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Growing Healthy Asian American Churches, Edited by Peter Cha and S. Steve Kang and Helen Lee

Growing Healthy Asian American Churches

Ministry Insights from Groundbreaking Congregations

Edited by Peter Cha, S. Steve Kang, and Helen Lee

Growing Healthy Asian American Churches
Paperback
$32.99
  • Length: 221 pages
  • Dimensions: 5.5 × 8.25 in
  • Published: January 13, 2006
  • Imprint: IVP
  • ISBN: 9780830833252

The Asian American church is in transition. Congregations face the challenges of preserving ethnic culture and heritage while contextualizing their ministry to younger generations and the unchurched. Many Asian American church leaders struggle with issues like leadership development, community dynamics and intergenerational conflict. But often Asian American churches lack the resources and support they need to fulfill their callings.Peter Cha, Steve Kang and Helen Lee and a team of veteran Asian American pastors and church leaders offer eight key values for healthy Asian American churches. Drawing on years of expertise and filled with practical examples from landmark churches like Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles, NewSong Church and Lighthouse Christian Church, the book provides soundly biblical perspectives for effective ministry that honors the Asian American cultural context. Insights from such pioneering leaders as Ken Fong, David Gibbons, Grace May, Wayne Ogimachi, SteveWong, Nancy Sugikawa and Soong-Chan Rah make this an essential guide for Asian American church leaders wanting to help their congregations achieve health and growth.Produced in partnership with the Catalyst Leadership Center, a resource organization for Asian American church ministry.

REVIEWS

"In a world in which many people are on the move around the world, the nature and ministry of immigrant churches are of critical importance. This important book examines the problems and potentials these churches have, and gives deep, biblically based recommendations for building healthy churches as households of worship, fellowship and mission. While the focus is on Asian American churches, this book is a must-read not only for all those working with other immigrant churches but also for North American churches and Christians who have much to learn from the vibrant life and outreach of these Asian American churches, and their response to modernity and globalization."Paul Hiebert, Distinguished Professor of Mission and Anthropology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and author of Incarnational Ministry
"This is the first comprehensive book about Asian American churches written by the leaders of those churches themselves. The essays in this volume are theologically sound and well informed, thoroughly based on the Scripture, and refreshingly honest. The writers tell the stories of their successes and mistakes and propose an insightful, well-thought-out and hopeful vision for the future Asian American churches."Sang Hyun Lee, Kyung-Chik Han Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Program for Asian American Theology and Ministry, Princeton Theological Seminary
"Growing Healthy Asian American Churches is an eminently practical book, filled with stories, examples and many wise suggestions for life and ministry in local congregations. Having ministered among Asian Americans for many years, I know that the concerns addressed in these pages are very real and persistent in such contexts. But there is much here to encourage and challenge those serving churches across the broad spectrum of cultural settings."Gary Parrett, Associate Professor of Educational Ministries Worship, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and coauthor of A Many Colored Kingdom
"This book is truly prophetic for our times--a call for Asian American congregations to embody grace and truth in new ways, as Jesus did. It's essential reading for anyone wanting to learn how God is moving in the Asian American church or serving in this context."Russell Jeung, assistant professor, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University, and author of Faithful Generations: Race and New Asian American Churches,
"One can only dream of being a part of a group like the Catalyst Leadership Forum! It was a dream come true to share fellowship and envision what Asian American churches could be with such a remarkable group. Their wisdom, their commitment to the church, their humility--and now to have it wrapped up in a single book--are a rare and precious gift. Like good Asian food, savor it!"Paul Tokunaga, Asian American Ministry Coordinator, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and author of Invitation to Lead: Guidance for Emerging Asian American Leaders
"Growing Healthy Asian American Churches is an outstanding work--a critically needed voice in the urban American mosaic. The authors have 'gifted' us with a text that provides insightful pastoral teachings and a prophetic challenge not only to the Asian American church but to the whole church of our Lord Jesus Christ. This solid, biblical, theological and ministerial book will contribute greatly to the life and mission of the Asian American church and thus play a significant role inthe shalom of the city (Jer 29:7)."Eldin Villafane, Ricardo Tanon Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Christianity, Ethics and Urban Ministry, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Growing Healthy Households of God
1. Grace-Filled Households
2. Truth-Embodying Households
3. Healthy Leaders, Healthy Households 1: Challenges and Models
4. Healthy Leaders, Healthy Households 2: Practices and Values
5. Trusting Households: Openness to Change
6. Hospitable Households: Evangelism
7. Multigenerational Households
8. Gender Relations in Healthy Households
9. Households of Mercy and Justice
Conclusion: Measuring the Health of Our Households
Contributors and Catalyst Forum Participants
Notes

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ABOUT Peter Cha

Peter Cha

Peter Cha is associate professor of pastoral theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He received his graduate training in theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.Div. And Th.M.) and received his doctorate in religion in society and personality from Northwestern University. He previously served as a campus staff member with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and as a youth pastor, church planter and senior pastor. His publications include chaptersin Following Jesus without Dishonoring Your Parents (InterVarsity Press), articles in Korean Americans and Their Religions (Pennsylvania State University Press) in Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns (Zondervan) andin This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity and Christian Faith (Oxford University Press), as well as articles in several scholarly and denominational journals.

ABOUT S. Steve Kang

S. Steve Kang (PhD, Northwestern University/Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary) is professor of educational ministries and interdisciplinary studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He previously taught at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and Wheaton College. He is the author of Unveiling the Socioculturally Constructed Multivoiced Self, A Many Colored Kingdom and is co-editor of Growing Healthy Asian American Churches.

ABOUT Helen Lee

Helen Lee

Helen Lee is an author, wife, mom of three young men—which means she lives at Costco in her spare time—and the dog mom of a Mini Bernedoodle named Simba. She has written books for adults and is working on her first middle-grade novel. Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World is her first picture book.

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