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The AALC

by Beav on March 25, 2008

There’s a few AALC’s out there, but this one refers to the Asian American Leadership Conference that I’m attending this week until Wednesday in Fullerton, California.  It started tonight and really had great worship and a really insightful and holistic call to rest and Sabbath given by Lisa Espinelli Chinn, the director of InterVarsity’s International Student Ministries.  It was one of the better Sabbath/rest talks I’ve heard.

I really like going to conferences that are held within 5 minutes of where I live.  It’s awesome to attend a conference and go home and hang with your family when you have some open time.  It’s a beautiful thing.
I’m looking forward to hearing Pastor Ken Fong, Pastor David Gibbons, & Dr. John Townsend.  I’m really intrigued by Townsend.  I am very interested in how he will contextualize his material (or if he does) for the Asian American community.   The conference has a lot of hardcore workshops and seminars so I’m excited to get exposed to some new things in the next couple of days.
I am a bit conferenced out I confess.  This is my third leadership conference in 2008 and is my last (unless I can get fired up for the Leadership Summit in August), they all just got bunched up around the same time.  This has more direct cultural relevance though to my current role in Asian American leadership development so that has me fired up.  Our Epic National Director Tommy Dyo is on the board/design team for this conference and Epic is one of the sponsors of it.  
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  • Rock

    WOW dude. You ARE the conference master. Keep the updates coming.

  • djchuang

    Hey Brian, bummed that I didn’t get to meet you at the AALC. I wasn’t able to attend the whole thing, only bits here and there, and was like you, very curious how much John Townsend would contextualize his message for the Asian American context. So, how much did he? Or would you say Christian spirituality is generic and identical for every ethnic group?

  • Beav

    DJ,

    I actually saw your nametag from about 20 ft away this morning and was going to introduce myself, but I got intercepted :) Sorry I never made it, hopefully the opportunity will present itself again.

    Margaret Yu and Tommy Dyo have told me to check out your blog and they’ve talked about you. I’ve enjoyed reading some of your thoughts as I’m a little green in the AA world.

    I also love that you have a John Hannah page on your site. I went to seminary @ Bethel, but have taken 3 classes from him through other venues and he still ranks as my all-time favorite.

    I actually didn’t make John’s talk. I was pretty maxed out and ended up spending time with my family that night and taking a break from the conference. I’ve heard John T. speak twice in the past couple months so I figured it was an opportunity to catch my breath.

    I heard though that he really didn’t contextualize anything – though he did sound like he tried to affirm the areas in AA culture that resonate with maturity and loving well.

    To your question, I’m not sure I’m thinking clearly after a long few days right now to answer coherently. I think Christian spirituality more or less is consistent across ethnic groups in that we all have the human plague of sin and the same needs that flow from being made in the image of God and for relationship with Him. Yet, I don’t think I could say that I think Christian spirituality is generic or identical. This week was my first real immersion into a large scale Asian American ministry context and one of the things very evident to me as how much the Asian American context impacts the experience and expression of spirituality. This week was good. I’ve spent a lot of time the last couple months studying and learning about the Asian American context and AA “issues”, but this was the first environment where I saw the power of people encountering the living God in the midst of those “issues” and I found it to be a pretty powerful experience in that way.

    In general I have an aversion to advocating any kind of view towards anything that could be labeled as generic so I probably need to keep chewing on this when I’ve got a little more mental power :)

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