Francis Chan and ethnicity

I have a feeling that Francis Chan will be one of the most influential leaders of this generation. The interesting thing is that Chan is a Chinese American, serving in a largely non-Asian context (at his church and in Passion Conferences). I think God has used his background to open doors for him as a messenger of grace. Seeing how most Asian American Christians struggle to really understanding God's grace, it is fitting that God would use an Asian American to take that message to the church at large.

Also interesting how being an Asian American has opened up a lot of doors for him to communicate this message of grace:

EN: What are some advantages of being a Chinese American amongst mostly Caucasian Americans?

FC: There really hasn’t been a ton. It really opens the doors to so many different venues like some of the more Caucasian venues are open to me because they want a token Asian. So I think that’s cool. And then at the Asian events I feel at home because I totally understand the youth and their upbringing. I feel like I relate because I get the way some of them were raised because that was me. Because of my nationality, when I work in inner-city ministries, it breaks any prejudices or barriers. I feel like God’s used my ethnicity to open a lot of doors for me.

Full article here. Thanks, DJ for the link.

Asia's growing influence on youth culture

Mark Oestreicher, the president of Youth Specialties, reflects on the rise of asian youth culture as a world influencer and its implications on the youth ministry in the west.

• The west is no longer the primary influencer of youth trends worldwide
• Asian youth culture's influence is growing through technology as well as sheer population growth
• Western leaders will be challenged to examine their prejudices towards Asians and their lessening role in leading the future of the church

he also points to this video about asian youth trends from MTV asia:

Asian American Christians on Campus

Article in the Washington Post about campus groups reaching out to Chinese

"Christian missionary fellowships are working hard at Washington area campuses, reaching out to the next generation of China's best and brightest. The missionaries hope to convert the students, or at least to make them comfortable with the Christian faith, which is under the government's close watch in China.

Most Chinese grow up in an atheistic society. Christian fellowships encourage them to contemplate a question they were previously told to avoid: Is there a God?

That makes the work of the campus missionaries difficult. They convert only a small percentage of those they approach, though many more are exposed to Christianity."

Earlier, a mega-article in Christianity Today called "Tiger in the Academy" about Asian American Fellowships, and their spectacular growth on campuses. The article is archived here, so you can only read part, but its worth finding a full copy of it.

At Berkeley, California's premier public university, "evangelical Christian" and "Asian American" are almost interchangeable descriptions. Three trends come together. One is California's demographics: It is 11 percent Asian compared to 4 percent for the nation as a whole. Two is academic prestige: As the oldest and most selective campus of the University of California, Berkeley has an undergraduate population that is 42 percent Asian. (As a general rule, the more selective the school, the higher the percentage of Asian students.) Three is a national fact: Asian students are more likely to show Christian commitment than other ethnic groups, including whites.

Harvard is 17 percent Asian American; mit, 28 percent; Stanford, 24 percent; Princeton and Yale, 13 percent. At each of these schools, Asian students account for an even larger share of the Christian community. Often they meet in ethnically based fellowships, and these may be the schools' largest Christian ministries.