Asiamerica Ministries Sets Strategy to Improve Evangelistic Efforts, Increase Visibility in the Church
Episcopal News Service. August 7, 1990 [90196]
Ruth Nicastro
Asian-American Episcopalians have set out to improve their evangelistic efforts among Asian Americans during the Decade of Evangelism and have adopted a strategy to advocate for increased visibility in the structures of the Episcopal Church.
The new posture was shaped at the 17th national Episcopal Asiamerica Ministry consultation (EAM) on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles from July 25 to July 29. More than 250 representatives of congregations and parishes gathered around the theme "Sharing the Face of Christ in Our Daily Life" and sought ways to reach out to an estimated 6.5 million persons of Asian descent living in the United States, the majority of which are unchurched.
In a keynote address to the consultation, Bishop Frederick Borsch of Los Angeles challenged the participants with questions concerning the relationship between Christian faith and culture. Although Jesus Christ is unchangeable because God is unchangeable, Borsch said, people see him very differently, projecting onto Jesus' humanity their hopes, their expectations, their desires, and their longings.
According to Borsch that raises questions: "Can Jesus Christ be just anything? Do we project on to him our own image, and see the Jesus we want to see?"
In one sense, Borsch said, that is exactly what God wants, and what Jesus gave us the opportunity to do. "We are allowed to project our highest dreams for what we could be. We are called to see aspects of our own humanity in the many faces of Christ [where] we are given an amazing glimpse of who God is, but also of who we are to be -- each one made in God's image."
That inclusiveness, Borsch told the consultation, is at the heart of the proclamation we are called to share and the community we are called to build."God is calling us to a destiny we do not yet know, but that it is our privilege to proclaim to all."
EAM participants gathered in special training seminars for two days to improve their skills in evangelistic outreach. "There is only one way evangelism can take place, and that's for you to do it," said the Rev. Canon Thomas J. McElligott, a consultant for the national church office of evangelism. "The church supplies support and offers the community, but it all depends on you," he said.
Keys to evangelism, McElligott said, are storytelling, sharing, listening, and "being willing to be open to a new relationship."
In addition to evangelism training, EAM participants addressed other concerns, such as the need to raise up ethnic vocations for the ordained ministry, and then providing seminary training for those called. Lay leadership training was also a general concern, particularly the need to train lay persons for the essential work of evangelism.
More than 50 young adult Asian American (ages 14 to 25) held a conference in conjunction with the EAM consultation. For five days the young people discussed weighty questions: What is an Episcopalian? What is evangelism? What does it mean to be an Asian or Pacific Islander, an American and a Christian?
"We talked about how to have a ministry with a very small group -- even two -- and how to make that small group grow. We talked about how to begin it and how to maintain it," said 18-year-old Alvys Allan of St. Matthew's Church in San Diego, California, one of the consultation participants.
A major concern of the EAM consultation was a need for increased visibility and access to the political structures of the church. During the meeting an ad hoc group circulated a memorandum advocating a higher sensitivity to the needs of Asian-American Episcopalians as the church approaches the 1991 General Convention.
"...Asian ministries can get lost in furor over more controversial issues such as sexuality and the possible establishment of a nongeographic province within the Episcopal Church," the memorandum said. "It is time to advocate for Asian ministries; otherwise, we can easily be ignored."
Consultation members formed an action group, tentatively called "Advocates for Episcopal Asiamerica Ministries," that will collect membership fees in order to place their concerns strategically before the General Convention and to raise the church's general awareness about Asian ministries.
The new advocacy group will seek to strengthen the work of the EAM, which was established by a resolution of the 1973 General Convention. A national EAM consultation has been held each year since 1974. Participants at the Los Angeles meeting included members of ethnic congregations of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, Vietnamese, and Pacific Islander Episcopalians.
In addition to participants from the United States, the consultation included representatives from three Anglican dioceses of Korea, from the Anglican Church of Sri Lanka, the united Church of South India, the Church of England, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Also present were bishops, clergy, and laity from the Philippine Independent Church, and clergy from the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar. Both churches have agreements of full communion with the Episcopal Church and clusters of congregations throughout the United States.