Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Asian American churches'

ATTITUDES OF ASIAN AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WHO LEFT THEIR ETHNIC CHURCHES FOR NON-ETHNIC CHURCHES EZRA JINYONG SOHN Doctor of Ministry May 2017 Advisers: Frank Chan, Milton Eng The author presents the difficulty of retaining younger English-speaking congregants as a ministry problem for Chinese and Korean American churches in New York City. The urgency, in the clarion call of Ken Fong (1990) and Helen Lee (1996), of cultivating healthier churches for second generation Asian Americans remains today. After several decades, the results of all our investment into second-generation Asian American ministries are unclear and questions abound: Does the lack of visible progress among Asian American ministries for over three decades indicate that homogenous church plants are missiologically ineffective? If an effective ministry model was developed for second generation Asian Americans, would there be healthy multiplication (on a national level)? Do the localized nature of fruitful Asian American ministries today point primarily to the individual competence of particular ministers and personalities? Is it too dreamy to envision a ?generational? church or national renewal for second generation Asian Americans? Do the contextual demands for a particular region supersede the general ministry demands of the second generation Asian Americans group? There is no clear indication that Asian American ministries have broken the code to the ?Silent Exodus? phenomenon or if an ethno-generational code even exists. There remains a need for data, exploratory ministries, and results to address the ?Silent Exodus.? The author?s study focuses on a narrow perspective within the ?Silent Exodus? phenomenon of those who actually found a destination and brackets out perspectives such as apostasy, those who stayed in the ethnic church despite grievances, and those who still have faith in Jesus but gave up on institutionalized religion. He recruited 165 Chinese and Korean Americans in six marque non-ethnic churches in New York City who attended an ethnic church for at least three years at some point in their life. He created an Asian American Christian Survey, a 36 Likert Scale and 4 Fill-in questionnaire, which seeks to measure the attitudes of Asian American Christians who left their ethnic churches for non-ethnic churches. The author discovered that the top reasons Asian Americans prefer the non-ethnic church are the same for each of the six marque churches: standard of excellence, their multicultural value, and their non-legalistic culture. The six marque churches surveyed are Trinity Grace Church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New Life Fellowship, Times Square Church, Hope NYC, and Hillsong NYC. Another 68 respondents in the New York Metropolitan area, not attending these six marque churches, prefer their current churches to an Asian American church for the same top three reasons out of eleven evaluated: standard of excellence, their multicultural value, and their non-legalistic culture. Recommendations for ministry include thoughtfully deconstructing why current Asian American ministries are faltering and theologically constructing healthier Asian American ministries in light of insights learned from ministries creating destinations for the ?Silent Exodus? population, systemic changes regarding core values and practices, and developing leaders who embody these values. Research results overwhelmingly indicate incompetence and immaturity among Asian American ministry leaders.

With the many challenges that Chinese American churches are facing, together with the ever-changing needs of their members, Chinese American churches need to look for ways to nurture their members and to develop them into mature leaders. This thesis project is designed to explore the leadership development strategies of selected Chinese churches in North America that have demonstrated certain effectiveness and success in developing leaders, in hopes of discovering some common effective leadership development strategies. This author has interviewed eleven large Chinese American churches, with Sunday attendance ranging from 500 to 2600, regarding the strategies they use and the challenges they face in developing leaders. Using qualitative analysis, this author has discovered some common principles that have been used by these churches to develop leaders and has formulated some practical pointers that may be applicable to other Chinese American churches and beyond.

The findings reveal that faith and character development precedes skill training. Likewise, Christ-like character, spiritual maturity, and a willingness to serve are more important than a person's natural abilities and talents. In addition, the pastoral staff should be highly involved in designing and executing the leadership development programs. Moreover, the church should create a learning atmosphere by publicizing and offering life-relevant and need-based trainings through classrooms, small groups, or other venues. Outside resources such as guest speakers, seminars and conferences should also be utilized. Furthermore, opportunities should be provided for lay people to participate in service with the help of on-the-job training and ongoing support.

The Indian churches in the United States consist of mostly two groups of people, namely, those who migrated directly from India known as the first generation, and those who are born and brought up in the United States, otherwise known as the second generation. The first generation keeps many traditions, practices, and ideologies they brought from their country of origin. They assume that these are superior to most of the other cultures, and hence need to be preserved by future generations. The second generation does not think much about the first generation's cultural and ethnic norms and are not willing to give such prominence to their prerogatives. Since they were born into a different cultural scenario and raised in a postmodern society, these traditions and ideologies of their parents' generation do not seem to have contemporary relevance in their day-to-day lives. Therefore, the silent encounters, otherwise called inter-generational conflicts, occurring between these two groups culminate in the exodus of the younger generation from "their home churches and possibly from the Christian faith" itself.

The thesis examines how participation in integrated Christian activities affects inter-generational relationships in the first and second generation of the Indian Pentecostal Churches. The project also identifies the dynamics of inter-generational relationships in order to build healthy families, because such families will be the basic units for the existence of healthy churches and societies.

In reference to the aforementioned thesis, the project provided an incredible opportunity for both groups to interact together and bring forth better solutions for healthier inter-generational relationships. It is evident that even though all churches are very much concerned about this phenomenon, many have not been able to do much in addressing the problem with plans for corrective actions. Therefore, the evaluation and research opened the way for greater discussion between both generations. Moreover, the researcher is confident that positively touch the generations to come.

Researcher surveyed 200 Korean- speaking Korean American Believers in Bergen County of NJ with questionnaire 'ACMRT', Attitude toward Church Membership Retention and Transfer (10-questions questionnaire). Only 24% have remained in their original church and that 76% have transferred churches, many of whom more than once. Church satisfaction is not higher among the transfers in comparison to the retained. Apart from "moving" the most cited cause for leaving a previous church was conflict.

The purpose of writing Using Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions to Describe Cultural Differences between First Generation and Second Generation Vietnamese in the Vietnamese Church in America is to affirm the existence of cultural differences within the Vietnamese American church between first generation and second generation Vietnamese Americans. The comparison is based on the categories of national cultural values according to Hofstede's research and measurements at the individual level. The acknowledgment of those cultural differences will help church leaders build effective communications and understanding and hence consolidate church unity.

Cultural differences between two generations in Vietnamese American church have created challenges in effective communications and in ministries working together amongst the congregation and at the leadership level. Ignorance of those conflicts and neglecting to find solutions make the existing gap broadened and hinder the mission of the church. Drawing from scores Hofstede's study gave for Vietnam and for the US on the five cultural dimensions, the present research showed how close the degree on an individual level for first generation and second generation Vietnamese Christians is reflected the measurement on the national level with respect to each dimension.

In order to verify the hypotheses of this research, an instrument called HCD-VCA Survey, tailored for the Vietnamese American church context was created. This tool composed of twenty statements with four statements per each cultural dimension, and had the participant rate every statement on a six-point Likert scale. Each set of four statements and their associated scores considered as subscores was compared between the first generation and second generation group.

Result from survey data confirmed the distinct difference of standpoint for each cultural dimension between the first generation and second generation Vietnamese Christians in the church. First generation group tends to more readily accept the high power distance, has tendency toward high collectivism, toward masculinity, stronger uncertainty avoidance, and toward short-term orientation than second generation group. Their standpoints relating to power distance dimension and collectivism/individualism dimension reflected the national cultural values of Vietnam and the US according to Hofstede's research.

The findings of present research ascertained the existence of cultural differences between the first generation and second generation Vietnamese Christians within the Vietnamese American churches. This primary issue needs to be acknowledged adequately and studied systematically. It is important for church leaders to have full knowledge of culture-related issues in order to identify any cultural tension encompassed in other problems in the church. Church leaders must find ways to narrow the cultural difference gap between the two generations in order to reinforce church unity. The establishment of English language ministry for young people also needs to be encouraged and supported in every Vietnamese American church.