Duke

The Road to Multiethnic Ministry

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 19:37:01 +0000

March 3, 2014

Gordon Govier

The Road to Multiethnic Ministry

Joe Ho became director of ��Ƶ’s Asian American Ministries last July. It is not the career path he expected to be on when he joined ��Ƶ staff 20 years ago. “I was fairly distant from Asian American ministries for quite a long time,” he said.

Attending Urbana, ��Ƶ’s Student Missions Conference, as a college sophomore he sat in on a workshop on Asian American identity. “It was a way of thinking that I didn’t really get,” he recalled. Multiethnic Ministry was not on his radar.

His first five years working for ��Ƶ at his alma mater, Duke University, he was the only Asian American Campus Staff Member in his region. The Duke chapter was thriving and his work with the chapter was very similar to what other staff in the region were doing.

Leadership Tested

But then the number of Asian American students at Duke began to grow. Many visited the ��Ƶ chapter but didn’t seem to fit in and drifted away. As he took some intentional steps to help Asian American students fit in, and train some of them for leadership, he was surprised to see the chapter develop a reputation as an Asian group and became less attractive to White students.

“That was the crucible in which my leadership was tested, and when most of my mistakes were made,” Joe said. Looking back now, Joe sees things much differently than he did then. “The years between five and ten were the ones where I had the least confidence in myself as a campus staff but also the years where I made the most significant contributions to the ministry at Duke.”

Developing As a Leader

Ten years ago, nearing the end of his tenure at Duke, Joe received an invitation to join ��Ƶ’s first Daniel Project, a development program for Asian American staff with leadership potential. Daniel Project director Paul Tokunaga, now ��Ƶ’s Vice President, Director of Strategic Ministries, was Joe’s mentor.

“What immediately impressed my about Joe was his can-do spirit,” Paul said. “Other Asian American staff might have wanted to transfer to another part of the country with more Asian Americans. But Joe had a ‘bloom where you are planted’ mindset.

Joe started Asian American conferences in the Blue Ridge region and Asian American break-out sessions at other ��Ƶ gatherings. “He started partnering with Asian American churches even though he attended a predominantly white church,” Paul said. “To Joe’s credit, there are now more Asian American students and staff in the Blue Ridge than any time in its history.”

Wider Responsibilities

By the time Joe left Duke to become Area Director for the Shenandoah Area in Virginia he was strongly committed to multiethnic ministry. His wife Traci, who had been teaching at a predominantly African American school, also played a role. “I think my wife’s journey in terms of the public school system was as integral to my thinking and our family’s calling to multiethnic ministry as anything that ��Ƶ taught me,” he said.

Later Joe was also invited to join the Asian American Ministries Leadership Team. This further deepened his appreciation for Asian American ministry, and helped him make the decision apply to become Asian American Ministries director.

During his seven years in Virginia the number of white students in the area’s ��Ƶ chapters grew steadily but they also began to reach new populations of Greek students, black students, and Asian American students. However, Joe felt a persistent desire to contribute more to Asian American and multiethnic ministry. Strangely enough, he realized later, he never prayed to ask God about fulfilling that desire.

When the Asian American Ministries Director job opened up and his application was selected he was pleased. “It shows God answers the desires of our hearts that are according to his will, way beyond what we could’ve asked, even when we didn’t have the faith to ask,” he observed.

True to His Calling

Joe grew up in a Chinese American church community in Cincinnati. During his college years he discovered that many of his church youth group friends had left the faith. He also discovered, in a conversation with a close non-Christian friend from high school, that she had gone through four years of college without having a spiritual conversation or thinking about faith.

“I joined staff at first because I thought neither of those two things should happen; that was my motivation,” he said. “I didn’t realize until two years ago, all of those high school friends are Asian Americans. I was drawn to lead Asian American Ministries by the realization of how my life had intersected with Asian Americans who were not believers. It turns out my calling with ��Ƶ is the same as it always has been.”

Joe believes he has a compelling vision for his new position. But he’s thankful he’s not doing the job all by himself.

“I’m riding on the coat tails of 250 of the most passionate, talented, committed, creative, culturally-savvy, leaders that I know,” he said. “All ��Ƶ staff are remarkable but this Asian American staff team…if someone could run with this crew why wouldn’t they?”

News Keywords

Virginia

Shenandoah

Duke

Asian American Ministry

Willing to be Transparent

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:14:38 +0000

News

November 4, 2011

Gordon Govier

Willing to be Transparent

Jaded by the Church, was the topic of a seminar at Sonburst, the annual ��Ƶ Florida fall conference, held in Orlando in October. Area Director Steve Tamayo co-led the session, which was aimed at addressing unresolved issues that some people have with organized religion.

Steve calls spontaneous question-and-answer sessions with students such as this Confessional Apologetics. He desires to honestly address issues that keep young people from the Christian faith.

“I can’t speak for whole church, but I can tell you why someone like me does those sorts of things that might make people question our Christian commitment,” he said. “I talked about hypocrisy in my own life and how I don’t think that people notice when I say one thing and do another thing. I talked about my desire for comfort and how I was at times moved to put my desire for comfort above other people’s desire to hear about Jesus or experience the love of Jesus.”

Sidetracked by Scripture

Steve has been on staff with ��Ƶ for almost eight years, after first connecting with ��Ƶ as a student at Duke University. He had planned on joining another campus ministry recommended by his youth pastor when he arrived at Duke, but he got sidetracked by an ��Ƶ Bible study. “They studied Scripture more deeply than I had ever seen anyone study Scripture,” he said. “So I stayed.”

Steve became a student leader at Duke at about the same time more and more Black and Asian students students joined the chapter. “I started to see people who weren’t Christians coming and connecting with ��Ƶ because they were intrigued by our diversity,” he said. “I thought it was really exciting, that God would create a multiethnic community and use that as a witness to the gospel. I wanted to be a part of that.”

His own Latino heritage is not immediately apparent, with his blond hair and blue eyes, and lack of Spanish language skills. Steve is thankful for Joe Ho, his Campus Staff Member, who worked with Steve to help him better understand his own ethnicity and also how it could be used in campus ministry. “We Latinos can serve as bridge builders between folks who are white and folks who are black, because we’re kind of outside that historic racial tension,” Steve said.

Steve got his Psychology degree at Duke in just three years, then he went to Oxford University in England for a graduate degree, all the while staying active in ��Ƶ. He filled out his ��Ƶ staff application while he was at Oxford.

The Process of Evangelism

As a staff worker Steve has discovered that he enjoys helping students discover the process of evangelism. “Those with a church background think evangelism is just about making an invitation to enter the kingdom,” he said. “And when they hear that there’s more to it, that it’s a process and not just a moment, it’s very relieving.”

An important part of the evangelism process is establishing trust. “I’ve seen students who would never have responded to a contact evangelism altar call, but over the course of several months they learned to trust us,” he said. “They moved in their faith from one step to another, becoming a seeker, and then into the kingdom. That’s been really fun – to see that God does that.”

Steve’s former staff worker Joe Ho, now a colleague, says that one of the things he appreciates most about Steve is his hospitality. “It’s this core quality in Steve that has allowed his ministry to touch a dizzying diversity of people — spanning every conceivable spectrum of spiritual interest, culture, class, and gender,” Joe said.

At the session on Jaded by the Church, a lot of the students who were comfortable in their local congregations learned why some of their friends have a problem with the institutional church. Steve also talked with two students who had bad experiences with the church. One was the son of a pastor who had lost his job, the other a woman who wished her church could be more like ��Ƶ. “There was a lot of healing that took place,” he said.

A place for healing, learning to trust, transparent leadership, supporting the local church, ��Ƶ chapters find many ways to share the gospel message. Steve Tamayo likes to see the power of the gospel message transforming lives on campus.

News Keywords

LaFe

Florida

Duke