East Meets West: Seven Years and Growing

“A wonderful time of encouragement!” was the common refrain I heard from the 23 participants of the East Meets West group gathered for the final session of their retreat at the Mount Hermon Conference Center southwest of San Jose, Calif.

The 23 attendees came from across North America. Many received funds from either Calvin Theological Seminary or their local classes in order to attend.

A grant offered through the Christian Reformed Church in North America also helped to make the cost of the retreat accessible to participants with minimal financial resources.

The East Meets West group is one of six ethnic minority affinity groups that are finding their voice and supporting one another within the CRCNA. They represent one of the “global/local” realities that prompted the formation of our merged mission agency, Resonate Global Mission.

This group of Chinese-speaking CRC pastors, spouses, and ministry leaders have gathered annually for the past seven years, and this year’s group was the largest ever, including 11 first-time attendees.

Five members of Golden Gate CRC, San Francisco, were present, including their senior pastor, youth ministry pastor, and Cantonese ministries pastor.

While Golden Gate CRC has been part of the CRCNA for nearly 40 years, many of the members of the church have minimal knowledge of their denomination — and this retreat helped the church’s staff make better connections and learn more about the CRCNA.

It also gave them an opportunity to encourage others who have recently joined the CRC.

Two leaders of the East Meets West group are Rev. James Chiang and his wife, Winnis, who became part of the CRC in 2012. They are currently planting a church in Los Altos, Calif., and they provided significant leadership in planning this event.

Among other things, they found local Chinese-language speakers who made presentations on topics such as relational evangelism (Juno Wang) and marketplace ministry (Jimmy Lee).

It was clear that James and Winnis felt rewarded by seeing how their planning efforts encouraged attendees in so many ways and how the Spirit is blessing this growing group.

One especially celebrated speaker was Dr. Thomas Wang, who joined the group for a morning with his wife, Rachel. Wang is now 92 years old, and is well known in the Chinese Christian community as a missionary who has traveled around the world, and as a scholar and writer who has taught and inspired many in the task of missions.

At the retreat, we also heard how the Spirit is at work in the lives of such people as Chenxing “David” Wang, who immigrated to the U.S. from mainland China just three years ago. He came by way of a student visa to study at the University of Denver.

When he arrived, he had no knowledge of the Christian faith. But then he was welcomed graciously by Hillcrest CRC in Denver, a congregation that was formed by blending an independent Chinese student ministry and an aging traditional CRC congregation.

Through Hillcrest’s ministries of hospitality and discipleship, Chenxing became a Christian. He also met his wife in this congregation and joined this family of faith.

He now serves as a deacon and was invited by the current pastor of Hillcrest, Eric Snyder, to the Mount Hermon retreat.

Also at the retreat were Sherry Fang and Martha Lee. Both attended seminary in Los Angeles with two of the other East Meets West pastors, and both are part of a CRC “preaching peer group” funded by a Calvin Theological Seminary grant sponsored by Lilly Foundation Inc.

Sherry pastors an independent emerging congregation that she founded five years ago, and Martha engages in missions to present the gospel in locations where the church is underdeveloped.

Both were appreciative of being welcomed to the retreat, and both appreciated learning more about the Reformed perspective and church polity. As a result, they said they plan to look further into affiliating with the CRC.

 In all, the event was  thoroughly encouraging, once again giving East Meets West a chance to gather and get to know one another better as well as to learn more about the CRCNA.