In the first episode of our third season, Prince talks with Peter T. Cha, director of the Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative (TICI) and professor of practical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.
Discussion topics include:
- Misconceptions about immigrant congregations
- Building healthy intergenerational relationships in the church
- Challenging churches to embrace younger generations
- And more!
Guest bio
Peter T. Cha is the director of the Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative (TICI) project and is a professor of practical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he has taught since 1997. Before earning his Doctor of Philosophy from Northwestern University, Dr. Cha was involved in several ministries, including pastoring Korean American immigrant churches and college campus ministry. Dr. Cha also served as a member of the Committee on Race and Ethnicity of the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) and the Louisville Institute’s advisory board.
Transcript
Prince Rivers:
What would it look like not just to lead, but to thrive? That’s a big question. In the post-pandemic era, church leaders are facing all kinds of new challenges. And doing church faithfully and effectively can sometimes feel more difficult than ever before. My name is Prince Rivers. I’ve got a background in leadership studies, and I’ve had the privilege of serving as a pastor for more than 25 years. One of my passions is supporting the people who lead congregations. On this podcast, some of the most innovative leaders I know sit down to share about how we can carry out our work in a way that is life-giving for us and for the people we serve. I’m so glad you’re listening. Welcome to today’s episode of Leading and Thriving in the Church.
Peter T. Cha is the director of the Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative Project and is a professor of practical theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he has taught since 1997. Before earning his doctor of philosophy from Northwestern University, Dr. Cha was involved in several ministries, including pastoring Korean-American immigrant churches and college campus ministry. Dr. Cha also served as a member of the committee on race and ethnicity of the Association of Theological Schools, and the Louisville Institute’s advisory board. I am grateful to welcome Dr. Peter Cha to Leading and Thriving in the Church. Peter, thank you for being with us today.
Peter Cha:
Oh, thank you for this kind invitation. I look forward to our conversation this morning.
Prince Rivers:
Excellent, excellent. Well, you’ve done a lot of work around immigrant congregations, presumably in the US, and I want to talk with you about that today. But first maybe share a little bit about your own journey and how you came to focus on leadership in primarily immigrant congregations.
Peter Cha:
Yeah. So I grew up in an immigrant family and immigrant church. My dad was a pastor, so the conversations about immigrant churches did not just happen on Sunday at a church setting, but often we discuss these issues as I was growing up at home. And then later when I sensed God’s call to ministry, I was very much focused on serving in immigrant church, particularly on behalf of American-born and raised second generation. But then later when I had an opportunity to do a Ph.D. program, I really decided to focus my research, a better understanding [of] what is the current experience of immigrant churches in the United States and what might its future be. Because in early 1990s there were lots of questions about that. And as you noted earlier, I’ve been teaching at the divinity school since 1997, and much of my research and writing, as well as teaching, had been in this area of immigrant churches. So I’m just grateful that I now have an opportunity to lead a Lilly grant project called [the] Thriving Congregations Initiative, and ours is called Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative. So I just really enjoyed working on this project, partnering with many immigrant church leaders from various different ethnic backgrounds.
Prince Rivers:
Tell me a little bit more about that project, the Lilly initiative, Thriving Immigrant Congregations.
Peter Cha:
Yes. So when Lilly rolled out this new grant initiative called Thriving Congregations Initiative, some partners and I submitted a proposal to Lilly and we were going to be primarily focusing on two issues or challenges that many immigrant churches seem to be facing. One is an internal challenge, and that is try to create a healthy partnership between overseas-born, first-generation immigrant church leaders and members and American-born, second-generation or third-generation church leaders and members. So there’s quite a bit of a language gap, cultural gap. “How do we make this partnership happen” was an internal challenge. And then external challenge is that even though there are so many immigrant churches that are growing in size and number, many of these immigrant churches have been sort of isolated because of cultural and language barriers, and in some ways ghettoized. So they are not able to bring their missional impact in a broader American society and culture.
So then this project is trying to help our immigrant churches to overcome that internal huddle of an intergenerational partnership building. And then secondly, how might they creatively and faithfully live out their faith in a missional way in the United States and overcoming that language and cultural barriers to do so. So those are the two main challenges that we framed our project around, and thus far we had about 20 congregations involved coming from various different ethnic backgrounds — Chinese, Korean, Indian, Nigerian — and it’s been a really fruitful journey of learning from one another as well as learning with one another.
Prince Rivers:
Thank you for that description, and you answered one of my questions which had to do with the background of the churches that you’re looking at and learning about. What are some of the commonalities that you noticed? I mean, obviously these churches are coming from diverse cultures, but what are some of the things that are similar, maybe some of the distinctions that stand out to you as you’ve looked at these 20-plus congregations?
Peter Cha:
Thank you for that question. As you noted, there are some similar common challenges that all these immigrant churches are facing, but there are also distinct and particular issues and challenges that different ethnic immigrant churches are facing because of their different and unique history, their social location within the United States and so forth. But if I were to focus on the common one, that is: how might these immigrant churches deepen their trust among these different generation groups and find ways to address some of the intercultural gaps and challenges that they all seem to face?
So those are some of the common ones. And the other common challenge that these immigrant churches are facing is how to think about the future for their immigrant churches because many immigrant communities do not necessarily have a continuing immigration coming from their homeland. So then for those churches, are they to see themselves as a one-generational church, meaning they’ll close their door when the immigration discontinues? Or should they be thinking about a church that might have a more longer, viable future, but then what does that look like? How do they adapt to the American cultural landscape and how do they work well with the coming generations so that they might have a way to think about sustainable future? So those are some of the challenges that all immigrant churches seem to be facing. But then as you noted, different ethnic immigrant churches have their own set of particular challenges that they need to work through.
Prince Rivers:
You’ve touched on a lot, and we could probably spend the rest of our time just talking about the issues that you raised. So thank you for sharing that.
I want you to maybe just speak for a moment to the audience who’s thinking about maybe some of these immigrant churches in their communities. Are there common misconceptions that maybe people outside of those communities may have about immigrant congregations that you’ve noticed and would be helpful to name?
Peter Cha:
So the common misconception in the United States, and this is partly because of a historical reason of 19th century — as you know, many immigrant communities, particularly coming from Europe in the 18th and 19th century, established their immigrant churches in the United States. But what often happened in the past is that when the first-generation immigrants passed away, the second and third generation, even though they grew up in immigrant churches, they often assimilated into, if you will, the broader Christian communities of the United States. Now, back then, as you may know, the main narrative of the United States is that we are “melting pot” society: that of course for the language issue, the first-generation immigrants should have their own immigrant churches, but after that, they should melt into this one big pot of American Christianity. Now, back then, that was possible also because most of the immigrants were Europeans and they were not visible minorities.
Well, I do think the situation has changed in the 20th and 21st century, particularly after 1965 immigration reform, when many or the majority of the immigrants coming to the United States after 1965 were not from Europe but from other parts of the world: Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and so forth. And these are what we may call “visible minorities.” And also because the cultural narrative of the United States is no longer melting pot but that of multicultural society, sometimes we use the imagery of “salad bowl.” So there is no longer, then, assumption, or there should be no longer assumption, that after the first generation passes on, the second and third generation should simply melt into American Christianity.
But I think a lot of times outsiders seem to think of immigrant church as a one-generational phenomenon that is needed for now, but it might not be a church that would have a continuing future. And I would like to argue the reality does not seem to point to that. In fact, many of the second- and third-generation ethnic Christians continue to participate in many of these immigrant churches. And that is one of the things that we’re trying to learn, through this project as well, what might be significant factors that continually draw second- and third-generation people to ethnic immigrant churches? It opens up new opportunities for these churches, but it also amplifies a challenge that I mentioned earlier.
Prince Rivers:
Yeah, that’s really rich. Thank you for sharing that. So with that in mind, when you think about emerging leaders in these congregations, what are some of the things that they are thinking about or need to think about as they are striving to serve in a church that maybe wants to be more than one generation, but you still have these intergenerational conflicts?
Peter Cha:
Yes. That is a challenge that we’re facing today. Overall, many US churches are losing younger generations. Because this is not a challenge only for immigrant churches, but it is a challenge that’s further amplified and complexified because of language differences and very strong cultural differences and so forth. So if you will, this is the hurdle that all churches seem to be facing and wrestling with. But in immigrant church, that hurdle is a little bit taller. Now for the emerging younger leaders in immigrant churches, the challenge that they face is that they need to somehow build a trust with the older generation leaders of the church. And this certainly has to be a partnership collaboration between older generation and younger generation. The younger generation cannot, by themselves, do this task alone. And that’s why in our TICI project, each church has to send a team of five or six leaders from their church to participate in our program. And half of them have to be the first-gen and the other half second-gen so that they can collaboratively envision together what the future of their church would be like.
Now, one of the key takeaway lessons we learned is that these immigrant churches, in order to have or build this growing and viable ministry that is future-oriented looking, these churches need to carefully look at what their current congregational culture is like and begin to reshape it: because often immigrant churches…one of their primary missions for the first-generation members is the maintenance of their cultural identity and cultural practices. Their congregation culture is often set up in such a way that it comforts and empowers the first generation, but unintentionally it can often alienate and disempower the second generation. So this culture-reshaping of the church becomes a necessary and important task. I think it was Peter Drucker who says something like, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” So we can come up with so many innovative, small, short-term strategies, but if the culture of the church continues to marginalize and disempower the second and third generation, then we have a huge problem there.
So one of the tasks that we worked on in the TICI project is helping these immigrant church pastors and lay leaders to be able to read their current culture of the church and begin to think imaginatively how we might reshape certain aspects of this culture in such a way that it welcomes both first- and second-, and third-, generation, and it does not needlessly marginalize segments of people in that church. So this whole project of culture-building in collaboration with others is, in our view, a very central part of the important tasks that emerging leaders need to be able to enter into.
Prince Rivers:
I read an article written by you, Paul Kim, and Diane Lee about building healthy intergenerational relationships. You were talking about the need to build trust and work with emerging leaders and have them working with first-gen leaders. What strategies can be employed to engage these younger generations who may have different cultural expectations or different values?
Peter Cha:
Yeah. So this sounds so fundamental and basic but in many immigrant churches — because of what happened in the past that has been particularly painful for the younger generation, second-generation — many second-generation left their immigrant churches starting in the 1990s. We often call these a “silent exodus” because they just quietly left their immigrant churches. And so because those are the painful experiences of the past, it really requires for the first and older generation to win back the trust of the second generation. And that means a lot of the relational repairing that needs to happen, trust building that needs to happen, in some cases asking for their forgiveness…because some of these harmful things that were done to the second generation were not done out of maliciousness, done out of deliberate intent, but many of them were unintended consequences. And yet because many of the second-gen young people felt injured in their past experiences, trying to build a partnership together with them again requires time, requires many Christian practices such as serving younger people, the hospitality, learning to love one another and so forth.
But these all take time. And so I think that the relational trust building has been a very key component. Now, many of the immigrant churches know this, conceptually, but what’s been hard is setting aside time and investing time to build these broken relationships again. In some ways it’s sort of like a marriage situation. We know conceptually the spouses need to learn to love one another, but when there were some painful things that had happened in the past, how to do that well, it takes quite a bit of perseverance, quite a bit of time. And I think that’s the chapter you read that’s been demonstrated.
Prince Rivers:
Yeah. And I’m wondering: you talked in that chapter about a specific congregation. Is there a story or two you could tell about how leaders are building trust and rebuilding trust?
Peter Cha:
So one of the things that we learned from that congregation’s experience, as well as at TICI churches that are part of our project, is that many of our churches are structured in such a way that the leaders spend all their time together to work on certain ministry programs or projects. So it’s very project-focused, task-oriented leadership meetings. I think for immigrant churches, where there has been some relational distrust that had been built over the years, these leadership cultures need to now step away from task-oriented culture to invest more time into relational repair and relationship-building work. And that means some churches had to let go working on certain ministry programs for the sake of rebuilding the trust with a younger generation. And the other thing is this, many of these immigrant churches come from traditional culture where they privilege the elders and their wisdom and their voice and the role of the younger people are to listen carefully and to carry out the wishes and orders of the elders of the church.
That has been the cultural practice of many of these immigrant churches. And now we are challenging these immigrant churches: for the sake of the future, try to undo that part of a cultural practice and see your next generation younger leaders as co-equals. Now, some immigrant churches have come along with this larger agenda, but many have resisted that and they are continually losing young people. So one of the immigrant church pastors said this: “When we try to change young people, they leave us. But when we change the church for the sake of the young, they become valued partners.” That’s a very significant paradigm shifting that many of these immigrant churches are needing to do for the sake of the future and are willing to do in some cases.
Prince Rivers:
You mentioned a moment ago, and I want to circle back, just the idea that churches that are losing a generation, a younger generation. That’s not a phenomenon limited to immigrant churches. We see that all over. And I’m curious about what majority culture churches will be able to learn from the experiences of the immigrant churches, particularly those in the Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative that you’re working on, because it’s fascinating to hear how you’re challenging these churches to really rethink their culture and embrace a generation in a new way.
Peter Cha:
Thank you. So as you noted, I think this generational challenge where churches are more and more losing younger generations is unfortunately a very common experience in a broader American church. But in the immigrant church, this issue is even more urgent because if we lose the next generations, it’s not like people in our neighborhood would come to this immigrant church. So if you will, the survival of the church really demands this immigrant church to look at this carefully. Having said that, I think the broader US churches need to think about this issue more urgently and do what is necessary for the future of their church. Now, I think that one of the things we learned is a helpful concept that actually came from Duke Divinity School. The previous dean, L. Greg Jones, he wrote a book called “Navigating the Future.” In that book, he brings out this concept called “traditioned innovation,” and we grabbed that one.
We love that because the traditioned part of the church, in some ways it comes from the past generation: a particular story, particular culture, particular faith convictions. It was passed down to us, that’s the traditioned part. But then we also need to innovate because our surroundings are changing, the church is changing. And how do we do this well? It requires both the older generation and younger generation to have that trust building happening and be able to engage in an honest conversation to do this traditioned innovation well. So the first generation would say often the second-generation young people bring the necessary innovation ideas, but then that second generation is saying, “But you first generation, you remind us where we come from. What is the tradition, the aspect of our church ought to be?” And I think that’s a very helpful concept for all churches. So traditioned innovation has been a very helpful and succinct idea that in many ways reminds us of the ongoing necessity of both parties in the church, the older generations and the younger generations.
And then finally, I do think it is the voice of the next generation that helps us to better understand how the missional context of the US society and culture is changing. And that is where, as a faith community, we need to respond to. Because as churches are aging, I think, their missional influence and impact also diminish. We need this next generation to continually help us to recalibrate: what is our mission like, what should our missional outreach be like? Because too often, as you and I know, our churches tend to think about our missional work that is two, three decades old. That may no longer be relevant, but that’s our memory. We need younger people to help us to think innovatively about our changing missional context.
Prince Rivers:
Yeah, that’s so true. You’ve latched onto the traditioned innovation. Are there other metaphors? I think I read something about the household of God. Are there other metaphors or ways that are helpful for you to think about what’s happening in immigrant congregations?
Peter Cha:
Thank you. That is an excellent question. Yes. So many of the immigrant churches come from cultures that highly value the household, the family. But then in many of the traditional cultures we come from, when we say “family,” it’s not a nuclear family of two kids and parents and so forth, it’s a very extended family of kinship. And church is like that, or to use the New Testament language, oikos. It was a very extended household that included people who are not biologically related to you. And it seems like scripture really often used the imagery of household to refer to what we call church today or faith communities. Now, in some ways, that is a very different picture of what church is when many of the churches in the United States have been operating as what’s often called the “voluntary association.” You choose to go to one particular church because it meets certain needs of yours, and then you could switch out easily to another church and so forth.
That’s more of, in my view, the voluntary association model of a church. And the household of God is a very different way of looking at church. It is not something necessarily you choose flippantly, but it’s a kind of belonging that has more rich connection between you and the church. So in the immigrant churches I grew up in, I had multiple uncles and aunties. And they’re not my biological uncles and aunties, they’re members who are older generation of my immigrant church. When I go to a, let’s say, predominantly white church, I don’t see that. I cannot find uncles and aunties for my children. And I assume Black church is very similar.
Prince Rivers:
It is.
Peter Cha:
They’re spiritual grandparents, spiritual uncles and aunties, spiritual brothers and sisters. So in so many immigrant churches, that is part of the reality and that is why when the relationship gets broken along generational lines, it brings so much pain to both sides. Now, there are some darker sides to the household model of the church, but there are also many redemptive aspects of that. So I guess for the immigrants going forward, they need to wisely discern what aspects of the household of God model of the church is life-giving and healthy and we want to continue. And what are some aspects of that that could actually bring more challenge to immigrant churches and how they reshape that aspect. So household of God is one of the languages we use as we reshape the culture of our congregations.
Prince Rivers:
Yeah. That’s rich. That is rich and so important to think about. We’re living in what one US Surgeon General has called an epidemic of loneliness.
Peter Cha:
Yeah.
Prince Rivers:
And so when you think about the household, it has multiple layers of relevance, I think, to where people are today.
This has just been great. Let me ask you this as we bring the conversation to a close. What trends or changes do you foresee for the future of immigrant congregations?
Peter Cha:
One, I see that many of the immigrant churches have a much younger demographic. So within these churches, you’ll find a much larger group of children, youth, and college age. So in many churches, average membership is continually increasing, but in the immigrant churches, there are a lot more younger people in the church. So that means, at least demographically speaking, when these immigrant churches are able to grow as healthy communities of faith, that provides a healthy intergenerational relationship and partnership, like a healthy household should be, there is a bright future. It’s a church that is young. And then secondly, there are, I think, some unique ways these immigrant churches can serve broader American society and culture. And one area that many of these immigrant churches have identified as a way that they can contribute, missionally, is the growing number of migrants and refugees and immigrants that are coming to United States and they’re trying to settle down.
Some of these immigrant churches have been really effective, reaching out, providing shelter, providing these families needed necessary things as they are trying to settle down in the United States. And you could imagine how these immigrant churches, because they had firsthand experience in what it was like to settle down in this land, they’re providing some really effective outreach ministry to the refugee families and communities and recently arrived migrants and so forth. Providing them with English language classes, providing with physical things like clothing, food, and so forth. In this era of anti-immigration movements that are pushing hard, I think many of these immigrant churches are stepping into that gap and trying to provide faith-based care and love to recently arrived immigrant families and individuals. I think that is going to continue into the future.
And then finally, I think many of these immigrant churches are in some ways playing a vital role of connecting US Christianity with a global Christianity. Because in some ways they are embodying both, they’re connecting between their homeland and here. And in many ways, bringing to the United States certain faith practices that have caused their church to be vibrant elsewhere. Now they’re bringing those practices to the US and hopefully not just for their own well-being, but hopefully these will be certain practices and convictions that will revitalize US Christianity as well. So I think those are some of the future contributions, future directions that immigrant churches can contribute to and be part of.
Prince Rivers:
So I see a younger church in the future, a missional church, and a church that is connecting churches in the US with global Christianity. And that certainly is a bright future and a hopeful future. I’m glad that you’re doing this work, Dr. Peter Cha, and I’m grateful, grateful, grateful for the conversation that we’ve had today.
Peter Cha:
Thank you so much, Dr. Rivers. This has been a delightful conversation.
Prince Rivers:
My guest today has been Dr. Peter Cha, the professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and the project leader for the Thriving Immigrant Congregations Initiative through Lilly Endowment. We are grateful to have him on Leading and Thriving in the Church, and we look forward to hearing more about his work in the future.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Leading and Thriving in the Church, a podcast from Alban at Duke Divinity. Our mission is to help you be the leader God has called you to be. Our producer is Emily Lund. And we record each episode in the Bryan Center Studios on the campus of Duke University. Make sure you subscribe to this podcast on your preferred podcast platform so you don’t miss an episode. If you want more resources to help support you in your leadership, check out our website, alban.org, where you can sign up for the Alban Weekly newsletter. I’m your host, Prince Rivers. Until next time, keep leading.
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