Growing Healthy Asian American Churches, together
To those of you tuned in here for my forthcoming stream-of-consciousness commentary about the new book Growing Healthy Asian American Churches, I’d like to expand it beyond my own voice–I’d like to invite you to a blog-based conversation about the book. 
Also, you can preview parts of the book, including the introduction and a special online-bonus supplementary chapter.
So get your copy in the next week or so, and I’ll start posting my comments here as the calendar turns to March. Please trackback or email me so we can all get linked up. I would try grid blogging, but my intuition tells me that most people don’t know what that is, so making hyperlinks will likely have a better net effect. In lieu of grid blogging, I suggest using the Technorati tag ghaac.
The book is edited by Peter Cha, Steve Kang and Helen Lee, and contains stories and insights from pioneering leaders like Ken Fong, David Gibbons, Grace May, Wayne Ogimachi, Steve Wong, Nancy Sugikawa and Soong-Chan Rah. I don’t think any of these leaders are on the blogosphere yet, except for David Gibbons. (also see the Leadership Blog interview with Dave Gibbons)
(cf. publisher’s description, my previous blog post about the book in December 2005, read the book discussion)
Would love to read the book and participate.
I was just talking to a fellow brother about the justification for ethnic specific ministries and churches…I’m definitely interested in reading this book and discussing!
Finished the first chapter yesterday. Looking forward to it.
I told you about the book. Count me in!
with humility as a confessed sinner saved only by His works; can someone please explain to me the benefits of an ethnic specific english-speaking church in the USA. i am asian-american and love my heritage but the thought trying to bring non-believers of a different background to an ethnic-specific church to only have them feel uncomfortable is tough to deal with. please respond to [email protected]. thanks!!!
thanks for the feed on Dave’s blog. I got to hang with Dave and the gang in Dec. in Bangkok… great guy, very humble… He’s Captain Discernment and a HUGE visionary. Glad you’re helping us stay in touch with your’s and his world…
i’m in… somehow… grid blogging… commenting… sharing thotz… my brane hertz already
The book looks intriguing though since I became a Christian I’ve never gone back to Japanese ghetto I used to haunt BC (I went to college and was converted in a very non-Asian area). My brother, on the other hand has never broken out and I think his perspective suffers for it.
lol, I actually emailed i.konami (mail came back…) this is what I wrote:
Hello i,
I am interested in the discussion. I think that many are feeling the call to break out of the Asian Context. NSD Underground in Dallas is a new church coming out of an Asian American church. The question is will Asians be accepted by the broader culture. Fort Bend Community Church was started by Chinese with the idea that the name would reflect the desire to go into the neighborhood. They had a backdoor problem (couldn’t keep the non-Asians) so the English Pastor is starting a new church down the road. (This is in the Houston area).
The thing about Asian American is that it is not ethnic specific, there is much variance, from East Asians, to South Asians to Southeast Asians, Indonesians, and all the various groups. I think the Asian Church is a stepping stone or a stairway if you will to the greater multiethnic/global/worldwide vision of the Bible. See before there were only Korean, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Indonesian, or Pinay only churches. The AA church is just a bridge. (We didn’t get the two piece thong bikini right away). Fashion started by showing a little ankle, and slowly the hemlines went up…I think the same can be said of Church in America.
Other than that, I would think that we should join with non-Asians as the above churches have been called to do.
-My 2 cents 🙂
And konami’s 2nd issue of bringing people who would feel uncomfortable. I just think that if the church is taught to love Jesus, and Love the lost, they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
It takes two to tangle…
(are you real i. konami?)
Hoping to get the book soon and looking forward to discussing these issue in-depth.