many topics; it was so difficult to only be able to cover so much. The whole question of vision, for example, was something I barely was able to touch on. Conflict resolution is another area where I wish I could have provided more practical tools. And so on. But you have to draw the line somewhere!

DJ: Do you see regional differences in how Asian American churches develop?

Helen: Obviously, the West Coast has certain demographic advantages that are difficult to emulate elsewhere, particularly California. And two of the churches that we profile in the book, Evergreen Baptist Church-LA and Lighthouse Christian Church, both benefitted from connections to longstanding Asian immigrant congregations. That is not something you typically find in the Midwest or East coast, Asian congregations with nearly 100 years of history behind them. But interestingly, all the churches deal with the challenges of being commuter churches rather than primarily local churches, even those California churches that have Asian Americans in large numbers who live in their midst.

There are also regional differences when it comes to things such as preaching style; for example, on the West coast, Newsong Church senior pastor David Gibbons believes there is more of a need for pastors to be vulnerable in the way they communicate with their congregation, to share their heart. On the East coast, (particularly in a place like Cambridge, which is where one of the churches profiled in the book is located), Soong-Chan Rah says that engaging the head is equally important. All goes to show how important it is to understand your particular area’s tendencies and preferences when it comes to designing church services, sermons, and such.

DJ: It has been almost 10 years since you wrote the Christianity Today article titled “Silent Exodus,” which has served as a clarion call for a number of church and ministry leaders to try new things to reach the next generation of Asian Americans. What progress have you seen in the last decade?

Helen: Scary, isn’t it, that it’s nearly been that long! On the positive side, there are certainly more choices today than ten years ago. More Asian American and multiethnic churches in the works all over the country, or more activity from first generation churches that are trying to support sister second/third generation congregations. That’s all good news. But the supply does not meet the need at this point, so I don’t think we’re at the point of saying that the “Silent Exodus” will not continue to be a phenomenon. Without more of these types of ministries being launched–and being run in a healthy manner–subsequent generations may just repeat the mistakes of the past. That is one of the reasons we wanted to write this book. To provide some guidelines of ways to approach ministry so that we do not repeat past mistakes for the sake of the future generations.

DJ: What would you like to see happen in the next decade, perhaps in response to this book?

Helen: More leaders, more healthy leaders, more healthy Asian American and multiethnic churches!

DJ: What would it take to get you to blog?

Helen: Funny you mention this! I just started! My blog is at momhelen.blogspot.com. I have no idea how to do a lot of the technical stuff but you gotta start somewhere, right??

DJ: Welcome to the blogosphere! Thank you for staying up late to entertain a few questions with me and being a part of this interview!