wfn.org | [ENS] Asiamerica Ministries grow with new congregations,

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

Daybook, from Episcopal News Service
July 21, 2005 -- Thursday Thesis: Meeting People of Purpose

Asiamerica Ministries grow with new congregations, young leaders

By Pat McCaughan

[ENS, Los Angeles] More than 200 people -- including about 30 youth and
young adults -- who participated in this year's Episcopal Asiamerica
Ministries (EAM) consultation celebrated the startup of congregations,
the
appointment of a youth chaplain, and a rise in the number of seminarians
and
ordained leaders, said the Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, national church
missioner for Asian ministries.

"We had record attendance at EAM this year and greater participation
from
the various ethnic convocations including Chinese, Filipino, Korean,
Japanese and Southeast Asian. The theme 'Equipping the Saints: Sharing
our
Stories, Discovering our Voice and Using our Gifts' was lived out by the
participants in plenary meetings and in small groups," he said. The
consultation was held June 30-July 4 in Seattle.

Vergara also celebrated his one-year anniversary, noting he'd been named
missioner just prior to last year's consultation in San Francisco. He
concluded his state of EAM address by serenading the group with his own
version of the 1970s James Taylor tune "You've Got a Friend." Assuring
participants that the Church Center staff cares about them, Vergara
received
a standing ovation for singing "You Just Call 815."

"I'm happy to report that the state of EAM is very good," said Vergara,
noting that a day prior to the consultation, pre-assembly meetings were
held
by the newly-organized Episcopal Asiamerican Clergy Collegium (EACC) and
the
EAM Women's Convocation. The first EACC training program is an online
course
on "Asiamerican Ministry and Theology in the Episcopal Church", October
3-November 20, 2005 in partnership with the Church Divinity School of
the
Pacific in Berkeley, California, he said. Development of an Asian
American
Ministry and Theology Center is also underway.

The new congregations included: a Taiwanese congregation at St. Thomas,
Hacienda Heights, in the Diocese of Los Angeles; a 600-member Hmong
congregation at Church of the Holy Apostles, St. Paul, Minnesota; two
Filipino congregations in the Diocese of Nevada and a
Filipino-Bangladesh
congregation in the Diocese of Long Island. Vergara said congregational
development partnerships with the dioceses of San Diego and Oregon are
also
underway.

Local ministries featured

Consultation workshops on anti-racism training, stewardship, telling
faith
stories and church planting were so energizing that the Rev. Jerry
Shigaki,
multicultural missioner for the Washington-state Diocese of Olympia and
a
consultation organizer, now hopes to start a new Filipino congregation.

"We have about 70,000 Filipino residents in Pierce, King and Snohomish
counties, many immigrants, as well as second and third generation and
about
75 percent of the seafarers here in Seattle are Filipino," he said.
"They
work 12 hours a day on the boat and are out at sea for three months at a
time."

Noting that Seattle's Seaman's Center might serve as a base of
operation,
"we hope to develop a ministry from the Seaman's center and go out into
the
community to establish bridges. We hope to provide dinners and other
services and we'd love to celebrate the Eucharist at the center."

A July 4 celebration honoring the World War II experience of Japanese
Americans confined to interments camps and their contributions since the
war
was especially meaningful, Shigaki said.

Peter Ng, program director for Church of Our Saviour in New York City's
Chinatown and a consultant for Asian Affairs for Anglican Global
Relations,
said more than 20 dioceses participated in the consultation including a
senior pastor from Vietnam.

"Last year, the theme was new beginnings. This year, we tried to help
participants identify new leadership among their own congregations. A
set of
story cards which help us share our faith story were given to each
congregation to implement at the local level."

Ng, who describes his congregation of about 140 families as a stepping
stone
for newly arrived immigrants, said he relies heavily on bilingual
resources
available through the national church.

"They just completed publishing a fully bilingual Chinese Book of Common
Prayer that's very helpful for us," he said. The prayer book has also
been
made available in Korean and Japanese, and prayer books in Vietnamese
and
Hmong languages are being developed.

Sharing stories

The Rev. Dr. Fran Toy, the first Asian American woman ordained in the
Episcopal Church in the United States, said a highlight of the
consultation
was sharing her own faith story.

"After last year's consultation, people said they wanted tools for
leadership, something to take back to grow congregations. So we came up
with
the theme equipping the saints and we gave them, we hope very tangible
tools
to take back and try in their local congregations," said Toy, who is
retired
from parish work and serves as EAM Council President.

"I told them that most of my life has been spent as a layperson," said
Toy,
also a retired schoolteacher. "Ninety-nine percent of the church is lay
people so I talked about growing and resourcing our churches and about
human
beings as resources."

She recalled surprise while attending church one Sunday 30 years ago
when
the priest, after concluding his sermon, stepped down from the pulpit
and
handed each member of the congregation a crisp one-dollar bill.

"He said, 'I want you to use some of your God-given gifts to multiply
this
dollar,'" she recalled. Toy said she recognizing baking as one of her
gifts
and purchased a box of angel food cake mix, and a three-ounce bar of
Philadelphia cream cheese. She baked a cake with mocha icing and raffled
it
off for a quarter a ticket. "I was able to multiply that dollar 15 times
over," she said. "Another woman's gift was knitting. She took the
dollar,
bought yarn and raffled off what she made."

Learning to recognize those and other gifts provided the impetus for her
to
eventually seek ordination, Toy said

Youth, young adults among leaders

EAM also continues to seek ways to support youth and young adults and
develop leadership, said the Rev. Richard Helmer, 31, vicar of Christ
Church
Sei-Ko-Kai in San Francisco, who was appointed chaplain to the youth
group,
a newly designated position.

"At this point, I'm serving as a pastoral care mentor of the group and
working with Kathryn Nishibayashi, who serves on the EAM council and has
been representing the young adults along with Brian Pahed," said Helmer.

He added that EAM experienced record-setting attendance among youth as
well.
"A lot of younger people are stepping into leadership positions across
the
country and in EAM and that's wonderful to see. More young people are
more
involved in their ethnic convocations and we spent time in the Diocese
of
Olympia seeing how the young adult ministries there are taking root.

"It was most evident with Holy Family of Jesus in Tacoma, Washington, a
Cambodian community who does shared work with a local evangelical
church.
They have a youth service once a week on Friday evenings and they do a
lot
of music and have testimonies and pray together and support each other.
They
can fill up that church with young people."

For Nishibayashi, 22, a member of St. Mary's Church in Los Angeles,
being
elected a co-convener of the youth Japanese convocation was a great
honor.

"I feel like I've truly begun to carve out my own niche in the EAM
community
and hopefully I will be able to make some kind of difference," said
Nishibayashi.

"It's always nice to reconnect with old friends and also make new
friends of
all ages," she said. "I returned from EAM energized. I feel a sense of
renewal of faith after each consultation."

Helmer agreed. "It's a really an exciting time to be in EAM right now.
Fred's leadership has brought a fresh perspective," he said.

"There's a renewed energy to grow our churches and a recognition that
Asian
American ministry is one of the cutting edges of church growth in the
future
of this country. I have every reason to expect we'll be on the forefront
of
new things in the Episcopal Church in years to come."

-- The Rev. Patricia McCaughan is senior correspondent for the Episcopal
News Service and associate rector of St. Mary's Church in Laguna Beach,
California.

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