The title of this post needs some immediate clarification. It’s strictly in the context of segregated churches that stand on their own for a particular reason, such as ethnic churches (Russian, Chinese, Spanish) or fringe churches (Biker, Hip-Hop, Urban).

I wrote two previous posts here and here that had to do with the apathy of being a diverse local church and why I feel it is important to embrace and celebrate cultural diversity more so than ethnic or socio-econimic diversity.

Having served in pastoral ministry in an ethnic church, I find it very awkward to not be part of the group. Many people will immediately think that me being Asian means I must be comfortable around others Asians. However, I was a Japanese American in an almost exclusively Korean American church and it was not very comfortable for me. I had to learn an entirely new culture and how I could transcend that at times for the sake of communicating effectively. To come in from the street and connect during a Sunday gathering would be great. On the surface the only difference would be that the congregation was Korean in appearance, yet not much would seem different. However, if you kept coming back every week, you’d begin to notice the context of the sermon illustrations were very Korean, some of the words in a sermon were Korean because there really wasn’t a good English equivalent, and the people seemed to have an unspoken communication that outsiders wouldn’t quite get. Many days were spent with me feeling like such an outsider. Many days I felt like those I was serving in the church didn’t appreciate me being different.

As uncomfortable as much of my time in ministry with my Korean American brothers and sisters was, I can’t tell you how much I learned from them. How I could have been (and probably was at times) judgmental of them, before learning of certain things that are taught and seemingly inherent in their nature and personalities. A small thing that ended up being a big thing was the use of titles. Even as a youth pastor intern, I had to be referred to as pastor by the teens in my group. I hate titles and don’t like the formality of being referred to as “Pastor Dave.” However, if the teens just called me Dave it was a sign of disrespect. I was okay with it, but their parents were not. On top of that, I was not really an official pastor in the church since I was not ordained at the time. So, I was referred to differently by adults in the church. I was the jundosa and the senior pastor was the moksanim. It had everything to do with respect and hierarchy. A tough pill for me to swallow at first, but once I grew to understand the culture more, I knew it had to be that way.

In the same way, there is culture that surrounds a church of bikers. As much as we in the suburban local church like to say that we welcome everybody and encourage anyone to “come as they are,” I can assure you that in most white, upper-middle class suburban churches, if a few bikers came in on a Sunday it would freak people out. If they chose to come back several Sundays in a row, it would cause some people to leave for another church. Being surrounded in a church with people that understand the biker culture may be much more positive for them than being around a bunch of accountants and soccer moms sharing stories.

Not just cultural differences that cause a lack of diversity to be a positive thing in a church, but language itself is a barrier. If people immigrate from Spain and only speak Spanish, having a church where they can worship in Spanish would be a good thing, whereas English-only may make it impossible for them to gather in the name of the Lord. Having a church where people of Vietnamese, Russian, or Mexican descent has a place in the community. They serve a particular need that an English-only church cannot. Language, more than culture, can determine diversity sometimes--even if that language is from being a biker or Hip-Hop.

At some point I have to believe that there will be blending of cultures in America. As we make the shift very soon to caucasians being the minority in the US, things are going to change--like it or not. My hope is that rather than continue segregating churches that we will someday be able to celebrate the diversity of cultures in America and embrace them and learn from them. What makes me who I am is a conflict of being a Japanese American with certain traits inherently Japanese, yet feeling fully American. I hope you’ll want to learn more about me as a person so you can understand me and others like me better. I want to learn more about you so that I can relate and celebrate those things that are unique to you and your culture that I may not know or experience had I not come to know you. That makes the world a better place and converges our cultures into something far more beautiful than if we just kept it to ourselves. Don’t just show me your skin color, but take me on a journey with you and let me hear your story and get to know you. We’ll both be better people as a result of our time together.

I’ve made many, many attempts to engage people in a continuing dialog about racial diversity and cultural diversity within the local church. There seems to be three camps within church circles these days:

1. The church should be racially diverse because heaven is diverse.
2. The church should be relevant to one’s own culture where people can explore the context of their culture relative to the context of Jesus’ culture.
3. We want to be a church to all people, where everyone feels welcome.

The problem with scenario number 1 is that diversity for the sake of coloring a room to give it the appearance of heaven, isn’t really heaven. Think about it. When you walk into a church gathering and see a lot of races represented, is it truly any different than if you walk into a room with only people that look like you? Is the music any different? Is the perspective of the message any different? What do you take away from a room filled with people of different races vs a room filled with only your own? Maybe pride that you’ve done a good thing?  Aside from that, you have gained--nor learned--nothing.

Scenario number 2 is most often used in the context of an ethnic church such as: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, etc. However, it does apply to the White American church as well. Growing up in Mexico, China, or Russia comes with a different set of cultures than growing up in America. Certain practices/customs/viewpoints/taboos are going to be different than here in the United States. As people migrate to our nation, should we force our culture on them from day one? Do we make them feel unwelcome in the land known as the melting pot of people? Not only do these issues conflict with culture, but they also conflict with faith. One’s faith as practiced in Korea is probably not going to look like ones faith as practiced in Tennessee. Gathering in this manner can lead to exclusion, which leads to inclusion. That’s he problem with this scenario.

Number 3 is like the Disneyland of churches. Most conversations I’ve had with pastors and church planters describes their ideal view of this scenario. A church of diversity, both in race and social/economic class. A church where the alcoholic can worship next to the millionaire and everyone can experience love and grace. I know churches like this do exist in some communities, but what can one learn from such an experience? Just because you enter a room with people that do not look like you, that can afford more or less than you, that speak different languages than you, what difference does it really make?

We’ll never escape any of these three scenarios. Each has some merit and will have those people drawn to gather within those contexts. As I continue this topic in my next blog post, I will argue that what we want to gain from each of these can only truly be found when we get past race and learn to embrace culture. It’s what the first century church did, and I believe it’s what the twenty-first century church must do.

The craziest thing just happened to me… I wrote a case study about social media within the church and it has been published! I share my experiences about using social media during our church planting experience for a book that will be shipping the first of week of November titled: The Big Book of Social Media Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives composed and edited by Robert Fine.

Although I’ve spent over a decade in the printing industry working with publishers and authors, I never imagined I would contribute to a writing project that would be published. For those of you with getting a book in print as one of your “bucket list” items, hang in there. Opportunity can come in the least-likely places.

Who knew that going through the experience of starting a church that would shut down a year later would lead to such an amazing opportunity to once again intersect the church and culture through the use of social media. Well, for those of us that share in the same faith, I guess that is a rhetorical question :)

Thank you Bob Fine for your willingness to include the story of how a small church had a vision to connect people through social media in a global way and for your undeserved friendship!

First of all, I must confess something. I am a big fan of John Cusack and 80′s films in general. However, only after watching Cusack’s Say Anything for the first time after having had some experience in formal ministry, the movie was quite different for me. It became more about the underlying tale of lives intertwined in everyday stuff--where people aren’t always what they seem, and not everyone strives to be an achiever.

One of the things that stuck in my brain this time was when Lloyd Dobler (played by Cusack) was asked about his aspirations once he graduated from high school. His response was:

When I heard this, my mind immediately went to ministry. I have stayed away from ministry for some of the reasons that Cusack’s character Lloyd Dobler mentioned staying away from choosing a career path. Yeah, it’s kind of a convoluted thought, but if you stop and think about it, don’t you know of someone in ministry that has been guilty of selling something (church, religion, tithing, serving), buying something (doing something in exchange for getting financial support), processing something for sale (personalizing a theology or doctrine and then preaching it, rather than Christ crucified) or ____________ ? (add your own thoughts here)

Ministry shouldn’t be about sales or buying something or having an agenda. It should be about people and connecting them with the eternal love of Christ.

Now, it’s your turn to say anything…

Saw this great video posted by my friend Marc Payan. It shares a great message, but I was most-impressed with how it shows our perception of the future can be misleading depending on how we look at it. It’s only 1 minute, 40 seconds so I hope you’ll watch it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday today, I have read a lot of great stories, tributes and messages of hope. Dr. King continues to inspire and be a hero to many in the world today 40 years after his passing. However, it took reading this post by John Saddington to inspire me to share my story.

My story doesn’t start off very neat or encouraging. In my childhood I always had a prejudice against Dr. King. First of all, he was a black man trying to bring attention to black people and seemingly blaming the white man for the woes of being black and underprivileged. I was put off by that activism and finger pointing. You see, I am an adopted Japanese-American. I was born in Japan and brought to Sacramento, CA at the age of 4. I grew up in suburb named Rio Linda, which was a rural, farming & ranch community and almost exclusively white. It neighbored an urban, crime-infested, predominantly black community named Del Paso Heights. From Kindergarten through high school, I can only remember one African-American teacher, and that was my first grade teacher. However, she never seemed black to me. She was black in appearance, but in my mind she was no different than any other white person in my neighborhood. She definitely didn’t fit the stereotype of what I saw in Del Paso Heights--small, unkept house with a Cadillac Coupe De Ville in the driveway and a men dressed like pimps and women dressed like they were going to church on Sunday every day of the week. Sadly, this is my frame of reference. Culture was non-existent and everything was either white or black.

Interestingly enough, there were a few African-American kids in my schools and I was friends with all of them. However, as was the case with my first grade teacher, the African-American kids were seemingly white…they dressed like me, talked like me, enjoyed the same cafeteria food as me. I denied them their culture and they didn’t present their culture. Through all of this, I was continually the butt of Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese (etc.) jokes and remember times when I was in fights just because I looked different than the white kids. Rather than standup for myself and those that didn’t look white, I tried harder and harder to be white. I deeply wanted to be accepted as white, even wishing that somehow my eyes could become more round, my skin could become lighter and my hair could be changed from any color other than jet black. As stupid as this is going to sound, I remember sitting on the grass in my physical education class as a high school freshman hearing two white kids sitting next to me using the N-word and talking about how they were driving out a black family in the community through their participation in a KKK cross burning in the black family’s front yard that week. I was appalled and disgusted by what I heard, yet remained silent and indifferent to the whole thing because I wanted to fit in as white.

My parents perpetuated all of the negative stereotypes and tried to teach me racial hatred. Interesting as my adoptive parents were a bi-racial couple--my dad was white and mom was Japanese--yet they were racists. There hate was so deep that even as I graduated high school and entered the workforce while being a part-time college student, my mom told me one day that if I ever brought home a black a girl she would disown me.

You see, everything around me influenced me to be prejudiced and filled with hatred and anger towards those that were not white. While I never really learned how to hate others for the color of their skin, I did learn to be prejudiced against the stereotypical black person if they lived in the wrong place, used the wrong language, or dressed the wrong way. Even my memories of tv shows back then like Sanford & Son helped perpetuate my way of thinking. For me, it wasn’t the color of one’s skin, but rather aspects of culture that caused the negative thoughts and prejudices. Everything was viewed and compared to my white, rural, suburban perspective. It doesn’t excuse my pseudo-racism however.

As you can imagine, I have had a lot of experiences and influences that have caused me to be conflicted or never really being fully accepted in a particular group. I’ve always been a marginalized person because I am complicated and see things differently than many others. Even in my view of Dr. King, it’s like I’m on the outside looking in. I was not one of those school kids that was drawn to Dr King’s message of empowerment or hope--I actually viewed it in a negative and judgmental light growing up. Not only could I care less about his words, I didn’t give him much respect because he was also a minister. Back then in my narrow world, God did not exist. Therefore, hearing Scriptures or references to Biblical oppression turned me off.

Fast forward to the year 2010 and I think anyone that knows me or hears me speak can realize that much of King’s message, philosophy, love and call to abolish racism resonate within my vocabulary. It is only in recent years that I’ve been drawn to learn more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and realize how much we have in common and how much I can learn from him. To a confused boy growing up in a conflicted world, it was easy to see how his message was for blacks, yet as I hear his words today it is obvious that it is a message for everyone:

• “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
• “All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence”
• “At the center of non-violence stands the principle of love.”
• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that”
• “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. “
• “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. “

How can one read the above-quotes and see black or white? Christian or atheist? Dr. King spoke a message of hope and racial reconciliation for all people. It is exactly that platform for which I stand today as a minister of the gospel and human being that I desire so passionately to see embraced within the church today. You see, I’ve been to the other side and it’s a very dark, unhappy place to be. I know what it’s like to experience prejudice against me as well as casting it upon innocent others. While my experience isn’t unique, it is different. It took many years, but the legacy of the greatness of Dr. King’s life has been infused into my being and it is my hope that others in the coming generations will come to know the beauty of Dr. King’s dream and I am humbled to think that in some small way, maybe I am being used to continue shining a light on his legacy. People can and do change. We can rise above our past and our negative environments to be a voice for what is right.

Thank you Dr. King for your steadfastness, compassion and sacrifice in the name of what is just, true and right.

The real question is why wouldn’t you? The church tends to follow patterns that have clearly led to growth and decline over the past 2,000 years. Trends change, people change, cultural influences dictate change…eventually the church changes as well. Unfortunately for the church, we tend to be reactive rather than proactive. It leaves us playing catch up and going through a lot of pain in the interim.

With all sociologists in agreement, the United States will have no majority ethnic culture/race by the year 2050. However, here in California, the expectation is that Hispanics will become the majority population by 2020…that’s just 10 years from now! We can look amongst ourselves and see the predominant culture in our churches and believe we are poised to be healthy, large and growing forever, or we can step back and realize that at least in California, by 2020 we won’t be the majority culture in our cities.

In addition to the rising population of Hispanics, did you know that 40% of all Asians in the United States live in California? For those of you not in California, it still means that 60% of all Asians in America live in other states, so they have or will have some impact on the cultural makeup of your city.

Here in Sacramento, one of the big influences I have been seeing is that of Russian culture coming into the city. Recently this group of caucasian people have really begun shaping a lot of the culture here. There are many large Russian congregations and we even have Russian food restaurants. To go with the change, I’ve noticed that at least 1/3 of the items stocked at the local Asian grocery store are now Russian. While these people may blend in at the local church because they are white, culturally they are not your average Sacramentan. They have a different cultural heritage and are bringing its influence into our city unlike anything I’ve experienced in the past 39 years I’ve lived here.

You see, with everyone around you coming from a different cultural background, it’s easy to go about being the church of the majority while you’re the majority. When the day comes that you are not the majority, what do you do? When the mantra of being racially diverse in your church never materializes, yet you see new churches all around you that are not just diverse racially, but diverse culturally, do you move to join them or hang onto to your dying ways as the new minority?

To repeat Dave Gibbon’s definition of third culture (which i use solely for the standpoint of the local church): “Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn and serve in any culture even in the midst of pain and discomfort.” there is pain and discomfort that comes with being a third culture church. You have to set aside some things you like for the sake of experiencing other cultures. Without pain and discomfort, rarely is growth possible. We all chant about how Christ has transformed us and that we love everyone because he first loved us. However, when we are an inclusive group of people trying to invite others that looks like us to our party, yet we play only the music we like, only serve the food and beverages we enjoy, talk about the suburbia which we worked hard to obtain, how can we expect others to connect with what we are selling? Yes, when we talk about reaching other people yet do not change to make room for them, we are selling them a bill of goods that isn’t very tasty. We are the salt that has lost its saltiness.

We all tell the world that we value truth. We say that we not only want to speak the truth, but that we want others to speak the truth to us. In the end, you want to speak the truth and hope that no one will be bold enough to speak the truth back to you. Why? Because you are a phony!

[I'm sorry if I offended you, but it is my blog and therefore my truth. However, after hearing me out, I do encourage you to speak your truth back to me in the comments section below.]

Take a moment to stop and ask yourself a question: Are you really representing your thoughts honestly to others? In other words, are their times in church when you will raise your hand and stand for God, yet in the office you say nothing?

“If we endure hardship,
we will reign with him.
If we deny him,
he will deny us.” — 2 Timothy 2:12 NLT

Do you find yourself telling people “yes” when you wanted to tell them “no”?

“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” --Matthew 5:37 NIV

Why do we profess to living a life of truth, yet we ultimately find ourselves in lies?

For me, it’s not just simply saying “yes” to something I wanted to say “no” to. For me, it goes much deeper than that. In my world, I am what’s referred to as the twinkie: yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I have lived the life of being an Asian-American trying hard to assimilate in a world of the white majority. It’s not who I am; it’s not who God created me to be. It was a lie I was living in order to fit into a world that was comfortable with the majority. I was deceived because it never felt like a lie, until some people spoke truth into my life and caused me to see it for what it was.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not some Malcolm X and I don’t see to have the majority world view. I’m simply feeling compelled to let my words and actions represent who I am, rather than who I want you to think I am. Worse would be if I distort the truth to be who you think I should be.

Something is being changed deep within me. I can’t just come to learn this truth in my life and passively wait for it to come to the surface. My environment must change, my friends must change, my lifestyle must change if I am to honor this. I do sense these changes coming — how and when I do not know — but they are coming and I know in my heart that I am not a twinkie. My inside should be reflected on the outside, and my inside isn’t white. I have suppressed a lot of emotion and pain. I have lived a confused (and confusing) life at times. It hasn’t been who I was created to be, and with the help of my Creator I hope to let you all get to know me for who I am, not who you want me to be. I can’t live that lie anymore.

In response to some things stirring within me, along with the sense that there is some cultural context we are striving to find yet failing in our search, I am devoting my blogspace on Thursdays to what I am calling “3rd Culture Thursday.” It’s an exploration and conversation related to the idea of third culture kids and how we as the church should move towards embracing the concept within our own communities. This whole 3rd culture idea became aware to me from reading Dave Gibbons‘ book: The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership For A Third-Culture Church.

Gibbons defines 3rd culture as:

The mindset and the will to love, learn, and serve in any culture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort.

A key element to the discussion is this idea of being committed to something while being in the midst of pain and discomfort. It involves honesty, conflict, hard work and an attitude of openness. These are all hard things to deal with on an individual basis, but imagine what life would be like if we were to take them all on once and then some. Imagine the amazing things that come about if we would at least try.

Here’s a video from Dave Gibbons that gives a bit of insight on the 3rd culture mindset:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfrGpdjdv40

Does this resonate with you? Are you intrigued? Beginning to feel a sense of connectedness? If so, it is my hope that this forum will help educate and be used as a way to lend a voice to others and engage in some new dialog.

Learn more by visiting Dave Gibbons’ 3rd culture website: http://www.3culture.tv or by reading his book: The Monkey And The Fish. Also, look for tweets with the hashtag #3ct or follow the aggregate list of tweets on twubs.com/3ct as I will be tweeting 140 characters at a time throughout the week to help facilitate better understanding and dialog on 3rd culture.

See you here next Thursday as we kick-off the conversation with a post titled “Who is your neighbor?”

Something so simple has turned into something so divisive. I get it, but I don’t like it! People within Asian-American culture are divided in some aspects and people of the predominant white American culture are divided as well.

The initial intent of the discussion regarding the marketing/packaging of Deadly Viper Character Assassins was to make known how this was insensitive to Asian-American culture. It was to help stop the perpetual pain of Orientalism and respect our culture in a relevant context. However, the way the situation has been handled has continued to bring about pain. However, now it’s not just the Asian-American community, but it is also the culture of fans of the Deadly Viper Character Assassins book. Where’s the intelligence in that?

From day one the biggest misstep in all of this has been communication. Unfortunately, for those of you looking to blame Asian-Americans for being at fault you are completely wrong. Gross errors in communication have occurred on both sides. Some communication has taken place, but it’s been inappropriate in many instances.

The latest communication error in my opinion is in the way Mike Foster & Jud Wilhite have emerged as the victims. If you go to their website, deadlyviper.org all you’ll find is this note:

To our Friends and Family:

Due to an unfortunate conflict that arose around our use of Asian American themes, we have decided to close this chapter of Deadly Viper Character Assassins. This decision has been a very difficult one for us and one that we did not take lightly.

For the past 2 years we have had the honor to be part of an incredible movement of advocating for radical integrity and grace. We have been deeply humbled hearing your stories of how Deadly Viper has impacted your life, family, and relationships.

We and our team will continue to commit our lives to the message of integrity, grace, and most of all becoming People Of The Second Chance.

We thank you for your prayers, support, and kindness through this season.

We love you.

Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite

At a glance, this seems reasonable. However, I get red flags from just the first sentence:

Due to an unfortunate conflict that arose around our use of Asian American themes, we have decided to close this chapter of Deadly Viper Character Assassins.

The reason I have an issue with this is because it solely places blame on Asian-Americans as the reason why the website was shut down. First of all, lets get something straight. When you come out initially and say that you used Asian imagery in the promotion of the book not realizing that it would be deemed insensitive and that out of respect to the error you are withdrawing the Asian themes from your website and other media how can that now be expressed as an “unfortunate conflict?” In reality, the “unfortunate” aspect of this whole fiasco was using the imagery in a non-relevant way in the first place. Know that because I found the wording of the letter to be unfortunate, I reached out to Mike Foster and asked if he’d take a few minutes to converse with me about why he chose those words. We have several mutual friends, but none of the channels I operated through (both direct & in-direct) worked and I never received a response from him. In my opinion, shutting down everything and not explaining it in better words has caused confusion and resentment. It’s being viewed by many as a passive-aggressive action that really is uncalled for if the intent really is to better-understand the issue and reach out to those that were offended.

Secondly, the final word on the matter on deadlyviper.org is that the total shutdown of their work was in direct response to the conflict with the Asian-American community. For whatever reason people haven’t gotten this so far, let me clarify it for you as simply and as succinctly as I can: No one in the Asian-American community attacked Mike Foster or Jud Wilhite personally. Most of us went out of our way to preface our comments by saying that we respected and appreciated Foster & Wilhite and their ministries (a few examples from: me, Eugene Cho, David Park, Laurence Tom, Daniel So). Yes, many Asian-Americans felt hurt by the insensitive use of the Asian imagery in the book, but it was never compared to the other ministry of Deadly Viper. Ultimately the issue was placed on Zondervan to withdraw the book in its current form and re-release it with the insensitive materials removed. Zondervan responded by agreeing to swiftly remove the book from stores. So, when deadlyviper.org gets unexpectedly shutdown, most of us in the Asian-American community are scratching our heads just like the fans of Deadly Viper. None of us had issues with the Man Cave sessions, the blog, or any of the other ministries launched from that site. Those could have continued on without any feedback from those offended by the packaging of the book. So, to blame Asian-Americans for seeing the site taken down was something I see as an attempt to increase the divisiveness and make it an “us against them” issue which it was never intended to be. In fact, one of the amazing things I got to witness by being at The Idea Camp in Portland, OR this past weekend was seeing Eugene Cho, one of the guys invited into the discussion with Zondervan, wearing a People Of The Second Chance shirt on stage. He never once commented on the issue, but his shirt spoke volumes as to how his issue was never with Mike Foster or Jud Wilhite personally.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, the issue isn’t really just the use of Asian imagery being used inappropriately to market and package a book. It’s about a deeper issue of racial insensitivity that has continued for generations because Asian-Americans just quietly deal with it. A generation is finally coming forward to say that it’s wrong and the heart of the matter needs to be addressed. We’re not looking for our Rosa Parks or organizing boycotts or anything like that. We’re simply asking to be respected for our cultural diversity and our relevance in society. None of us are demanding equality or favoritism. However, each one of us looking at how this has escalated have all either thought or expressed how something like this in the context of an African-American issue would have never happened. First, proper precautions would have been taken to make sure it wasn’t deemed offensive to the African-American community, but even of greater importance is that it would have never even been pitched in the first place. Had it flown through all the checkpoints and actually been published, it would have caused an uproar and not only would books have been pulled, but amends would have been swift and apologetic and hands would have been outstretched to heal the pain caused to the African-American community. We would have all expected to see that happen. However, when it comes up in an Asian-American context, many in the predominant American culture have wondered what the big deal was all about.

I’m not here to assassinate anyone’s character or judge them for being racists. However, this whole incident has had racist undertones for some and it had triggered an angry response both by those on the offensive and defensive sides. Regardless of how things have transpired, if you harbor ill-will towards the Asian-American community for causing the beloved Deadly Viper to come crashing to its knees, you’d better look elsewhere because we don’t deserve that criticism.

I’ve been seeing a lot of promotion for another ministry of Mike & Jud: People Of The Second Chance. Unfortunately, details for that were taken down along with the Deadly Viper stuff so I can’t link to any of it, but it’s an awesome work full of grace and extending open hands to people. If more of what was behind that ministry was exemplified in the Deadly Viper issue, things would not have escalated and misunderstandings would have been quickly squashed.

We in the Asian-American community just want to see some ongoing dialog of reconciliation occur. We’re not interested in drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves, nor are we out to win any fights. We have a story and a history in your nation and in all honesty, it’s you who miss out when you are indifferent to that. As my friend Charles Lee tweeted recently, “Reconciliation is better than closure.” May it be reconciliation that is declared the winner someday in all of this.