Archives for category: family

Reflections on Asian American (Youth) Ministry: Part Two

March 30, 2007 //

I want to continue to build on some thoughts I began to share here. I will continue to use Marko’s observations on the Asian American (AA) youth ministry as a framework for my response. In my first post, I tried to tackle the idea of youth workers being treated as second (or third) class citizens in Asian American churches. Today, taking on the idea of youth workers being treated as hired guns in AA churches…

68 guns
Certainly, the phrase “hired gun” is loaded (oh, the puns). Though I do have certain critical observations of AA churches in this regard, I do not believe that most AA churches intend for their youth workers to be simply hourly wage-earning automatons — nor do I believe this is what Marko was implying in his original post. Most, if not all, of my peers in AA youth ministry have had a tremendous pastoral heart for their students.

Marko is right in using a somewhat explosive (again with the puns!) phrase in highlighting his underlying point, though. It it vital to recognize that youth ministry is not simply entrusted to AA youth workers, but abdicated to them. This happens for a number of reasons, from my experience.

Perceived inadequacy & professional relevance
First generation (1G) parents often feel inadequate in raising their own children. Beyond the obvious language, cultural and generational differences, many first generation parents simply do not have the time (or, in the worst case, inclination) to sit down and spend time with their children. However, this might also spring from a cultural difference — the idea of Dad tossing around a baseball with the kids on a lazy Saturday might be idealized in the Western perspective, but not necessarily upheld in an Eastern worldview. The 1G love language can be very different, and difficult to understand, for their second generation (2G) children, and vice-versa.

Read the rest of this entry »

Categories church, family, ministry, second-generation

why can’t i be you

March 13, 2007 //

i was playing with my three and a half year old daughter the other day. usually, she wants to read together or have a tea party. when we can, we’ll go biking or scootering. on this particular day, though, she wanted to pretend to play music together.

she took out a little pink inflatable guitar (that my wife picked up as a freebie at a seminar at the national children’s pastor’s conference) and started strumming. my daughter has always loved music, especially the rock. when she was around a year old, she would demand we listen to “vertigo” by u2 over and over again during our long ride from home to church.

all of a sudden, though, she began smashing the guitar — pete townshend-style. a bit taken aback, i asked her what she was doing. she said she was just doing what daddy did before. now i was confused. when had i smashed a guitar in front of her (or ever)? had i knocked something over in frustration? did i totally screw up?

i was relived when she clarified what she meant. she explained to her confused father that she was talking about “that guitar game” where, upon successfully completing a song, the virtual guitarist on screen would proceed to demolish his or her guitar, with glee. the game to which she was referring is, of course, guitar hero.

everyday i realize how quickly kids pick up on the things they see. from muttering insults at the car who just cut me off to the kinds of things i think are funny, i am setting an example at all times. in this enormous responsibility and calling, all i can do is rely on the grace of God to continue to mold & shape my heart, and to guide and lead my family as well.

i wish i had photos of her smashing that guitar, though!

Categories family

prayers for rain

February 15, 2007 //

i just returned from our youth retreat and i am reminded of a couple of things. first, God is surprising and faithful. second, i am not getting any younger. i think i had some kind of weird time-delayed sickness hit me today.

more & more, my ministry has been about following Jesus in the ordinary days. youth (people in general, really) often seek the next mountaintop (or, in the absence of a high, a nice deep valley will do) to sustain their faith. i have been influenced over the last couple of years by the writing of good people like eugene peterson, dallas willard, john ortberg and henri nouwen. i read this great quote the other day about how writers like this speak powerfully not because of their verbal fireworks, but by the gravity of a godly life. as such, i have been moving away from the big and fantastic and more toward the quiet and deep (although i realize these categories are not always mutually exclusive) and emphasizing the importance of walking with God in our everyday lives.

anyhoo, i think it’s safe to say that each of us experienced God’s presence in a very real and powerful way this past weekend. it’s so easy to forget how important it is for our hearts to be broken in God’s presence. many students shared that their favorite memories were not the games (including a very painful round of “mahl-doo-baki” — a game that involves the purposeful inflicting of pain on others’ backs through high-flying aerials) or the activities, but the times of prayer we had.

like a good postmodern youth ministry, we set up a series of prayer stations for our students one night. one of the stations was designed to allow students to pray about their family life. as anyone in asian-american youth ministry knows, this is often a very deep source of pain for as/am students. our youth group is no exception. at this stations, students were supposed to use a scrabble board to share a word they felt describes their family, and then to pray for their families. here is what the scrabble board looked like at the end of the night:

while there are a couple of positive descriptors (hope, heaven, smile, hugs), what stood out to me was the amount of hurt. words like guilty, unfixable, and destroyed practically jumped off the board and slapped me in the face. i’ve only been serving this youth ministry for about three months, but i’ve really come to love these students. this small group of less than twenty is a very sweet, caring bunch. just beneath the surface, however, is so much pain & frustration.

when i first started in ministry, i think i thought ministry was mostly about preaching big messages to big crowds. now that i’m a little bit older, with a family of my own, i’m realizing how important it is to deal with these whole-life issues, especially family.

i’m still wondering, though, how “nee” (“een”?) or “niatrecnurx” relate to what we were doing there.

Categories family, ministry