Asian-American Episcopalians Build Ties With Their Homelands
Episcopal News Service. August 4, 1999 [99-118]
(ENS) It might have been the conversations about kids, or what the growth of McDonald's franchises had done to neighborhoods, or the quirkiness of congregations. Whatever the topic, talk flowed easily, almost without regard for the wide ocean and the cultural distance that separate the people in the dioceses of Korea and the group of Korean-Americans who visited them late last spring.
"We found we shared quite a few issues," recalled Allen Shin, until recently assistant director of Asiamerica ministries in the Episcopal Church, as he reflected on his part in an ambitious program that connected nearly 200 Asian-American Episcopalians with counterparts in their "home" countries.
The 1999 Asian Consultation was made to establish relationships, and by most accounts, it succeeded.
The idea for it, according to Winston Ching, director of the congregational ministries cluster at the Episcopal Church Center and also director of Asiamerica ministries, came last year as the church's Asian congregations held their 25th annual consultation, an education program.
"We received an invitation from the archbishop of Hong Kong to visit his province," he said. "The planning committee thought about it and decided that it may not by appropriate for everybody to meet in Hong Kong -- Asians in the church are from the Philippines, Japan, Korea, China -- so the committee devised this scheme where half the time would be spent in the home countries by each of the constituent groups. The final plenary sessions were in Hong Kong, where groups could report back, look at the Anglican contribution in the various homelands, some of the issues we face in common and the partnerships we could develop."
The visits to the homelands were a natural step, Ching said, because Asian congregations often are isolated within their own dioceses, where they are often the only Chinese, Korean or Filipino parish. Many parishioners are immigrants whose first language is not English, which makes many diocesan programs unavailable or unsuitable for these congregations. Often clergy are recruited from overseas. The consultation, in fact, was developed to communicate some of the things that should be going on in the dioceses, Ching said.
Approximately 200 people took part in the visits, Ching said, each ready to talk about the Episcopal Church and at the same time eager to take in different aspects of their home countries. Those who had emigrated from Asian countries reunited with family and friends, while those who were first-, second-, third- or fourth-generation Americans learned more about their ethnic origins, he explained.
All were charged with exploring the churches and church issues in their homelands, Ching said.
"The idea was to develop a relationship with the church in a specific country," said Shin, who was part of the delegation that went to Korea. They met with their hosts and immediately identified areas such as liturgical development and stewardship for further exploration.
"The Anglican Church of Korea recently became an independent province," said Shin, "and they're in the process of developing their own prayer book and their own liturgy and trying to see that it reflects Korean culture as much as possible." This resonated with the U.S. group which feels, and wants, to maintain strong cultural ties to their heritage.
The church in Korea recently ordained its first woman deacon, he said. And, while from the American side of the discussions that seemed to be a positive step, it clearly was a point of debate across the Korean church.
Both groups shared their thoughts about youth, Generation X and, yes, the ubiquity of McDonald's.
It also was "the first time that Korean Anglicans here talked seriously about issues that pertain to ministry outside their church buildings," Shin observed. "We found that we could pull together on energy and resources."
For example, he explained, "Most of the Korean congregations here are mostly Korean-speaking and they minister to the immigrant generation, which means that they really need Korean-language material. We don't have enough resources to develop a lot of materials ourselves, but the Anglican Church of Korea has a lot of resources we could easily use."
The Korean church, which was formed about 100 years ago as a mission of the Church of England, is interested in a growing relationship with the Episcopal Church, Shin said, because the Episcopal Church seems to them to be a better model of church growth. He pointed out the the Diocese of Seoul and the Diocese of New York recently formed a partnership. "Also," he said, "there are more Korean Anglican congregations in the U.S. than in England. In England there is only one; here there are 14."
Work is underway now to establish exchange programs for young adults and for clergy so that Korean-Americans and Koreans in Korea can see how each group "does church." The Province of Korea took the first step by sending a small group to the Asian-American Episcopal Youth Conference held in August in California.
The process of discussion and discovery was echoed across Asia.
Filipinos from the U.S. went to the Philippines, Ching said, and the Chinese met in Taiwan, which is diocese of the Episcopal Church. "The Chinese are from everywhere in Asia," he said, "some from Hong Kong, some from Malaysia, some from Taiwan. We accepted an invitation from the Diocese of Taiwan to gather there."
Japanese went "home" to Japan and Southeast Asians, who could not meet in their home countries of Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos, met in Hong Kong, with a 24-hour mini-visit to nearby China, where leaders of the China Christian Council described life under communist rule similar to those Southeast Asian governments.
"What they learned," said Ching, "was that in order to develop churches in their own countries, they will have to know how to work with a communist government."
All the U.S. groups later gathered in Hong Kong to share what they had learned and to look at the ministries conducted by that province.
"Hong Kong gave a tour of seven ministries, from housing to social services," Ching said, "to give us an idea of what is possible besides the traditional view of church as a New England-style building that's used just one day a week."
Ching said that the entire experience was so exciting, creating new connections and awareness among all those who went, that there has been some talk of doing this kind of trip every five years. To help prepare for that, Ching said, he has been busy lately setting up a chat room on the Asiamerican Ministries web site so that Anglicans here and there will be able to easily stay in touch.
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