Conference promotes Asian-American leadership networks

The first official A2CP2 (Asian-American Church Planting & Cooperative Program) Conference, seeking to build nationwide networks among Asian-American church leadership in the Southern Baptist Convention, launched on April 9 at Southwestern Seminary. Featuring several prominent speakers, the conference highlighted the importance of evangelism, discipleship and unity for the advancement of God’s Kingdom in the United States and abroad.

The convention opened with a sermon on the judgment seat of Christ by Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Seminary. Explaining that the bema, the Greek word for “judgment seat,” was actually used to describe military reviewing platforms in Greco-Roman cities, Patterson encouraged the audience to live as soldiers who would merit eternal rewards in heaven.

“Only what is done for Christ will last,” Patterson said. “We need to spend these days getting ready for the return of Christ, and for the bema, the judgment seat of Christ, where we will appear to give an account for how we lived for him. And we will receive rewards for that which we have done for Christ.”

Paul Kim, the conference’s second speaker, emphasized the importance of church-driven evangelism and missions. “Our nation is broken, and it needs to be rebuilt by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God,” said Kim, who serves as Asian-American relations consultant for the Executive Committee of the SBC and is also a Southwestern trustee. “Our generation needs to get back to God and His Word for His mission. Before the Lord returns, we need to see more church planting, more evangelism and more missions.”

Kim appealed for cooperation among Asian-American churches, explaining that together they can support larger ministries that cannot be sustained by individual churches. “Although many of our Southern Baptist churches are small, if we work together cooperatively, we can do greater things for the Kingdom of God,” Kim explained. “I want us to think together and work together as a denomination.”

Douglas Carver, retired U.S. Army chaplain and executive director of chaplaincy in the North American Mission Board, spoke next, addressing the topic of spiritual warfare and mobilization. Preaching from Ephesians 6, Carver expounded four points for victorious spiritual warfare: maintaining a war footing, knowing the strategy of the enemy, staying in spiritual combat uniform, and upholding a persistent warfare mentality.

Carver also underscored the importance of cultivating the heart of Jesus for the lost in mobilizing for ministry. “Mobilization is about seeing the need in the crowds and feeling that compassion moving us to do something,” he said. “People are dying and going to hell. They are self-destructive. … There’s an urgency, but the workers are few. We have to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the field.”

The final speaker, Daniel Im, director of church multiplication for NewChurches.com and LifeWay Christian Resources, said that the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and church unity and community were indispensable for the healthy growth of a church. “What we need to understand is that the power of the Holy Spirit is for ‘us,’” Im explained. “It’s always about a singular Holy Spirit filling up the plural ‘us.’ We receive the Holy Spirit not as an individual superpower, but as part of the body [of Christ].”

At the conference’s conclusion, Kim told the audience that it was just the beginning of Asian-American networking for church planting and cooperation in the SBC. “We are going to continue onto the next journey,” he said. “We are going to pursue and continue to work together in unity together as one body by the power of the Holy Spirit.”