SOLA Network is proud to announce a partnership with the Bamboo Pastors Podcast. The podcast is hosted by Jalon Chan of Chinese Christian Fellowship Church and Jon Mann of San Jose Christian Alliance Church as they explore the joys and challenges of being English-speaking pastors in the Chinese church.
As part of this partnership, SOLA will feature episodes of the podcast through links, short audio clips, and/or transcripts of episodes. To introduce this podcast, Ben Pun and Hanley Liu had a discussion with Jalon Chan and Jon Mann about their experiences in the Chinese heritage church. We hope you are encouraged by their conversations.
Subscribe to the Bamboo Pastors Podcast on Podbean, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Ben Pun: Hello, my name is Ben Pun, and I’m here on behalf of the SOLA Network. And today we wanted to interview Jon Mann and Jalon Chan with the Bamboo Pastor Podcast. And so let’s just get started with just introducing all of us right here. Just why don’t we just say your name, your ministry position, and where you’re at.
And so yeah, my name is Ben Pun. I am the lead pastor of Anchor Community Church in Walnut. We are a five-year-old church plant that was planted out of a Chinese church here in Diamond Bar. Hanley, why don’t you go next?
Hanley Liu: Hey, my name is Hanley Liu. I am the English pastor at First Chinese Baptist Church, also in Walnut in Southern California. I also have the privilege of serving on the SOLA Council. So we are the typical three-headed trilingual church: Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, and English congregation. So that’s three congregations, one church. All right, what about you, Jon?
Jon Mann: Hanley, Ben, it’s good to hang out with you guys. I’m excited for this conversation we’re gonna have. My name’s Jon Mann. I am the next-generation pastor at my church, that’s San Jose Christian Alliance Church. We are in South Bay, in Northern California. Basically, Next Gen Pastor means that I directly oversee our young adult ministry, but also have just folks who really love the next generation and yeah, serve in that capacity. My church is, yeah, we would be categorized as a Chinese Heritage Church, though we’ve, I think at this point have developed some new partnerships with different groups of different ethnic backgrounds. And so our church also has like a actually relatively brand new Spanish speaking church plants and then partnerships with some other different ethnic groups from our denomination. And so we’re part of the Christian Missionary Alliance.
Ben Pun: Cool. What about you Jalon?
Jalon Chan: Yeah, thanks for having us guys. My name is Jalon Chan. I am the English pastor at Chinese Christian Fellowship Church. It’s in Wilmette, Illinois, which is a North suburb of Chicago. It’s a Chinese heritage church. And we have the English congregation and a Mandarin Chinese congregation.
Ben Pun: All right. Well, yeah, thanks so much guys for spending some time with us. Yeah, so we at SOLA, yeah, we’re big fans of the Bamboo Pastors Podcast. And we just wanted to get to know you guys a little better and hear more about your story and what you’ve been learning, especially about the Chinese Heritage Church. So yeah, our first question, you know, is just how did you guys get started with this podcast? Yeah, what were you hoping to accomplish and why did you start it?
Jon Mann: Yeah, maybe I’ll start this story and then Jalon can pick it up somewhere along the way.
The two of us have known each other for most of our lives. We grew up attending the same church in Chicago’s Chinatown, went through youth group and college ministry together. And so I think both of us, just in our time as pastors and serving in the church, have really loved talking about ministry and loved hanging out. You know, I think we had both a ministry friendship, but that came out of our, our, a long time friendship that we’ve had.
And so, when I accepted the call to serve at the church I’m at now, after having been in the Chicagoland area for pretty much my whole life, you know, I moved to San Jose right at the start of the pandemic. And back then, you know, couldn’t really do anything and everyone was figuring out what are some hobbies at home to occupy time. And I think it was this combination of looking for something to do because I didn’t know anyone in the area and everything was online. Plus wanting to stay connected with Jalon and, you know, keep up our friendship despite me having moved from the Chicagoland area to California.
And so we decided to start the podcast right at the beginning, or right around the beginning of the pandemic as a hobby. And we had joked about doing a podcast about ministry and about the church over the years, just as we’ve hung out and talked and laughed about what we do.
And I’ll admit that our different iterations of what this podcast might look like have shifted and evolved over time. I think initially we thought, oh, we can like do some like church lunch reviews or something like something more funny or entertaining, which we still might do an episode on that. But I think eventually we landed on the idea that we could use this to really be a, yeah, like a resource and a platform for the Chinese Heritage Church. And so we kicked this off about two and a half years ago with just, you know, we had couple of friends that we wanted to bring on a goal of, I think maybe 10 episodes. Jalon, you can correct me, but I think it was 10 episodes was our goal. And I just kind of snowballed into something more. Now we’re into our third season. So it’s been a lot of fun. Very exciting.
Jalon Chan: Yeah. And I think the way that we’re approaching it now is just recognizing that we’re a very unique approach to ministry, right? The English congregation of a Chinese Heritage Church is a very specific, probably pretty small segment of the wider church family.
And yet there are a lot of joys and challenges in what we do, right, that are unique to who we are, to our upbringing, to our experience in the Chinese Heritage Church. And so I think that is that’s something that we’ve kind of wanted to explore a lot more, Jon and I have, and also just to bring other people into the conversation because I, you know, even as big as Chicago is, there’s, there’s only a handful of guys that, that we know in the area that are serving in a ministry like this.
And so being able to connect with other guys around the country who are in these roles and have these similar experiences, I think is just, you know, selfishly, at least just really helpful for, for us just to see other people who are doing the same thing, going through the same struggles can also rejoice in the same things. And so that’s really a joyful thing that we get out of doing this podcast and having started this podcast.
That’s what we’re, you know, that’s why we’re excited about doing it.
Hanley Liu: Yeah, I’m super grateful that the two of you had the vision to start this podcast, even if it was just for fun. And because a lot of the topics and the guests that you have, they speak to issues that are very specific to the Chinese Heritage church. And I know that you have some other, you’ve had some other guests that, you know, have parachurch ministries and some, you know, Pan-Asian or multi-ethnic kind of ministries that they represent. And so I think it’s been really a blessing for me just to listen in when I see the episodes being released.
But as the podcast has gone along, what are some of the surprising insights? Were there things that you didn’t expect to learn from some of their interviews, things that you didn’t expect, but along the way it was something that just surprised you in a positive way.
Jalon Chan: Yeah, I think for me it’s been a good thing to see the hopefulness that a lot of guys have in the Chinese Heritage Church because I think growing up in a Chinese Heritage Church, and I don’t know if this is the experience for you guys, but it could leave you a bit jaded, right, or a little bit scarred, based on what you’ve seen and what you experienced.
And I think going into it, I thought maybe a lot of these guys are probably just kind of like embattled warriors who are struggling with their ministry roles and, you know, struggling to figure out, you know, how to survive. But there’s a lot of hope in I think a lot of the interviews that we’ve done. And that’s kind of what we kind of wanted to point out that, you know, we’re not just a podcast for people to kind of dump on the Chinese heritage church or to kind of complain about their role. But it is to say like, here’s, you know, there’s a lot of joy in what we get to do, right? There’s a lot of hope in what God is doing in the Chinese Heritage church. And, you know, maybe that’s, that’s, maybe it’s bad that that’s surprising, but it was it was, it was a good surprise to see, like, there’s a lot of hopefulness for the Chinese heritage church. And for us, being able to interview these guys, being on the front row to hear those things has been really exciting for me.
Jon Mann: Yeah, I mean, I definitely echo that. And I think as we talked about what we were hoping to accomplish, and even who were some of the guests that we wanted to bring on, we started just with a pool of the folks that we knew, that we had done ministry with, or had kind of run alongside for a while. And I think the surprising thing for me was that once we got to the end of that list or towards the end of that list and started to reach out to folks who weren’t connected with, not only were they willing to come on the podcast, but I think we’ve really developed some friendship and relationship with people who we might not normally cross paths with just if you’re serving in a particular city or particular region, I think something that I’ve really enjoyed about this is being able to connect with pastors and leaders from ministries and churches that are really across the country and representing Chinese heritage churches or representing ministries that kind of come in all shapes and sizes. And really seeing their heart for the kingdom has been just, yeah, again, I don’t know if surprise is the right word, something that surprised us, but I think we’ve been really encouraged by that.
I do think one of the surprising things for us was that we have some people that listen and they’re not in the United States. And so there, we actually had someone reach out to us from Australia and, you know, connected over the podcast and we had them on, I think in season one at some point. And so that was just really cool to see that connection and to hear about church ministry outside of a North American context, you know, and talking about ministry in the church in places that feel somewhat similar, but also very, very different. Yeah, that was definitely a surprise to us.
Jalon Chan: We also have, surprisingly, I think, and who knows if this is actually where they’re from, but we have like consistent listeners from Ireland. I don’t know if there’s actually a lot of Chinese heritage churches out there.
Jon Mann: Or a VPN bouncing through Europe.
Jalon Chan: Right. Right.
Jon Mann: We’re not really sure where it’s coming from.
Jalon Chan: But that’s surprising that we popped up in Ireland a little bit. But yeah.
Ben Pun: Man, Chinese people are everywhere. That’s one thing we know as Chinese people.
I mean, I think one of the reasons I really like your podcast is because it is specifically shining the light on Chinese heritage churches. And I just feel like that’s just an area that no one has ever really done that. I don’t know if it’s just my experience, but I feel like Chinese churches, we just kind of like do our own thing and we’re fine not being in the spotlight. We just wanna be faithful in our ministries. And we don’t really like platforming ourselves. We’ll just let other people do that and other people start the conversations.
But I really feel like your podcast is one of the first of its kind to really try to specifically shine the light on ministry done in Chinese heritage churches among Chinese American leaders. So I don’t know. Yeah, I mean, what do you guys think about that? I mean, is that something that you guys have kind of found is helpful, you’re bringing out some of the voices that wouldn’t normally get heard, that people are getting more ideas as they listen to your podcast?
Jon Mann: Yeah, I mean, I think when we first started this, had there been a plethora, or even one, I think even if there had been one or two other podcasts that already filled this specific kind of piece of the puzzle, I think we probably would have went maybe in a different direction with the podcast. Maybe we would have ran with that Church Lunch Review podcast or something.
But I think it was because there was just a lack of what we felt like was resources, not just at the podcast level, but I think just in general that there are sometimes, you know, there’s already few enough resources that are kind of directed towards Asian American ministries and that’s already a really really broad category and for being such a broad category and having so many different ethnic backgrounds and cultural backgrounds that fit under that umbrella of Asian American ministry you know we felt like really our sweet spot what we knew what we grew up in what has challenged and blessed and encouraged us and has been the Chinese Heritage Church. It’s something that we’re, you know, both connected to culturally. And so we wanted to find a way to really, yeah, again, not to like platform ourselves, but to just let stories be told. And I think even if we felt like, even if we’re just the only ones listening to this, we’re happy to do it because we get to kind of record stories and hear thoughts and ideas from leaders that we know that would not normally have any sort of platform or, you know, have opportunity to really share in this manner.
And so really I think that was our hope. And we’ve mentioned this before on the podcast or talked extensively about this, but we really believe that knowing ourselves and knowing kind of this is who we are when it comes to God’s kingdom is good for the Chinese Heritage Church, but it’s also good for the Kingdom of God, right? Like there are, there’s a lot we can learn from people with different backgrounds and there’s a lot we have to offer as God kind of does this redeeming work in the Chinese Heritage Church and gets rid of the parts of us that, you know, don’t reflect him. There’s going to be something left behind that really reflects his heart. And I think that’s something we have to share with the church at large, with the, you know, the capital C church.
And I think something that I’ll just say is when we really started this, and again, we’re on this journey of discovery. So I don’t think we’re finished figuring that out yet. But I feel like at the beginning of these conversations, I was much less sure of like, our role to play in the kingdom? Like what’s our part in, you know, what’s our thing? And it seems there seems to be much more obvious things in other cultures. And I think in some ways I’m stereotyping, so I want to be careful with how I say that. But when I looked at the Chinese heritage church or even my own experience in the Chinese church, I was not sure like, what do we bring to the table, basically? And I think this podcast has really that helped us to explore that. Hopefully helped other people to explore that as well.
Hanley Liu: Yeah. Yeah, I think in the, in maybe 10, 15 years ago, and I don’t know if this is true in the Midwest, but I know at least in California, the trend was that the younger generation or the next generation, they were exiting Chinese heritage churches. I mean, that seemed to be what would happen in a lot of English pastors. You also see them either burn out or they silently exodus as well, or it may be a conflict situation where they had to leave.
But it seems like in the last 10 years, God is moving in a unique way where more and more Chinese North Americans are willing to come back into their home church or back into the Chinese heritage church. And it seems like there’s more English pastors that are willing to stay within the Chinese church. Would you say that that trend is true from just your many interviews with various leaders in the Chinese Heritage Church?
Jalon Chan: Yeah, for sure. I mean, that is my own story, right?
I mean, I grew up in Chinese Heritage Church in Chinatown and after graduating Bible College, served at a multi-ethnic church plant in the city of Chicago and felt like, wow, this is great. Like there’s some really great stuff happening here. And then when I felt called to go back to the Chinese Heritage Church, it was like, why would God do that? Right?
But being here, being back in a Chinese Heritage Church now for eight years, it’s been really joyful for me personally. And I think being able to see my gifts used to benefit brothers and sisters who are like me in a lot of ways and to watch my own kids grow up in a context that I’m familiar with, but I also want them to have, you know, roots in their heritage as Chinese Americans. I think that’s so, there’s so many things that are beneficial about that. And I think certainly for me, that’s true of my story, but I do think that’s the sense that we get, right, Jon, when we kind of talk to a lot of these guys is that, and it’s not just for the leaders, right? It’s not just for the pastors, but I think there is like a return for the second generation even third generation, where many of us live and work in majority culture, and we don’t want to lose connection to, you know, our Chinese heritage. And so one of the quickest and easiest ways to plug back in is to go back to Chinese heritage church, right. And I think that’s, that’s something that that certainly we’ve noticed. And that’s certainly something that’s been apparent in my own church.
Ben Pun: Yeah, I think that’s such an interesting phenomenon. That yeah, I do think that I think we mentioned earlier, a lot of Chinese American leaders feel very discouraged and feel like their Chinese churches stuck in old ways, the same old kind of struggles and problems, but I think maybe we don’t actually see some of the good things, and how some ministries are growing, and they’re fruitful, and there’s new things happening. So I think that’s really important to see that.
Yeah, Jon, you actually mentioned something earlier about wanting to see how Chinese Americans can bring something to the conversation, to the table, to offer to other people, to other cultures. Yeah, what do you think that is? What is the unique kind of voice that Chinese Americans kind of bring to the table, to the ministry table from other cultures?
Jon Mann: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, I think there’s a few different things. One of the ones that I have just been reminded of is, I think in the Chinese Heritage Church, one of the things that I see is just an incredible like resilience is maybe a good word. A resilience for a faithful resilience really in following Jesus in places that are hard or in situations and circumstances that are hard.
I mean I like think about how many churches have folks who have been in that church for you know for decades and for decades they’ve been and following Jesus and serving faithfully in different ministries. And like there’s longevity in some of these places. And so I think that’s something I love about who we are. And I do think that there is a love for, you know, the there’s a love for passing faith on to the next generation in the Chinese heritage church, even if they’re not, not every church or not everyone in the church is, you know, understands or knows how to do that best. I do think there’s a desire to see faith being passed. And it has to do with, I think, yeah, just a strong family oriented or family centric culture that we are a part of. And so I think that’s really valuable to the kingdom.
Valuable as a picture because I think sometimes the idea of family or the word family may not always be a positive one for people or for certain churches or cultures. And so that’s something that I feel like we can redeem and really offer back to the full family of God.
Jalon Chan: And I think just the posture of learning that maybe particularly for us, a second generation or third generation Chinese Americans have, I think is so important for the church in North America, because as our country, as our society is becoming kind of more mixed, there’s increasing need for like code switching, for understanding how to go between cultures and to learn how to listen, how to learn from other people. I think that’s what we grew up as, you know, like third culture kids, just knowing how to flow between cultures.
And I think that’s something we can offer to not just other Christians in majority culture, but just to the wider culture, right? Just the ability to be learners, to be humble, to understand different cultures and how to show deference. And I think that sense of humility is really important for people in general today. And I think that’s something that we can offer as Chinese heritage churches, and particularly, you know, the English congregation or the second generation congregation in a Chinese Heritage church is to demonstrate what that kind of incarnational ministry looks like, right? Being in different cultures and learning from other cultures and being able to show love and humility in those in those different contexts.
Hanley Liu: Yeah, from your experience, and maybe it’ll take a moment to answer this to kind of think about it, but from what would you say are some of the greatest challenges facing that English pastors or English leaders face going forward?
Jalon Chan: I would say patience and time, because I think we have such a long history of brokenness, of I’ll just go ahead and say paternalism in the Chinese Heritage Church, that I think that’s not going to switch overnight, right? Like we can’t just flip the switch and say all of a sudden like, oh, we’re a big happy family. We’re just going to press forward and decisions and conversations will be smooth here on out. Like we’ve built such a long history of difficulty that we have to kind of rewind that or undo some of that. We have to be willing to listen and learn from other and give grace when mistakes are made, when we are offended, or when we do the offending. And I think we have to be committed to that process. And so whether it’s, you know, deacons and elders being in it for the long haul, not pushing the eject button when things get difficult. I think there has to be that sense of we’re going to be here, we’re going to stick it out together. And having that across congregations, you know, the pastors agreeing with one another, like I’m going to stick with you through this. You know, our deacons, our board members saying to one another, we’re going to stick with you in this. I think the challenge is to say this is not an easy process. There has been a lot that we’re that we’ve worked through, whether in our own church history, local church history, or wider Chinese heritage church history. The challenge is to stay with it, is to keep going.
Jon Mann: I think another thing too is just as we, you know, are in a world that’s increasingly more diverse, especially where probably a lot of Chinese churches are. They’re in cities and suburbs that there’s growing diversity, you know, and I know that there are definitely some Chinese churches in places where they may be the only ethnic group represented or like it’s predominantly, you know, white neighborhoods, but I feel like that’s changing in our country and the world feels like it’s getting smaller in many ways. And so that can be both a good and bad thing, I think, for the Chinese heritage church. And so I think one of the challenges we have is learning to navigate that tension between, you know, we have to fight, I think, the desire to be insular and only focus on Chinese diaspora ministry, right? Because we have to have this kingdom view in mind. But at the same time, I feel like we also have to resist, you know, maybe the temptation or the just resist losing who we are and being reminded and I think a big part of that is being reminded that God put us in this cultural family for a reason. There’s something about who we are again that we’ve talked about. And I think there’s more, but there’s something about who we are that really reflects Jesus to the world.
And so we have to navigate that balance between both partnering with the broader kingdom, being part of the kingdom of God, and then at the same time also like knowing who God has made us to be and letting that, yeah, be, yeah, being okay in that tension, I guess.
Ben Pun: Yeah, I think that tension leads different leaders and churches to go different ways and different ways to answer that question. So my question is, you’ve interviewed lots of different people, people who are in Chinese churches, people who are in parachurch ministries, people who aren’t multi-ethnic maybe. I mean, what do you guys see in your interviews about kind of the trends of where Chinese Americans are kind of headed?
I mean, do you see a lot of people sticking in the Chinese Heritage Church as an Englishman? Or do you see people kind of venturing out and doing church plants? Do you see people going to multi-ethnic churches? What kind of trends are you seeing all across the country and North America?
Jon Mann: I think one of the obvious trends that I’ve seen is how much churches, obviously Chinese Heritage churches, we, like immigration patterns have a big impact on our churches and church ministries, right? Like, especially recently, there’s been a large wave of immigrants from mainland China. And so it’s reflected in especially in areas where there’s like Chinatowns or like the bay, which sometimes feels like a giant Chinatown. It’s reflected in the types of restaurants that are popping up or the types of regional cuisine that’s coming. And I think that, at least that seems to be the obvious trend, is that our churches have in many ways reflected that that shift and, you know, recognizing where the people are and who are the people in the neighborhoods that we’re trying to reach. So, yeah, I think that that’s something that that we have to be aware of that if this is the trend right now, what does it look like, you know, down the road and I’m not, you know, I don’t have any background in understanding like the, the movement of people with immigration, all that. So there’s, I think there’s going to be, there’s much smarter people that you can have a conversation with about that. Um, but I do feel like if we’re forward thinking as pastors in the Chinese Heritage Church, and not just as like English speaking pastors, because I think it’s easy for us to just focus, oh, let’s just look at the second, third, fourth generation. But being aware of like how that’s going to affect, you know, and play a part in the way our churches grow or the way our churches do ministry. I think that’s really important for the English side to know that and to be connected to that because that’s what we’ve probably wanted from our first generation congregations to kind of know where we’re at as a second generation ministry, whether it’s English or youth or whatever.
And so we have to do our part in doing the opposite, I think, in knowing, especially if our churches desire this long term partnership together as a church rather than like siloed congregations. Maybe some people could make the argument that silos are better because they’re easier or simpler, allow us to focus on something specific. But I think I would probably make the argument that it might be easier in the short term, in the long term, we will lose something with that when we don’t have relationship across congregations across cultures, and it starts at the top with the pastoral team and it’ll trickle down into the congregation. So yeah, I don’t know if that really fully answered your question, but that’s one of the trends.
Hanley Liu: Yeah, Jalon and Jon, you both mentioned family several times and Jalon mentioned patience, humility, desire for unity. And it seems like when we talk to a lot of our Korean American friends, or I know Ben, your model is unique, but a lot of Korean American friends, when they talk about the future for their English ministries, there is almost a blessing of being an independent church going full townhouse model. But when we talk to the Chinese Heritage church pastors, the idea of even having a separate English church, it’s almost like you’re dividing the family.
And so would you say that from the guests that you’ve talked to that there’s maybe in the Chinese church — not that there’s one right or wrong way to do things between Korean-American trans versus Chinese heritage churches, but do you think that our future, maybe in the next 10 years would be more trying to stay together, that there’s an opportunity where the English or in Mandarin and Cantonese, or if it’s a bilingual church that our future is together. And maybe that’s why the leaders need to have a lot of patience and humility.
Jalon Chan: Yeah, I’m glad you brought up Ben’s model because we had him on last year, last season sometime and I think Jon and I afterwards were like, man, that’s really cool what Ben is doing. And there’s some really awesome things about the way that ministry is done with Anchor. But I think that, and kind of going back to Ben’s question a little bit too, I think that it is going to be different, right? I feel like it’s hard to kind of pinpoint a trend because I think we’re finding that the Chinese heritage churches is kind of diversifying a bit, right? It’s looking a little bit different. Like there’s not one model. Like I think even in the guests that we’ve had, the churches that we’ve kind of looked at, they’re all a little bit different in leadership structure, in their model, in the way that they gather and all that stuff. And so I think in some ways it’s kind of hard to pinpoint, okay, what are the trends? And then how are we kind of aiming towards that?
So I think, you know, but I do think like we have to be faithful to what God calls us to, right? And that might come down to the specific local church and those specific local church leaders. And I do think that there’s a lot of benefit to staying together. I do think as we’ve talked about just this family, being in a family dynamic, being multi-congregational, multi-generational, there’s a lot of health and beauty to that. And I do think that that has tremendous benefit, not just for Chinese heritage churches, but for other immigrant churches, for, you know, even, even I would, I would imagine immigrant churches that, or immigrants that are now coming to the United States that don’t have a lot of churches, and the Chinese heritage church being sort of a model or a case study for this is how hopefully an immigrant church can do things well.
And so, yeah, I’m excited about, at least for the local church that I’m a part of, I want to see us more and more grow in our unity and grow in the Mandarin congregation, in the English congregation, serving one another, working together, having opportunities to be independent in some ways, but interdependent in most ways. Right. And so, yeah, there’s something wonderful about recognizing that, indeed, we are brothers and sisters in Christ. So what does that mean when we put on those extra layers of being Chinese, first generation, second generation, third generation? And yeah, I think that’s something that I’m looking forward to, not just just from our own local church, but seeing other Chinese heritage churches, what does that look like? That growing unity, that growing sense of family, and what is that expression going to be for churches across our country?
Joh Mann: And I think one of the challenges with this is when it comes to immigration, it’s not as simple as do people from Asia want to come here, right? From wherever they’re coming from. I think it also involves like we don’t really know. I mean, we can try to predict or guess or hope, but we don’t really know how our country will respond to immigration in the next 10 years. Like a lot could change, a lot could shift, or nothing could change. And I feel like I think some of that the challenge is learning how to just kind of adapt well to whatever God brings you know in front of us into our backyard or and maybe it’ll continue to be more and more Chinese families and Chinese individuals from all over or it could be something different and we’re not 100% sure what that will look like and so yeah I think that’s an exciting place to be, but also a little bit daunting when I think about it. So yeah, exciting that we get to have front row seats to seeing what God wants to do with that.
Ben Pun: Yeah, as I’m thinking about it, and as we’re talking, I think that is one unique thing about the Chinese church is because the immigration is continuing. It’s not dropping off. It’s maybe coming from different places. Like the Chinese church is always going to be around. It’s not going to die out. I mean, maybe it’s a little bit different with Korean or Japanese. I don’t know as much about Southeast Asian immigration patterns, but it does seem like Korean immigration is dying out, and the churches are just getting older. And then Japanese is like, that kind of died out a while ago.
But Chinese is different. And so, yeah, the Chinese church isn’t going anywhere. But I just do wonder about the second and third generation, are they leaving? But like you guys said, it does seem like the second generation is a little bit more resilient. Like, we don’t hit the eject button quite as quickly. But I also see that as a weakness, because I think maybe our Korean American friends might be more willing to hit the eject button, but they’re more innovative, they’re more willing to take chances and risks. And so, yeah, my personal hope is that, yeah, how could we kind of learn from other cultures while keeping kind of the strengths, the unique strengths that we have? I don’t know.
Well, we probably should wrap it up soon. So actually, how about we wrap it up like this? Do you guys have any questions for us? Anything, anything other topics that you would kind of like to bring up?
Jon Mann: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, because we’ve talked about this just briefly, like hearing what you guys are hopeful for about the Chinese Heritage Church, or even just your church specifically, you know, because I think those, those are the stories that really need to be shared. And for Jalon and I, we don’t want to pretend like that ministry in the Chinese Heritage Church is not hard, that there are hard days and hard moments, hard seasons. But I think we kind of talked through this early on in our process that we wanted to really highlight the hopeful stories, because there’s something that I think honors the Lord with that, to and I think generationally especially for you know the younger parts of the Chinese heritage church whether they’re Gen Z or upcoming Gen Alpha or something you know they’re they’re I think generally looking for looking for hope in the midst of um you know a world that they maybe they feel like it’s a little hopeless, right? The world that’s been handed to them by their parents or the people ahead of them. And I think the thing that’s going to inspire and draw them into the kingdom is seeing the hope and beauty of the church and the kingdom of God. Because for sure, it’s not going to be the institution of church that draws them in, you know. And so yeah, what would, I guess for the two of you, is there something that you feel very hopeful about when it comes to the church?
Hanley Liu: Yeah, I think for me, like both of you, Jalon and Jon, both you mentioned, there’s a lot of context, there’s no one model for how the Chinese Heritage Church will move forward, but I do see something, and this alludes back to kind of what I was discussing earlier, where I think at the Chinese Church, most of us, if we were to propose an independent budget, independent English staff, independent English team and vision, for a lot of our churches, it’d be like, hey, you’re asking to split the family.
But at the same time, I do see in Chinese services churches this immigrant mentality where parents immigrate to America and they work their tails off and they want to give the business or they want to give everything, education, to their children. They just want their children to be– to honor them, to have humility, to do well, and not to destroy the whole thing.
And I do think we have the common theme of the gospel. We have sound doctrine. And I do think in the Chinese church– I mean, we still have to see what it’s going to look like in the 5 to 10 years. But there could be an opportunity where the Chinese church of multiple language congregations can stay together, regardless of who’s leading, where possibly in a healthy setting, an immigrant church could hand the keys to their adult children to lead the church forward, while the adult children take the responsibility to carry on some of the values while maybe changing some of the approaches and methods, but never leaving their parents behind. And as their parents age, there’s care and so forth. So I do think that could happen. I mean, that’s challenging, but that’s a great hope. And like the two of you alluded to, this may be a model for churches that want to stay together as multilingual congregations. So that’s my hope for Chinese heritage churches that we could set that model for Asian immigrant churches.
Ben Pun: Yeah, I think my hope comes from just seeing what younger leaders are doing. And whether that’s –I mean, our model is kind of this church plant, but also staying connected to the immigrant church or like what Hanley’s doing, or a lot of your guests are doing, is staying inside the Chinese church, but still able to have a thriving ministry towards the next generation. And yeah, it’s a good way to end because I just keep doing what you’re doing because I think we need to hear more stories about especially younger leaders who are doing great things for God, you know, within our context. And yeah, so I, you know, me personally, I think that’s the hope of the Chinese Heritage Church as it grows and if it wants to reach the second, third, fourth generation is the leaders. The younger leaders need to be raised up. They need to be able to do, able to lead, you know, in a way that makes sense to them. they need to be empowered and given the chance to fail in whatever model you’re in. And if we can do that, then I think there’s a bright future. And so, yeah.
Well, thank you guys so much for spending some time with us. Had a lot of fun talking to you guys. And yeah, we hope to hear more about you guys and more of your episodes. For all of you guys watching or listening to this, please check out the Bamboo Pastors podcast and see you later.
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