Dear English-speaking Pastor,
I commend you for serving in a critical but challenging ministry situation. Serving as the #2 leader in the church is not easy. As famous conductor, Leonard Bernstein, once observed, “The hardest instrument in the orchestra to play is second fiddle.”
But the ministry situation in a multilingual church is even more challenging because of your language and cultural differences with the senior pastor. Add to that your generational differences, theological differences, philosophy of ministry differences, and personality differences, and you have the potential for things not ending well. So let me share with you some advice based upon my experience that may help you in your situation.
Back in the late 1970s, my church—the Boston Chinese Evangelical Church—struggled to survive and to adapt, much like many Asian American churches. The church had little more than 100 attendees at its bilingual service. But providing translation did not seem to slow the exodus of English-speaking young people from the church.
Like many other Chinese churches, BCEC looked to hire an English-speaking minister, thinking it would help. I was hired as Assistant to the Pastor to work under the overseas-born founding pastor. My chief roles were youth director, secretary, and janitor.
Amazingly, after I had worked in that role for only two years, I was already seen from the outside as a success story that needed to be shared. I was asked by Challenger, a monthly newsletter of Chinese Christian Mission, to write an article on how I lasted even two years. Among Chinese American churches, there were many horror stories of how the differences in language and culture and other issues between the Chinese-speaking pastor and English-speaking assistant resulted in conflicts, staff resignations, terminations, and splits.
By the grace of God, I was not only able to survive 2 years but to thrive 42 years at the same church. I served under two different overseas-born Senior Pastors for 23 years. The second pastor recommended to the church that I become the Senior Pastor after his retirement, even though I could not read or write or speak in Chinese. With his support, I was able to serve BCEC as additional 19 years as Senior Pastor with the Lord blessing the church with much fruit.
Recently, I was recently asked to share in a workshop on working under an overseas-bornpastor at the Chinese Heritage Church Collective. I was able to reflect on what I wrote 40 years ago in the Challenger newsletter after I had only served two years in the ministry. I saw that those guiding principles as articulated in the article helped me for over 20 years of serving under an overseas-born senior pastor.
(Editor’s Note: Some changes have been made from the original Challenger article for clarity.)
1. Support the Pastor
As an assistant pastor, you need to honor and respect the senior pastor. He has been gifted and called by God to be the pastor. He is ultimately responsible for the whole church, not just those speaking the mother tongue. Therefore, you need to support him and his position of authority. Keep him informed of your activities and programs. Pray for him regularly. Be loyal to him. Always consult with him on major decisions.
Don’t allow yourself to be placed in competition with the pastor. This is not easy because he will often be seen as pastor of the immigrants, and you, the pastor of the Americanized minstry. Some will compare the progress in the two portions of the congregation.
A wise, older woman in my church gave me a valuable suggestion in this regard. She suggested I make the senior pastor the co-author of any new programs. My intent in making my sole authorship stand out had been to show the congregation I had been working hard, but in doing so doing, I was perhaps, sowing the seeds of jealousy and suspicion. Remember how King Saul began to distrust David when the people said, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” Therefore, be careful not to allow for comparison between you and the senior pastor.
Because of your different backgrounds and perspectives, you may frequently find yourself in disagreement with the senior pastor. Don’t undermine him by criticizing himor his ideas in public or behind his back. Rather, speak with him privately about the matter. At that time, appeal to him respectfully. If you still disagree, then submit yourself to his authority. Don’t start a rebellion. Remember God has given the pastor, the final authority, as well as the responsibility of shepherding the church, not you.
2. Be a Servant
Like many assistant pastors, you may only have been out of seminary a short time. Your classroom days have filled you with aspirations to be a great pastor one day. You are anxious to make an impact for the Lord and to use all the skills and knowledge you have acquired through the years of training.
But for many of you, you have been greatly disappointed. Your duties as the assistant pastor are usually not challenging, but often rather routine and menial. The senior pastor hasn’t entrusted you with any responsibility you feel is meaningful. Instead, he is giving you a lot of jobs you didn’t think were included in your job description—things like answering routine correspondence, typing and printing the worship program, making repairs around the church, and so on.
Well, don’t go on strike. Instead, take a servant’s attitude. Be willing to do anything to help the ministry of the church. Sure, it seems you are not being used effectively. Sure, it seems you are being looked down upon because of your youth and inexperience. But, be faithful in those little things you were asked to do. Soon you will gain respect and trust through your reliable service and humble attitude. The pastor will confer on you more important responsibilities, and you will then be able to delegate some jobs to others. As 1 Timothy 4:12 says, “Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity, show yourself an example to those who believe.”
3. Be Patient
Like most young assistant pastors, your seminary education is still fresh in your mind. Your church may seem to be in the dark ages compared to the churches you’ve learned about in seminary. So, you want to aggressively seek change. But in many cases, your overseas-born pastor and the church board (usually immigrant-dominated) do not agree with your proposals and do not seem open to new ways and methods. You really feel frustrated. As the frustration builds up, many assistant pastors leave for other churches, or start a separate church.
My advice is to be patient. This may seem like a suggestion to just accept things the way they are, but it is not. You should continue to work for change that you feel improve the ministry of the church. But if the changes do not come initially, do not rebel or give up. Trust God that if He wants it come to pass, He will ultimately do it in his time. We need to continue our efforts and to pray. We are not called to be successful, but to be faithful.
Remember, again, the personality differences between you and the overseas-born. Immigrants are often more passive than active and more evolutionary than revolutionary. So don’t allow your impatience to destroy the unity of the church.
One thing that has helped me through some discouraging and frustrating times is having a deep burden for my present ministry. Being born and reared in the Boston area, I am very much concerned for the many Chinese here who do not know Christ. Being committed to the ministry of my church has helped me endure times of disappointment and discouragement. I have had inquiries about my interest in some attractive positions in churches elsewhere, away from my present, often frustrating situation. But, I patiently stay on, knowing I am where God wants me to be right now. I suppose it is like a marriage where divorce is not an option. You stay on and make the relationship work.
Adding One More Principle after Four Decades of Ministry
I feel what I wrote in Challenger 40 years ago—support the Pastor, be a Servant, and be patient—is still sound advice today for English-speaking ministers in an Asian American church.
When I wrote the original article in the 80s, pastors in general in Asian churches were not seen as professionals and English-speaking pastors were still a new unproven experiment. So having a servant attitude was even more critical then.
Today I would an additional piece of advice that the Lord has taught me over the years – Pray for change—in yourself, in your senior pastor, and in your church. My previous advice focused on what we can do, but in prayer, we are focused on what God can do.
I must admit through much of my ministry I only gave a token emphasis on prayer. But once I became the senior pastor, I was overwhelmed with the challenge of shepherding a multilingual church. It made me turn to God for help.
In John 17, shortly before Jesus was crucified for our sins, He, the Head of the Church, prayed for the Church, specifically for unity in the Church. Typically, I was praying for the Lord to help me in my sermon or for the deacons to approve my proposal. But unlike Jesus, praying for unity was not a priority for me.
Unity in the Church is very important to Jesus, and it should be us. The acronym TEAM–Together Everyone Achieves More–is especially relevant for diverse Asian American churches to keep in mind. So I learned to personally pray regularly for unity in my church and to emphasize it to my congregation.
Every ministry situation is different. But I hope my advice from my experience can still help you in your specific situation.
May the Lord bless you to minister with your OBC senior pastor in unity as you support him, as you serve with humility, and as you wait upon the Lord in practice and in prayer.
Your brother in Christ,
Steven Chin
Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series called Letters to a Young English Pastor, which features open letters to a new English-speaking pastor at a multilingual Asian church in North America.
You can read the previous installment here: It’s Not You, It’s Them! Letters To a Young Pastor at a Multilingual Church