Church Planting to Reach Asian People Groups

According to the October 30th issue of The Tool Shed, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s newsletter for church planting partners, Asian people groups are the fastest growing ethnicity (percentage-wise) in North America and in Texas. The newsletter links over to Church Planting Village’s introductory articles about church planting to reach Asians:

Nearly 2,000 Baptist congregations have been established among the Asians, and more are envisioned for the twenty-first century. An example of this is the more than 700 Korean congregations and the more than 180 Filipino churches across North America. Yet great opportunities still exist. Southern Baptists face a dynamic challenge in the United States and Canada to reach out to both foreign-born and American-born Asians.

Overviews of pecific people group in North America include: Asians in America, Asian Indian, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong Americans, Indonesians, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Second-Generation Asians in North America.

more on campus fellowships

In a recent issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, this feature article Asianisation of Campus Fellowships,

Asian American college students are often stereotyped as immersed in math clubs or networking groups for future engineers or doctors. However, the campus groups that Asians most commonly join are actually Christian fellowships, educators say. In fact, Asian membership in the ministries has exploded in recent years and is most striking at the most prestigious schools around the country.

Dr. Rebecca Kim, assistant professor of sociology at Pepperdine University, researched Asian American evangelism at campuses around the country for her 2006 book, God’s New Whiz Kids. She found that among the more than 50 Christian groups at the University of California, Berkeley, 80 percent of the members were of Asian descent, even though they made up 40 percent of the student body. The same held true among the 50-plus counterpart groups at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, one out of four practicing Christians at New York City colleges was Asian, according to Kim. At Harvard University, Asian Americans made up 70 percent of the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship. Yale University’s chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ was 90 percent Asian, a stark contrast to the fact that it was all White in the early 1980s.

The 10 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA chapters with the largest Asian memberships, often as high as 80 percent, were at schools where enrollment was anywhere from 11 to 28 percent Asian: Boston, Cornell, Emory, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Rutgers, the University of Illinois- Chicago, the University of Michigan and the University of Washington.

Read the full article for additional statistics, anecdotal commentaries, and quotes from Dr. Peter Cha, Paul Tokunaga, and Dr. Rebecca Kim.

ministering to 2 very different generations

Wednesday Journal is a local newspaper for the Oak Park and River Forest communities in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs. Their recent article, Speaking to the heart of very different generations, highlighted 4 models for ministering to the different generations within an immigrant ethnic church:

What speaks to the hearts of immigrant congregations and their children when it comes to worship? Is the gap between generations bridgeable? Ethnic pastors in this area have come up with various models for ministering to the two generations in their congregations:

1) Remain traditional
2) Separate and equal
3) Blended
4) Separate

Read the full article to see the stories of churches from the Indian, Chinese, Thai, Filipino, and Mexican communities.

Survey of English Pastors in Chinese Churches

This April 2007 survey, CCCOWE English Task Force Survey 2007: The Needs of English-Speaking Chinese Churches & Their Leaders, gives a broad sampling of insights based on 62 respondents from all over the world — 32 of those responses were from North America (13 from the USA – Southern California and New York, 19 from Canada – Vancouver and Toronto). CCCOWE (Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism) is a mission-centered para-church organization that aims to promote world mission among Chinese churches that is developing partnership with the upcoming English-speaking new generation.

Here’s a few highlights from the survey results, summarized by an Australian blogger:

In April 2007 the CCCOWE English task force conducted a survey of English pastors of Chinese churches from a number of different countries . That survey asked questions about a range of things such as the level of stress they experienced due to challenges in ministry; the attrition rate of English pastors; and the perceived needs in Chinese churches.

One shocking statistic is the attrition rate of English senior pastors and assistant pastors in the Chinese church. In the 2001-2006 period, 163 pastors had left Chinese churches to do ministry elsewhere – that’s about 27 pastors a year!

Take a look at the survey results and graphs at www.cccowe.org/eng/content.php?id=69 [ht: Andrew Hong]

a Chinese church perspective

Pastor Paul Hong Cheng heads the only local Chinese church, formed four months ago in Vacaville. Vacaville is approximately 35 miles from Sacramento and 55 miles from San Francisco. Pastor Cheng shared this perspective about reaching the next generation and the future impact of China in this article, Breaking language barriers: Chinese church reaches out to Solano County and beyond (The Reporter)::

“Then I thought, well, maybe this is the beginning,” Cheng said. “You attract the overseas-born-Chinese, they bring their American-born children, and then there are American-born Chinese who we can draw in.”

Now Cheng leads the Chinese version of “Vision of Love,” which holds a service in Mandarin every Sunday for a congregation of about 30 people. The group meets in a room at the First Baptist Church of Vacaville, the same church where Pastor Cheng felt called by God years ago.

Cheng says the Chinese community is growing in Vacaville, and sees the Church’s programs as a way to help American-born Chinese to connect with their cultural roots. He felt the programs would benefit his own three sons.

“I have American-born Chinese children, and I do see that identity is an issue,” Cheng says. “They are pretty much Americanized. But on the other hand, they have roots in their original culture.”

The Church offers Chinese language classes to the community. He points out that employers are often looking for candidates who understand Chinese language and culture.

“China, whether we like it or not, in the next half century or before then, will be a major power,” Cheng said. “Nobody can stop it. The economic power is pushing China to open the door, and because the market size is big, its like 1.3 billion, its’ like 25 percent of the world population. It’s a big market.”

Read the full article for entire context. Also see the Vision of Love church’s website is at volchristian.blogspot.com.