50 YEARS AND STILL LEARNING
From Medicine To Mobilization
1968, KP landed in SF as a new immigrant. During college, his commitment to missions grew when he realized a California education was a privilege at a time when tens of millions of young people like himself were Red Guards in China or refugees in Indochina.
Luke 12:48 became his life verse: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” Christ followers are blessed to be a blessing.
1974, while attending med school in San Francisco, the story of the 1806 Haystack Prayer Meeting inspired KP to start the Pray For Asia Fellowship to promote missions among Chinese students in Toronto, Chicago, SF and LA. In 1985 he also started the World Christian Conference in California for young professionals to explore their call to missions.
Disappointment & Confusion
1986, as a young clinical assistant professor, KP began looking for ways to serve overseas. He soon learned that unreached nations had little funding to hire western trained medics to work or teach in their system. Healthcare was a cost center and not a national priority for emerging economies.
He struggled: “I know my calling. At the Pray For Asia Fellowship and the World Christian Conference, we dream about using our professions to serve in missions. With all the open doors along the way, have I been running hard on the wrong path for 19 years since my pre-med days?”
Two Pivotal Conversations
One Sunday afternoon, KP and his wife met with their pastor. The late Rev. Eddie Lo asked them a profound question: “What do you really want to do with your life? Let me make this more concrete for you. What do you hope to be doing 10 years from now?”
After KP shared his desire to be part of a movement of Christian professionals from North America going into the world for missions, Rev. Lo replied: “You need to start your own organization.” KP almost fell out of his chair. He was looking to join a mission agency, not to start one! But he knew the pastor was right. Even in the late 80s, tentmaking was a novel idea. Missions agencies were all sending traditional workers. With many organizations represented at the US Center For World Mission in Southern California, the World Christian Conference still had difficulty finding speakers to talk about tentmaking.
A few weeks later, the late Dr. Paul Pierson, Dean of Fuller’s School of Intercultural Studies shared with KP: “The Holy Spirit has been doing something new in the world in the last 30 years, raising up third world mission initiatives to come alongside the predominantly white mission structures of the West. The gospel needs to be represented by many cultures in our world today. I’ve attended the World Christian Conference. I know something is happening among the Chinese American young people.”
Fall 1988, with God’s Word from three Old Testament passages, encouragement from other mentors, support from peers, and most importantly his spouse, KP decided to leave GI medicine to start an organization for tentmakers.
It is God’s humor that an aspiring self-supporting tentmaker would become a donor-supported mobilizer for tentmaking missions. Fifteen years later, God finally showed KP how his years of academic medical training was relevant for this non-profit that does not even focus on medical services.
Seeking God’s will is never easy. In times of confusion and disappointment, it takes faith and perseverance to discover how God’s ways are truly higher than ours. Learning to trust in His love and sovereignty is a challenge. But the Master who calls is also our Father who cares.
New Paradigm & Practice
For decades, “a church for every unreached people group” has been the clarion call to missions. By 1988, KP had served 15 years on the missions committees of two churches in California where support for “direct” evangelism and church planting were top priority. But how could we get workers to unreached nations where church planting is most needed when they cannot get missionary visas?
At the World Christian Conference where tentmaking and other ideas were freely explored under the guidance of a pastor, a theologian, and a missiologist, KP was convicted that new missions paradigms and practice were needed to complement traditional missions in the 21st century.
In the early 80s, a few organizations began to send English teachers to China. But, with all the education and professional resources among Christians in the US, KP’s vision was to mobilize diverse talents for the holistic development of unreached nations, to share God’s love and earn the right to be heard by people in all walks of life beyond the college campus.
But what would it look like to send missional professionals, and how should they be supported? In 1988, we only had vague ideas of what needed to be done. It was like launching an internet startup in the 90s.
Not to our credit but by the grace of God, we have survived and thrived over 35 years. God has been raising third world mission initiatives, and we are part of His plan for our time. As an Asian American organization, we are just one small piece of the jigsaw puzzle that God is putting together for His glory and redemptive purpose in our time.
Follow The Spirit, Serve Our Generation
Billy Graham once said, “I believe the next great move of God will be among believers in the marketplace.”
At Lausanne I in 1974, the concept of “unreached people groups” impacted how we see the unfinished task. At Lausanne II in 1989, “the whole gospel for the whole world” helped us understand that serving our neighbors and reaching them with God’s love must go hand in hand to advance the kingdom.
In the last 30 years, as workplace theology and creative access missiology began to influence the life of the church and missions, GLS has been applying these teachings as we learn by doing tentmaking missions, sending workers into the marketplace of creative access countries to live out the Great Commandment and fulfill the Great Commission.
As we follow the Spirit with a listening heart and an open mind, He will lead us to the right path even when we do not know what we are doing. “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” (Isa 30:21) We are just called to be faithful, good and wise stewards of the resources and opportunities entrusted to us so that we may serve our generation in a timely manner. (Lk 12:42)
To Ethnic American Christians
Like Abraham, all Christ followers are called to be a blessing to the nations. Chinese American Christians have three identities—Chinese, American, and Christians. The same applies to those of Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Arab, and Iranian descent.
When missional professionals are sent to serve in their home countries or to other cultures, they could bring them the best from America—business, education, and tech resources for nation building, and more importantly, the gospel for their spiritual and social transformation.
Ethnic Americans are uniquely suited to be cultural ambassadors between the US and their home countries and other unreached nations in the majority world, bringing American good will and building bridges, people to people. This is an important way ethnic Americans, having been blessed in America, can give back to both their home countries, the US, and the world.
As Dr. Paul Pierson pointed out, the gospel needs to be represented by many cultures, especially in our divided world today. God has brought people from all over the world to America to bless them so that they will in turn be a blessing to the nations.
Key Lessons
God is sovereign. He does not need any worker, church, or organization to “help” Him. But He gives us the opportunity to join him in making history, and through the process grow to become more like His Son.
We began as a learning organization in the uncharted waters of tentmaking mission. We must continue with humility this learning posture in order to stay relevant in this fast-changing world.
Spiritual warfare is rife in these end times. Our ministry began with prayer and must continue in prayer with greater discipline and fervor than ever before. “‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit’, says the LORD of hosts.” (Zech 4:6)