In this interview, Aaron Lee sits down with Daniel K. Eng to discuss the genesis and offerings of a new program he is leading called, “Asian American Ministry Formation.” This program will focus on leadership formation, ministry models to reach Asian Americans, and contextualization.
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 for SOLA Network. I’m here once again with Dr. Daniel K. Eng. Dr. Daniel, it’s great to talk to you again. I want to know about this Asian American Ministry Formation class that I heard about. Can you tell me more about it?
Daniel K. Eng: Hi, everyone. My name is Daniel. I teach at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. We actually have a campus in San Jose as well. And I’ll be talking about that in a minute.
One of the things I really wanted to do to serve the church is to have a course where people who are serving in ministries that reach Asian Americans will be able to start a journey where they would become lifelong learners and understand what it takes to reach Asian Americans in particular.
A few years into serving as a pastor, I realized that there were some experiences and there’s some situations in my Chinese American church that I was not equipped for in seminary. And this is not this is not to throw shade at seminary, I realized that they’re trying to reach you know, kind of majority of people, right, and so. And my old mentor at Talbot, his name is Ben Shin, some of you might be familiar with him. He called me and said, Hey, I’m going to start this new program in Asian American ministry. Would you be interested in joining us for this? And so I did, actually started a Doctor of Ministry in Asian American Ministry. And it’s through that experience, I learned a lot about myself. The coursework was really helpful in that it really helped me develop as a leader, and helped me to understand about how to reach Asian Americans in my context. I’m not saying I had all the answers. But it really helped me to frame the way I do things, and to give me a strategy for which I can continue to serve others.
And so this summer, I want to offer a master’s level course. It’s an elective at Western seminary. And I’m calling it, ‘Asian American Ministry Formation’. And the reason why I’m calling it ‘Asian American Ministry Formation’ is because I believe a lot of ministry depends on how the leader is shaped. And so I am doing this to serve churches and parachurches that are reaching Asian Americans. So whether that be in the immigrant church, or in these Asian American English speaking models, or even folks who are reaching them on a university campus, or in a mega church, or a church plant, and so on. And it’s not just for pastors. It’s for people who are volunteers, church volunteers, or people who really want to be sharpened in this area. We’re doing it at our San Jose campus, which is our satellite campus. I really thought that the location would be a benefit for us, especially since we do have students in the area who are in this ministry, who are in these ministry contexts. But we’re also offering in Zoom only. And the reason why I’m offering the Zoom only option is because I want to serve people all over the country. Maybe people who wouldn’t be able to come to San Jose for our intensive. And so it will be a one day intensive in San Jose. We’re also having some Zoom meetings, and those who cannot make it to San Jose can join us virtually, on the day that we’re in San Jose.
Aaron Lee: I love how you are making this class uniquely, like from your experience of being Asian American, and also having gone through seminary yourself. But I also love the fact that you understand that Asian America is broad, and there’s a wide range of experiences. And so it’s not like oh, everybody has to go through your spiritual or your ministry formation class because you know exactly what it’s like. But I think it’s more like oh, you can actually understand and be like, Oh yeah, I’ve seen certain things. I know that you can have variances here and there, but generally this is what we need to be aware of. Can you give me a preview of your class?
Daniel K. Eng: Sure. I’m gonna have three parts to it. So the first third, we’re gonna actually going to talk about leadership formation. And that’s really asking ourselves: how has God shaped me as a leader and as a ministry servant? And so I’m going to ask people to learn about their family’s migration history. Now, Asian Americans all share the experience of migration in our family history, whether or not we’re the immigrants, or parents or grandparents and so on. We can all talk about some kind of relocation. And when I say relocation, it’s not just immigration, because some people are also forcibly relocated, they’re refugees. And so and that has shaped us as well. And so I want us to learn, I want us to learn about ourselves. And just to say, hey, how has that shaped you? How was that? How, what was it like growing up hearing stories about your family’s migration or so on? And, you know, what are the values that has instilled in you? You know, most people, even Asian Americans, are not well informed by Asian American history. So we’re going to actually learn some Asian American history book that we’re going to read. And so we’re going to reflect on that, you know, how does your family history fit into Asian American history? And then have people reflect on hey, how does that shape me? You know, how, you know, what are the tendencies I have, as a leader? You know, how do I relate to God, because of my experience, because of my minority experience, because I might have felt different, growing up, or the values of my ancestors, how has that shaped me, and so on. So that’s the first third.
And the second part of the class, we’re actually going to talk about the different models of ministries that reach Asian Americans. So that’s everything from the immigrant church, to when we when you start having, like an English ministry, an English speaking ministry, to we’re actually starting to see a lot of church plants that are Asian American, but English speaking only, we’ve been seeing that for the last decade, we’re seeing more of those, we’re starting to see a lot more instances of where an English ministry is planting a church on the same campus. So we’ll talk about that as well. But also, we’re seeing other kinds of ministries reach Asian Americans. We’re seeing mega churches have a large, contingent contingency of Asian American, we’re actually starting to see that they’re developing language specific ministries. But we’re actually seeing the success of campus ministries as well. They’re specifically discipling Asian Americans, so that we can have an impact on the world. And so what are the different models? You know, what are the pros and cons? You know, what’s the future? What’s the future of the Asian American church? How do we, you know, what might be more effective, less effective, and so on, we’re going to have those discussions.
And then the final third of the class is where we’re actually going to be talking about developing the idea of contextualizing our messages for our Asian American audiences. And so this is actually a very biblical concept. Contextualization is all throughout the Bible. And so, when we have messages, we’re seeing that it’s being shaped, according to the people that it’s reaching.
So I’ll give you an example. I mean, we have four different accounts of the life and the resurrection of Jesus, right? But why are they different? They’re different, because they might be having different purposes. And they’re reaching different audiences. So for example, Matthew is reaching a Jewish audience. Mark is probably reaching a Roman audience. And so what’s going on there? How is that being contextualized? How’s that gospel message being contextualized in a different way? So we’re going to study what the New Testament does. But then more importantly, we’re going to apply those skills to our contexts. So our final project is going to be writing a sermon, or writing a Bible study that’s going to be contextualized for your ministry audience. And that’s just getting started. I’m just like, my Doctor of Ministry program didn’t have all the answers. I’m not saying I’m going to have all the answers. I’m just saying, hey, let’s start this process. Let’s get you on a process to becoming lifelong learners. So that you can be the most effective ministers in the community.
Aaron Lee: That sounds exciting, that sounds extremely relevant. I love how you obviously have a grasp of the landscape and what it looks like but you also know how our past will impact our future and it looks like you’re very forward looking in terms of the students’ ministry and how you want them to serve the church and Lord in this way. I think this is a great place to end.
Do you have any encouragement for ministry formation in general? Let’s say that people are interested in your class, maybe they can’t make it. What would you just say to our audience in terms of, hey, just because you can’t attend my class, you should still look out for your own ministry formation, even those who have already gone to seminary and are serving in ministry, how would you like to encourage them today?
Daniel K. Eng: Well, what I’d like to say is, make sure that you are continuously learning. Learn about yourself, learn about the Bible, and learn about your audience. If you are continuously being a lifelong learner, of the people you’re reaching, of the Scriptures and yourself, you’re going to be a more effective minister. And so continue to reflect. Think about how your tendencies affect the way that you interact with people the way you relate to God. Think about what might be more effective to your people at a certain time you’re ministering to specific people in a specific place at a specific time. And so be a student of them, learn about them. And then of course, the Bible is timeless. You know God’s word for us. And so you can always continuously learn about what’s going on in Scripture so that you can be more effective ministers.
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Graphic by Western Seminary.