Our beloved United Methodist Church appears to be trapped in the cross hairs of the right, the tentacles of the left, the cultural contradictions of globalization and capitalism, and the vise grip of the Book of Discipline, or all of the above. Our Church’s mission statement unambiguously states the purpose of its existence: “Make disciples” and “transform the world.” In order to achieve this missional goal, we have to re-conceptualize our traditional understanding of mission and its praxis.
We don’t always have to travel to “foreign countries” to make new disciples. There are plenty of opportunities right here in our own towns and regions, if we are ready and willing to work with immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers, and displaced or persecuted Christians from other parts of the world.
Ministry with refugees and migrant communities encompasses relationship and trust building. Refugee ministry has no comprehensive blueprint, and it is not a speedy process. Unlike traditional ministry, it is non-lineal and filled with challenges and surprises. We may not see the results right away but the seed of the gospel will eventually sprout to yield a golden harvest.
The New Federation of Asian American United Methodists:
The New Federation of Asian American United Methodists (NFAAUM), one of the five national caucuses, as approved in the Book of Discipline, is comprised of twelve sub-ethnic caucuses, namely, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Formosan, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Karenni (Burmese), Indian, Middle East, Pakistani, and Vietnamese. Its primary goal is to make disciples among the Asian-American communities across the nation and bring about transformation by advocating for their concerns.
According to 2021 census report, the Asian-American population is one of the fastest growing racial ethnic groups in the United States. More likely, this group is one of the largest unchurched groups due to its varied cultural, linguistic, and religious backgrounds. This is both a challenge and an opportunity to share and witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
History:
In 1992, The General Conference recognized the need to develop a meaningful and workable plan to reach out to the demographically vast and ethnically growing Asian-American immigrant population in the United States. Subsequently, in 1996 the Asian American Language Ministry Plan (AALM) was created to assist NFAAUM in its outreach endeavor to start new language ministries.
AALM has served as a vital channel in developing more new language ministries.
Since 2013, for the first time in the history of the UMC, more Asian-American language congregations were organized in Nepali, Karenni (Burmese), Telugu and Arabic languages. Although the Karenni refugees do not have the entire Bible translated in their language, AALM was able to help them secure the New Testament in their language, and continues to enable them to obtain parts of the Old Testament in typed manuscripts. AALM hopes to organize new congregations in Tamil, Thai and Hindi-speaking languages in coming years.
While I was working with some of these refugee groups a few years ago, my wife and were approached by two Cambodian women to help them organize a retreat just for Cambodian women in the Los Angeles area. One of them was a medical doctor who was brought to the United States as an orphan child. With limited financial resources and an abundance of skeptics, 48 Cambodian women came to the first retreat. The number of attendees began to grow every summer. A year ago, 142 Cambodian women participated in the summer event.
At the conclusion of one of those retreats, I shared the following Asian fable that illustrated how some of us labored against all odds and eventually succeeded in organizing the retreat for the vulnerable Cambodian women.
The fable was about an outlaw who was hauled before the king of the land to plead for his life. When he came to know that the king had a fondness for one his horses, the outlaw promised that if his life was spared for a year, he could teach the king’s favorite horse to sing. The king consented. When the outlaw went back to prison, his cellmate scoffed at him: “You could never teach the king’s horse to sing even if you had a lifetime.” And the man said: “It doesn’t matter. I have a year now that I didn’t have before. Besides, a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die. And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing.”
When Glory and I were leaving the campsite to go to the airport, I was given a card signed by several Cambodian women in leadership. It said, “Thank you, Dr. Jacob. The horse is singing!”
In a few months, when the Nepali and Karenni congregations are chartered in Upper New York Conference, we are hoping to gain a little over two hundred new members. We are striving to do the same in other conferences and jurisdictions as well. The meeting place of World Christianity and Post-Disaffiliated United Methodist Church is an unlikely place of tenacious hope where resilient non-western Christians are likely to fill our losing membership. The meeting place likely to fill the gap between United Methodist Church as a structure and a movement. This defining moment in history calls for the impact of structure leaders as well as caucus leaders for solidarity and witnessing to the gospel.