speaking on Asian American churches
I’m brewing and stewing on a new talk titled, “Revitalizing Asian American Churches For New Generations,” which will presented to about 100+ mostly Asian American ministry leaders. I thought of using a word like “reimagining” or “rethinking” or “reinventing”, but anticipating a wider range of theological praxis in the audience, I went with the more congenial word “revitalizing” to imply ‘new life.’ I’ll have 30 minutes to speak plus 15 minutes of Q&A. Wanted to open it up here to get your comments on what I’ve got to say in this half hour to make it most meaningful.
Here is the official wording of an invitation to those of you in Southern California — Los Angeles and Orange County area, and those of you who’d travel farther out for this rare occasional event [update: facebook event invite] —
Please join us at:
THE GATHERING…
…of SoCal Asian American pastors, staffs, missionaries, and parachurch leaders…
10 a.m. Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Evergreen Baptist Church-L.A.
1255 N San Gabriel Blvd
Rosemead CA 91770*** Speaker, DJ Chuang
*** A time to pray together
*** A free lunch, thanks to the Evangelical Christian Credit UnionCome and bring an associate or co-laborer, but please RSVP to tomsteers@… for our lunch count. IMPORTANTissimo! (or leave message at 310-…)
DJ will share with us about Revitalizing Asian American Churches For New Generations. He has an amazing national perspective on what the LORD is doing in Asian American churches. He has two ministry positions 1) Director of Digital Initiatives and Asian American Church Research with Leadership Network (He recently published a report for them entitled: Asian American Churches: An Introduction). 2) Executive Director of the L2 Foundation. His comprehensive personal website and blog is: www.djchuang.com He recently moved to Orange County with his artistic wife, Rachelle and their 10-year old son.
The Gathering is an informal lunch meeting for Asian American leaders in the SoCal region that takes place just once every few years. This “GATHERING” is being planned and conducted by the core planning team for the 2008 Asian American Leadership Conference. The core is: Tommy Dyo (Epic Movement, CCC), Louis Lee (MESA), Ben Shin (Talbot Seminary), Tom Steers (Asian American Ministries, The Navigators), and Ron Sugimoto (MESA board member).
“Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of the SPIRIT in the binding power of peace.” Ephesians 4:3, Amplified Bible.
DJ – Looks like a wonderful opportunity. I always feel that as part of “the family” at these events one is given a great change to ask questions that might not be able to be pushed. I would think asking questions that force people to be intentional about their ministry are important. Here are two questions that I would be interested in hearing some response and reflection.
– What does the Postmodern Asian American congregation look like? Is that even a reality?
– Does ethnicity/culture trump political and theological perspectives?
– How how, will, should and/or can mono-cultural congregations transition to be pan-asian or multicultural?
Just a few quick thoughts. Look forward to hearing how it goes.
thanks for getting the word out on this
amazing and important event….!
tom
Bruce, I can sure count on you for provocative questions 🙂 If this comment thread stays dormant and I don’t hear much else, I may well just have to take it in a more exploratory and speculative direction and raise those questions!
Sounds good. “Provactive” is my middle name. Hope it goes well.
You should have put out a Facebook invitation on this… I am arranging my schedule to be there. Man, you talked about Peet’s Coffee down the block from my church and we could not even get together yet 🙁
Hey DJ,
I would enjoy conversation about some of the following topics:
– Social Justice in the context of Asian American Ministry (Discussion about theological perspectives and practices)
– Movement Towards Multi-Culturalism and the Limits of an “Asian-American” Label
– Conversation about Emerging and Emergent and its Implications (if any) in the Asian American Context
– Viral Leadership and Discipleship (Possible?)
– Challenges Unique to Asian American Churches
– Best Practices on Vocational Integration with Faith and Mission
These are just a few thoughts on the top of my head… I hope I can attend.
Charles