In this interview, Daniel K. Eng chats with Pastor Steven Siu of Chinese Evangelical Church of San Diego about exploring the call into vocational ministry. Along with personal stories as well as stories of those at his church, Pastor Steven highlights the Render West Coast conference coming up in July. This conference is for those who are contemplating the potential of entering into full-time ministry, seeking to affirm God’s calling for full-time ministry, or are already attending seminary. Read or listen on to learn more.
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.
Daniel K. Eng: Well, hello, everyone. It’s Daniel here with the Solo Network. And here I am with Pastor Steven Siu, of Chinese Evangelical Church of San Diego, can you introduce yourself a bit? Tell us about yourself?
Steven Siu: Yeah, I’m a second or third generation Chinese American, depending on how you count it. Yeah, I grew up in the Bay Area. I lived in LA for a few years and settled down in San Diego, where God called me into full time ministry. And I stayed at the church that I was called in and have been a minister there for 24 years and 20 years as a senior pastor. So that’s in brief, my ministry journey, there.
Daniel K. Eng: Wow, that’s a long time. I’m encouraged that you’ve lasted that long, especially for an English speaking pastor, we always hear stories about how they don’t last long. So I’m grateful. And I’m encouraged to hear about your longevity. Today, we’re gonna be talking about encouraging people towards vocational ministry. And so, so I just want to ask you, Hey, what have you observed about Asian Americans aspiring to vocational ministry, maybe in your experience in your circles?
Steven Siu: Yeah, I think that’s a really interesting question. So thanks for asking that Daniel. As I think through other vocational ministers that I know, I would say, I’ve only met a handful that felt that they were aspiring to be a minister, since they were, you know, maybe in grade school. Most of the people that I’ve met, were called later in life, maybe in college or, or after that time. I think it’s a blessing that there are individuals who have been aspiring to be a minister since a youth, kind of like Samuel.
But I do believe that for the vast majority of Asian American ministers, they receive a call later in life to serve God, kind of like Elisha did. He was working out in the field, and then all of a sudden Elijah pops up, you know, calls him and he starts following.
I want to maybe just take a moment to share about some of the ministers at my church CEC and how they were called to ministry. One of them was part of our college leadership, he had been serving for a number of years, and an advisor came up to him and said, “Hey, you should consider full time ministry, I think you have the gifts for it.” And it was something that he never thought of–full time ministry? And so he started exploring it. And then he sensed God’s call to ministry, stayed at a local seminary, and he’s been serving in our church for about 10 years or so.
Another person at a church, another pastor, he was studying for graduate school, and didn’t make it into the graduate school he wanted to. So he thought, “hey, maybe I’ll take some time, go to go get an MDiv or masters of theology just to just to grow spiritually.” And in that very process, God called him into ministry, and he ended up serving in our church, and he’s been there…I want to say it’s 20 years now. And so this is a neat way that God called him. Another individual at our church heard it the old fashioned way. He heard that there’s a great need in the harvest field, and there are very few workers. So he accepted that call and said, “I’m going”, and we’re about to send him off this year to go into missions, and he’s been serving as a pastor at a church for 10 years.
Finally, it might be a person like myself, where I had been involved in secular work for about 10 years, kind of did most of what I wanted to do, and yet still didn’t really feel satisfied. And that’s when I started to reflect upon just the things I really loved in life, and I had always been serving a church. And so I explored that and God called me to ministry. And, and so I think God calls people in ministry in a lot of different ways here.
Daniel K. Eng: It sounds like there’s different journeys for people. Like sometimes it’s, it’s like a second career. Sometimes it’s something that they were aspiring to when they’re younger, and sometimes they have like an epiphany or some kind of like, maybe a, maybe not maybe not audible but they hear from God. But then sometimes they just say, “hey, they say either, there’s a need, I want to volunteer for that”. And all of them seem to be different ways to get there.
Steven Siu: Yeah, and I think, I think especially when I think through the ministers at my church, they came through these different avenues and yet they’ve been faithful to the task, and they’ve lasted a long time. So, so, the calling can be from different avenues that maybe for some of the listeners today, maybe there’s even another avenue that’s drawing you into the ministry. And so the calling is not the same. But I think there’s aspects of the call, both internal and external, that are very, very similar. So I think those things are important, too.
Daniel K. Eng: You mentioned earlier, you don’t know that many people who aspire to full time vocational ministry, why do you think that is, especially in your circles, and you’re in a Chinese American church, but you’ve also seen other Asian Americans. You’ve also seen other churches. Why do you think people don’t consider vocational ministry?
Steven Siu: Yeah, thanks for asking that. I think. I don’t think the answer is simple; it is pretty complex. I believe sometimes we may, because we study hard. You know, as Asians, we work hard at school. Maybe we have this idea that, “hey, maybe I’ll be a Daniel at my workplace one day, or maybe I’ll be a Joseph at my workplace where I have this great impact. And I’ll use these gifts, and then I’ll be a witness that way.” And so I think, because of that type of history, we might not be, you know, full time ministry is just not on our radars.
I think others might be, another reason might be, our parents do not encourage it. I don’t see very many parents saying, hey, I want you to go into full time ministry, you will please my heart if you went into full time ministry. We just don’t hear that. I mean, and so I think that’s part of it.
I think another reason is churches themselves. So it’s our fault. I think Dr. Glen Scorgie is correct when he says, “healthy churches produce ministers”. When you see a ministry that is successful, when you see people enjoying ministry, I mean, it’s kind of hard to not say, “hey, I want to do that too”. Right? So I think because churches are broken, then sometimes that might discourage people from going to ministry. So I think there’s all these different reasons.
But I will say on the flip side, there’s a tremendous joy to ministry. I was just reflecting upon this week, I was visiting, just a grandmother, and it was just like, “Man, that was, that was great!” You know, just to be with her, pray for her, share communion with her. You know, it’s just so encouraging. So I think there’s these little joys of ministry that maybe we don’t talk about enough, but they really make ministry worthwhile. And of course, there is the great gift at the end that God has for those who give their lives over to him.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah, you know, I, there’s a lot of those victories and blessings that you mentioned. And you’re right, I think we need to talk about those more, and talk about them at home, talk about them at church, and just say, Hey, this is what God’s doing. And this is where we get a chance to be part of that. It’s also the internal rewards that you mentioned.
Steven Siu: Yeah, exactly. Now I think for some of you, you guys might be thinking, “Well, how do I know if God is calling me?” Because the need is still there. I mean, Jesus said, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And so if you have that question, if you don’t mind, Daniel I’ll lead into…there is a conference coming up where you can process this call, and it’s called ‘Render’. And I’ll just read out to you what we wrote on our website for those of you who are contemplating or thinking about whether God may be calling you or not. ‘Render’ is for those who are contemplating the potential of entering into full time ministry, seeking to affirm God’s call for full time ministry, or are attending seminary. Our hope is that through the mentoring, small groups, workshops, and main sessions, Render will provide greater clarity into God’s call for life and full time ministry, and the potential next steps are those who are called. And so there’s this conference coming up pretty soon that I hope that all of you might be more interested in.
Daniel K. Eng: Can you tell me a little bit more about Render, you know, Whose idea was this? You know, what, what have you seen before?
Steven Siu: Yeah, thanks for asking. So this is Render West Coast. And it’s based on this conference called Render that’s in Houston that’s been going on among the partnership of Asian American Christians in Texas. And so they run this conference every three years for those who are interested in ministry, and I’ve had a chance to speak there and seen people confirmed in the call to ministry through Render.
Around last year, a number of us noticed that there seems to be an interest in people going to ministry. But there’s nothing to really address that here on the west coast. So we thought, hey, you know, we’ve seen Render in Houston, we know it is successful, why don’t we do something like that here on the west coast. So a number of us got together to say, hey, let’s start planning this. And I’ll read off the list of guys here. So I’m going to just call out to them. There’s been Ben Pun, Clarence Chiu, Jimmy Lee, Jon Mann, Louis Kiang, Terrance Shay, Tim Lo, and myself. So we’re pastors that are up in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego. And we thought, hey, let’s kind of put together this conference. And if you want, if you’d like, I can tell you a little bit more about it.
Daniel K. Eng: Oh, so tell me. You were talking, talking a bit about what kind of conference this is…this doesn’t seem like the average conference, it seems pretty, it’s pretty, it’s pretty specific. And you tell me more about the particularity of this? Like who should be going to this?
Steven Siu: So I think anybody who is contemplating, “is God calling me potentially into full time ministry?” Or maybe you’re just thinking, “hey, I’m interested. I don’t sense a call yet, but just want to find out more about what ministry is kind of like”. Or maybe you’re a little bit further along, and you just want that final kick, just, I just need this final confirmation from God. “I’m almost ready, but I just needed just a little bit more”. And you know, this is the place. And the reason why is that we have this great speaker named Joey Chen, who’s been a seasoned minister for many years from Sunset Church. He’s also been a speaker with The Gospel Coalition, I think in a regional conference up in SF. And he will be our main speaker. And after he speaks (he’ll speak in three sessions), we’ll have small groups, where you can kind of digest the message and think about it and process it through your small group, to see how God is potentially leading you.
We also have a place where you can sign up for personal mentoring. So you’ll have a seasoned pastor who can speak with you. And finally, we’ll have some workshops where you can hear more about specific areas. So what about balancing family life and ministry? What happens if I work with an overseas pastor? You know, what is that kind of like? So I think all these things, hopefully will help an individual who’s thinking about ministry to know whether God’s calling them or not. If God is calling you what will be pretty neat, I believe we have at least one and hopefully two or three seminaries who will be there. So you can talk to a representative there, find out more and just maybe, maybe take the next steps there. So I think all of this is set up to help anybody who has any kind of interest in ministry, to kind of maybe take the next steps. It might be through this too, I don’t want to scare you, that God is saying, “Hey, you’re not for ministry, right?” So this doesn’t mean if you go to a conference, you’re going to be a minister. So that’s not the intent. But hopefully this will help you in your journey to know the answer to that question.
Daniel K. Eng: You said this is later this year, can you give us some dates, time and place?
Steven Siu: Sure, the conference will start on Friday, July 26, at 9AM. And it will end the next day, Saturday, July 27 at 5PM. It will be held at my church, Chinese Evangelical Church of San Diego. I know hotels are expensive in San Diego. So my church is going to make a couple of our buildings available for you to stay overnight. So there’s no charge with that. The charge that we do have is for registration. It’s $90. If you register before May 27th, and $110 afterwards. And, the registration fee includes lunch and dinner on Friday, and also lunch on Saturday. So it’s a pretty good deal. If you want to find out more go to renderwestcoast.com. That’s renderwestcoast.com.
Daniel K. Eng: Thank you, Pastor Steven. What about people who say, “hey, you know, I’m thinking about full time ministry and thinking about pastoral ministry or the mission field. But, you know, I can’t make it to Render.” How would you encourage this person? What would you say that they could do?
Steven Siu: Yeah, I think that’s a great question to really work through. I would say one, do talk to the pastor at your church, that you know, the pastor of the church can really help guide you through things and I think all of us are, as pastors are excited when people are thinking about going to ministry. I mean, you could be potentially two books. One is, Am I Called, by Dave Harvey. And the other one is, Discerning Your Call to Ministry, by Jason Allen. Both these are great books to help you process, whether God is calling you into ministry or not.
If your church does have internships, or one of the things you can do is, you know, this is probably a little bit more if you’re a college student, but you can probably ask your pastor, “Hey, would you be able to open an internship, you know, paid or not paid during the summer? Let me try out ministry to kind of see what it’s like.” And you know, it, you know, we did it at our church. And, you know, two people went into ministry from that. So it’s kind of pretty neat.
Daniel K. Eng: Well, thank you, Pastor Steven, for your time, it’s been really good to hear from you and just chat about what it means to aspire or think about vocational ministry. You know, you know, just as we close, what is one thing that you would how, what is one thing that you would say, to encourage somebody, as they’re thinking about full time ministry, and not just not just in terms of what to do, but how would you be an encouragement to them?
Steven Siu: Yeah, so maybe I can share a little bit more about myself here. Because I worked in secular work for about 10 years before going to ministry. And I think there’s always, you’re always torn in secular work between what’s best for the company or for your boss and what’s best for God. It’s not always hard to tease those two apart and kind of figure out how you can do each the best, and I found that one of the great joys of full time ministry is that you’re constantly serving the audience of one who is God. So each morning, I don’t wake up dreading going to “work”. But there’s a joy knowing that each and every day, I am going to serve God. And so there’s nothing that pulls me to one side or another. It’s just here’s another day to serve God.
And I think the beauty of ministry is, “It’s, it’s not about us.” God can use a donkey, right? You know it’s really kind of like you get the front row seats of watching God at work. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a game before. But there’s a big difference, between sitting at the top row, and sitting in the front row of a basketball game. And that’s what it’s kind of like, and when you see God working, and you see that, you know, he’s doing this maybe through what you’re saying, through the things you’re doing, or, you know, nothing that you’re doing at all, it’s just amazing. And so I think there’s a sense where we do get a chance to see God, experience Him in a greater way than I ever did in secular work. So I’m always thankful for that.
For those who are wondering, is ministry hard? It is, it’s not easy. But are the blessings worth it? Absolutely. Much more so than I can ever say. And so, I think that’s why you’re doing what your doing, and I’m doing what I’m doing. Because, you know, it is a blessing, you know? And so I hope you get a chance to explore that and join us at Render West Coast and Lord willing, maybe he’ll call you into ministry, maybe not, but hopefully you’ll get that answer that you’re seeking.
Daniel K. Eng: Thank you, Pastor Steven. Again, the conference is called the render west coast. Pastor Steven Siu of Chinese Evangelical Church of San Diego. Thanks a lot.
Steven Siu: Okay, thanks Daniel.