Entries from November 2007
3 media outlets reported on news of Vox Veniae, the Christian community led by pastors Gideon Tsang and Weylin Lee, leasing a former East Austin night club and converting it into a community center and worship gathering space.
An excerpt from the Austin American-Statesman newspaper article::
The former site of a trouble-prone nightclub on East 12th Street will be born again.
A community center run by Vox Veniae, a Christian congregation with a focus on community service, is slated to take over the building previously occupied by Chester’s Club.
The after-hours, bring-your-own-bottle venue got attention citywide in June when an Austin police officer fatally shot a patron near the club. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo on Wednesday fired Sgt. Michael Olsen, who shot Kevin Brown.
A couple of months after the shooting, the City Council passed an ordinance regulating BYOB venues. Chester’s shut down. And neighbors who had for months complained about activity around the club were satisfied.
Gideon Tsang, one of the pastors of Vox Veniae, said the group signed a five-year lease. It hopes to move in by January and start mentoring, computer training and after-school programs by early summer.
Volunteers began renovations Monday inside the 4,800-square-foot building, he said.
Also, get an inside look at their renovation photos.
Categories: church · ministry
This TownHall.com article by Bob Burney is making its way around, A Shocking “Confession” from Willow Creek Community Church, excerpted below:
Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study’s findings are in a new book titled “Reveal: Where Are You?,” co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings “ground breaking,” “earth shaking” and “mind blowing.” And no wonder: It seems that the “experts” were wrong.
The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Hybels laments:
“Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.”
If you simply want a crowd, the “seeker-sensitive” model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust. In a shocking confession, Hybels states:
“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ’self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their Bible between services, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”
Read the full article and comments at TownHall.com and also the discussions in the comment thread at Out of Ur’s blog entry titled Willow Creek Repents? Why the most influential church in America now says “We made a mistake.” For more information about the research, see www.revealnow.com and the Reveal blog. See the Key Findings for a great summary.
Categories: church · megachurch · ministry
The Institute for the Study of Asian American Christianity (ISAAC)
has announced the formation of the Society of Asian North American Christian Studies. SANACS seeks to provide a community for scholars who are interested in Asian North American Christianity. They are a part of a growing interest in the study of religion in Asian and Pacific North America.
The announcement also mentions two new books that will be published by Orbis Books in Spring 2008: “Introducing Asian American Theologies” by Jonathan Tan and “Hospitality and the Other” by Amos Yong. All of this looks to be significant developments towards the future of Asian American Christianity.
For more information about SANACS and joining as a member, see the SANACS blog >>
Categories: asian-american · theology
Eugene Hor is a member of the CCCOWE English Task Force, and has served as an English pastor for the last 9 years at Burwood Chinese Presbyterian Church in Sydney, Australia, an intergenerational Chinese Church.
Eugene recently stopped by here and left a detailed comment about his observations as an advocate of English ministry within the Chinese church, and describes the challenges of ministering in that context. This is an excerpt of a lengthy discourse:
Why does the Chinese church continue to lament the loss of their English pastors when they keep driving them out? We don’t need understanding, we need real change if the Chinese church is to keep it’s English pastors. The bottom line as I see it, is that if the Chinese church and its leadership think they can better run and grow English ministry than their English pastor, then let them do it. If not, they should empower and free their English pastors to do what God has called them to do in a way that will best reach and grow the second generation.
Read the entire comment to get the full context, which is also posted at his blog as The Second Generation Leadership Diaspora.
Categories: EM · asian-american · church · leaders
This is an older blog post from blogger Jane Chin, but it sure got my attention:
More than 50% of Cornell’s Student Suicide Victims are Asian American
Out of 4,790 Cornell undergraduates surveyed in 2005, Asian-American/Asian students seriously considered or attempted suicide at higher-than-average rates. Also, 13 of the 21 Cornell student suicide victims since 1996 have been Asian or Asian-American – and Asian/Asian-Americans comprise only 14% of the total Cornell student body. Source: “Health expert explains Asian and Asian-American students’ unique pressures to succeed“.
She goes on in her blog post to explain the most critical factor as rooted in the parents.
Categories: asian-american · culture · family
