At our upcoming AALC conference later in April, we will be giving away copies of Writing a Letter to the Asian American Church. This book wouldn’t have been made possible without Pastor Steve Chang of Living Hope Community Church (SOLA Council Chairman) and Aaron Lee (SOLA Editorial Curator). Aaron and Steve discuss the story behind how the book idea began, and how it all came together.
You can watch the interview below, on our YouTube page, or listen to it on podcasts.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Aaron Lee: Hi, everyone, this is Aaron from SOLA Network. I am here with Pastor Steve S. Chang.
Pastor Steve, I’m introducing you as Pastor Steve S. Chang, because that’s what we have here. This is our book, A Letter to the Asian American Church. This is a proof copy, so it’s not yet finalized. But this is what it’s going to be.
Pastor Steve, before we start talking about this, though, can you introduce yourself? Tell me about your ministry. And tell me how we got to this part where we’re writing a book all of a sudden.
Steve S. Chang: It’s amazing, isn’t it? Right now I’m the senior pastor of Living Hope Community Church, which is in Brea, California, I’ve been here 30 years, and most likely, this will be my last year. So I’m transitioning out so that I can do some other work. And I’m also on the leadership of SOLA Network. And we exist to influence the emerging generation, especially of Asian Americans with the gospel of Jesus Christ. SOLA Network has been around for a little over 10 years. And Aaron, you’ve been here for a large part of that time.
How do we get to this book? I’ve been thinking about having a collaborative book, especially with our council members, and a few others, because a lot of them have great thoughts and have processed a lot of information, contextualizing ministry for the Asian Americans, whether it be the independent church or within the immigrant church. But oftentimes those thoughts just remained with them. And Asian Americans are a little bit more hesitant about putting them in writing. They feel like they need to perfect it, or they don’t really have anything to contribute, etc. So I’ve always been kind of thinking about that.
But it’s actually you, when you brought up the idea of why don’t we do something in writing, in conjunction with the conference that is coming up, right? Writing the next chapter of the Asian American ministry, or something like that. And I thought, well, this will be the perfect timing to work on this book. And there’s a natural deadline that we have to meet and we all work better with deadlines. And so got that project started about a year ago, I think something like that.
Aaron Lee: I do remember that conversation. SOLA, we’ve been publishing [articles] for a while, right? But I want to go kind of even further back from that conversation. It’s because you are open to that idea of a book, when I mentioned it. So I want to go yeah, what made like, it sounds like things are already turning your head even before I mentioned that.
Steve S. Chang: Yes, yes.
Aaron Lee: That’s what I want to hear. I want to hear it.
Steve S. Chang: I think it’s when I’ve had conversations. When we’ve published articles. I remember having a conversation with Enoch Liao. When he talked to me, I think it was just over a phone call of how the Chinese heritage church is more diverse than almost all the multi ethnic churches out there because of linguistic, political, generational gaps and the such.
And I thought, That’s a brilliant thought, you know, is that in writing anywhere? And it’s not as far as I know, or even if it is, it’s hidden away somewhere in an academic journal. And he’s to tell people like, you know, you should put that in writing so that others will read it and, and free them up in some ways.
Aaron Lee: You told Enoch he should do it.
Steve S. Chang: Yeah. Or someone like Owen, who talked about how he used to feel as if ministering in an Asian American context is JV, and multi ethnic is varsity. He wrote an article about that in SOLA. And he will talk about it.
But it’s when people put their writings in a book that it remains a little bit more permanent, it gets quoted and it almost gives people permission. Oh, if looking at the immigrant Church, the Chinese heritage immigrant church is multi ethnic, and it’s written in a chapter in a book by this person, I don’t know who Enoch Liao is, then there must be something to it. And I felt like those things should be put in writing. And so yeah, I’ve been thinking about it.
Aaron Lee: Well, I’m very happy that we were able to talk about it and now we have a book ready to go. I want to hear kind of behind the scenes. How was it to gather everybody together. To get them to actually do their writing. I want to know how you came about making this book.
Steve S. Chang: I think it helped that I am friends with almost all the authors, whether it be working with them in SOLA Council or just outside of just my friendship or the editors knowing them through SOLA.
And because I’ve known them, I’ve interacted with them. Many of them have spoken at this church. I’ve known some of the things that they’re really good at, some of the thoughts, some of the things that they’ve processed. And so when I proposed the book idea to the SOLA Council, they were all agreeable to it.
But I’ll be honest with you, I did not think all of them would write. I thought that people would be too busy, they would be hesitant. They wouldn’t be sure what they could contribute. What I was pleasantly surprised by is that all of them said, Yes. They’d be willing. And they ultimately met the deadline, which was I only gave them like, two months to write.
Aaron Lee: Yeah. Part of that was me too. Part of that was me saying, hey, we need to get on this right now.
Steve S. Chang: Right. But you know, I brainstormed a lot of ideas, and we would dialogue. I dialogued with each individual author, as to what I thought they were good at, what was on their heart and such. And it was amazing. What came out was better than I thought. To be honest with you.
Aaron Lee: I agree. Shows what we think about. [laughing]
Steve S. Chang: Yeah. And people wrote from their own personalities, people wrote from what they’re passionate about.
They’re a few of the contributors, you know, they’re already published people, they have their own books and such, they’re very smooth. Others, this is the first thing that they’ll ever, and possibly the last thing that they’ll ever publish. But I think they’re all great thinkers and practitioners, and I’m so grateful that we have them in writing.
Aaron Lee: Yeah. It’s a broad scope of people involved here. You’re making phone calls, you’re emailing. What did you learn from that entire process of wrangling people together?
Steve S. Chang: I think that all these leaders God has used them, God has worked in and through them. God has blessed others through their ministries. And for different reasons, they under-appreciate, undersell the way that God has used them, and the voice that God has given to them.
And I think one of the things that I’ve learned just personally, is that someone else has to come along and give them permission, and encouragement to say, hey, what you say matters. Your voice is important, and not just in a, like a, I don’t know, charitable way. But to say that, your voice, your thoughts, your conclusions, the way that you have concluded how you’re going to approach that is helpful for others. And I think almost every person needed someone else to come along and say, we need that in writing we need for that to be passed down to others.
And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve learned, and I am now you know, as I meet other leaders, I’m looking at them and thinking, what did they have to contribute? That they may not unless someone else comes along and encourages them to do so.
And I think, by the way Aaron, it’s not for their sake. But as you and I know that the needs of the emerging generation of Asian American is huge. And because we don’t have mentors who are necessarily speaking into that context, on a regular basis on an authoritative basis, we need the elders of this generation to speak. And so yeah, it’s not so that they can express their thoughts, but rather the generation that’s coming. We need to hear those thoughts.
Aaron Lee: Yeah. It’s very, in one sense, it’s forward thinking of you right? Because you’re saying hey, we need to put this in writing for the future generations to read, right? But also, in a sense, you’re preserving what happened in the past and taking all of these people, all of their histories, their backgrounds, their knowledge, accumulated knowledge, right? You’re saying, hey, let’s look at that and put it together in here. Am I correct?
Steve S. Chang: And, you know, I’ll give you an example of what you’re talking about. You know, when we talk about church models, we talk about, you know, townhouse model and things like that, you know, a house within a house type of room to rent type of models.
And we got that from Hoover Wong, okay, one of the pioneer Chinese American pastors, scholars in the past. But his thoughts have been put on paper to pass down. Now Ben Shin, teaches that in his class, etc. And so that has formed, informed us and framed how we do a lot of ministries. And so that which was done decades ago. And I believe some of the voices in this book will inform, will not only preserve what’s been done, but inform those going forward. And so, yeah, not only past but forward. Yes, I agree.
Aaron Lee: After having kind of the finished product in your hands, what is your hope for this book? And then maybe even outside of this book… What do you want to see the book do? And then how do you want to see the book impact people, the church?
Steve S. Chang: You know, for me, as a Korean American Pastor, I remember 20, 30 years ago, trying to figure out what the next generation, the 1.5 second generation Korean Americans are supposed to do, how we’re supposed to act, how we’re supposed to do church. And because there were no mentors above us, I read books by others, and by non Koreans, and so like, Pursuing the Pearl, by Ken Fong. Or later on, Growing Healthy Asian American Churches, by Peter Cha, who edited that work. And other works, there weren’t that many.
But that helped disciple me, and how I need to think. And sometimes it wasn’t in writing, I sought those people out, like Cory Ishida. And tried to figure out how they approach church and ministry, how they intuitively contextualize. And I’m hoping and thinking and I fully expect that younger leaders and current existing leaders also will be mentored or will be helped by this book.
They can’t, you know, we’re not all going to be able to sit with a lot of these leaders, like a Hanley Liu. But now that they’ve read Hanley Liu, and Hanley talks about how we need to find our own voices. And he references Daniel Wong, and Matthew Kim and others. And I think that will encourage a lot of the Asian American preachers and oh I can contextualize, I can look into my culture, my family, and what matters to me. And I don’t have to hide it all the time. And I can bring it out, because that’s what our people are going through also. So yeah, we’re hoping that this will be a blessing to help them to help church leaders to better disciple their people in the gospel, but in a contextualized manner.
Aaron Lee: I want to go off script first. Was there any hesitation in terms of the whole project, maybe starting it, maybe releasing the book, maybe even putting your words down on paper? Did you feel any hesitation? Were you scared at all?
Because right now, I feel like we’re projecting the sense like, yeah, you know, this is a great project, which I do believe in too. But I want to know, like, were there any doubts that you went through? You know, it’s very, I mean, I said to myself, we’re making a statement here. It’s a bold statement, right? How did you feel?
Steve S. Chang: Well, that’s a great question, because to say something about the Asian American church… Because that in itself is a little bit controversial. Because there will be some, a lot of people who will say, Well, if you’re all speaking English, and you’re in America, why are you qualifying it racially, or culturally in that way? Why can’t you just be a church? That maybe happens to a lot of Asian Americans per se. And when you do that, are you not excluding others or setting yourself apart?
I think there may have been more of a hesitation if it was three or four years ago. But I think what’s happened is that after George Floyd, after the Atlanta spa shooting, there has been almost an awakening among the culturally diverse Asian American collective. That instead of being ashamed of our heritage, our culture, our race, our background, we need to acknowledge it at least. It’s not the only thing that’s important to us. But it’s still a big part of who we are.
And when we are discipling people, when we are ministering to people, we need to take that into consideration. And so I think because this project happened in 2023, 2024, that collective mindset is a little bit more fresh. There’s been like, kind of like a mark in time, perhaps it was the Atlanta spa shooting, and the AAPI hate and the pandemic and all that. There’s been more of an awareness that all of our Asian American-ness, and that we need to acknowledge it and we need to address it. We’re not all going to come up with the same conclusion, we’re not all going to say we need to go to an Asian American church, or we need to identify ourselves in that way as a church. But at least address some of that.
And so I think if it was in the past, I might have been more hesitant. And I think it would have been also the same for some of our authors who might have been more hesitant to write about it. And I think like Aaron Chung, when he writes about the theology of the Exilic Community, he talks about how, in the past, he would try so hard to be culturally neutral. But something flipped. And now he addresses it more.
Yeah, if there was a hesitancy, it’ll be more like, Hey, can we get the right people to edit it? Can we get people to turn in their chapters on time, things of that nature, but it’s more logistics. But the more I did it, and when I started getting the chapters, when I got the first chapter in early by Aaron Chung, this is why we’re doing this. As I read that, this is why. Did you feel that too?
Aaron Lee: As the chapters came in, Yes. I was like, Okay. I think that we actually have something to say here. I think that this is actually good, that we’re gonna say it. Yes.
And yeah, to be fair, you know, yeah, I was, I was a little bit like, when just talking about the project project, I was anxious. You know, I was anxious throughout the whole thing. I’m still a little bit anxious right now, you know, because it’s not yet out in the world.
But I’m just having these proofs in hand, I feel a lot better. I feel confident that God was placing us down this path to do it. I think, yeah, that might be a good place to end. Pastor Steve, how do you feel now knowing that it’s going to be out there? I mean, you know, we already have the proof here. We already have plans to get it out there in the world.
Aaron Lee: How do you feel knowing that… Maybe the heart and you know, that actual work is done? Of course, we need to get it out now. But yeah, how do you feel having accomplished this really?
Steve S. Chang: Well, someone you know, some may say that the goal of a book is to sell as many copies to get it into the hands of as many possible. And if God does that, that’s fine. That’s great. But let’s say, you know, we give it out at the conference and then etc. And it just fizzles. Okay, that people, you know, it just doesn’t really take off. People don’t quote it. Well, that was a nice little thing that you guys did that type of a thing.
And the way that I see it is, is this something that God wanted us to do? And I think yes. And we’re responsible to be good and faithful. And that’s all. And I believe that each of the contributors, led by the Holy Spirit wrote, and everyone in the process did their, what they were supposed to do. And if God chooses to multiply that, that’s fine. But if not, that’s fine, too. We are faithful to it. And all of us who wrote we had to process the information, our thoughts, our hearts, our souls. And so it helped us to grow. And so if that’s all that happens, it was a, like a sanctification process for these leaders… I say that’s good enough.
Aaron Lee: That’s awesome. Pastor Steve, I’m very proud of the book, and I’m happy to have worked together with you on it. Thank you for the opportunity, and thanks for taking the time to do this interview.
Steve S. Chang: All right. Thank you, Aaron.
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