From: sedayao@sousa.intel.com (Jeff Sedayao)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american
Subject: Re: AA ministers and churches
Date: 14 Apr 92 18:46:03 GMT
Reply-To: sedayao@chopin.intel.com
Organization: Intel - Information Technologies

In article <12172@tamsun.tamu.edu>, achin@math.tamu.edu (Andrew Chin) writes:
> Another new thread from my unravelling mind:
 
Oh no!! :-)

> 1.  Have you ever attended a church service led by an AA minister?

Yes.

>        Are you a member of a church with an AA minister?

No.

>        Are you a member of a church with a non-AA minister?

Yes.

> 2.  Do you know of any AA ministers who lead mainstream/non-AA churches?

Yes.  There are a number of Filipino priests running mainstream Roman Catholic
churches.  

> 3.  How would you characterize the AA minister?
>        Which generation is s/he?

I have met several and they vary.  Most are first generation, but I have
met some who were later generations.

>        Is s/he an effective leader of the congregation?  the local
>           AA community?  the general community?

Varies.  I remember meeting a nun who stood out as a leader in the Filipino
community.  Not so much in the general community.

Where I used to live in Fremont, the minister of the local Buddhist church
is a community leader.  He is occasionally interviewed by the local
paper on Asian American affairs.  Kristi Yamaguchi attended the church he
runs, and he was interviewed about that recently.

>        Is s/he an effective witness of the Gospel?

Some better than others.  Don't know the Buddhist minister well enough 
to say if he is an effective witness of the Gospel :-)

>        Is s/he respected among the leaders of mainstream churches?

Hard to say.

>        Given the pragmatic materialism of most AAs, is the minister
>           respected as a role model for the congregation?

You seem to be trying to fit church experiences into a certain mold.
In my experiences in the Filipino-American community, the minister
is typically a priest.  Filipino-Americans seem to treat priests as
someone who provides certain services - does weddings, blesses their
house or car, says mass.  It does not seem to me that they look to
their priests for leadership in the same way that African Americans
have looked to their ministers for leadership.

> 4.  Are services conducted in both English and an Asian language?
>        How does the content of the services compare?

Varies again.  I went to a Buddhist wedding, and I could not compare
the parts that were in English and that parts that were in Japanese.
As for my experiences with Filipinos, although most Filipino Americans
are Roman Catholic, very few masses are held in Filipino languages. 
Most are held in English.

> 5.  Is the content of the services relatively "watered down" for new
>        Christians/new English-speakers?

No.

>        If so, what effect does this have?

> -- 
> Andrew Chin    Dept. of Math.    Texas A&M U.    College Station, TX 77843
> achin@math.tamu.edu   Probably not TAMU's exact opinions.   (409) 845-1924
>                 * Fighting racism is not a special interest *

-- 
Jeff Sedayao
Intel Corporation
sedayao@chopin.intel.com
..!uunet!intelhf!chopin!sedayao
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american