I don’t usually share my birthday wishes, but this year is special. My wish is for huge grassroots support of the new ministry I’m starting at Fuller Seminary’s Asian American Center. It will be called the Asian American Christian History Institute (AACHI).
AACHI envisions a day when the stories of faithful and diverse Asian Americans are familiar to everyone. We want to bring people to encounter and be enriched by the Great Cloud of Asian American witnesses. And we want to help Asian American Christians become a historically enriched disciples who can heal, empower, and re-imagine hope for our Asian American communities and the worldwide church. AACHI will be a unique resource!
AACHI will also be the culmination of my ministry! I’d like to invite you to join our Founders’ Circle or make an online gift. We will also schedule some informational zoom meetings in April. Please email us at aachi@fuller.edu if you have any questions or would like to talk about Asian American CHI. I look forward to chatting with you!
I want to thank so many of you for your kind words of support since I announced my father’s passing a few weeks ago. The memorial service went smoothly and our family is gradually feeling renewed from the emotional and physical fatigue that accompanies grief. I hope to have an opportunity to personally respond to each of you in the next few weeks.
Before I share a ministry update, here’s a story about the lost and found diploma…
My brother, Stephen, found my missing diploma.
My mom proudly displayed her three sons’ doctorate degrees on her bedroom wall in her home in Brooklyn in the 1990s. But we thought my parents lost the diplomas when they moved to California more than twenty years ago (unlike my brothers, I gave her my original diploma). Over the years, I thought my diploma was lost forever. But as my brother and I cleaned out my dad’s garage a couple of weeks ago, we found them! Few words can describe the joy of recovering the only physical evidence of my Ph.D.! Hmm. Now I wonder why my dad never cleaned out his garage.
The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.
As our campuses gingerly re-opened, I’m happy to report that we have experienced an uptick of interest in our grad ministries. For example, New Student Outreach at Stanford, Berkeley, and UC Davis have gathered more new students this quarter than in previous years. The UCSF fellowship has added a third small group for doctoral students, post-docs, residences, and staff.
Yet, many students and faculty we talk to are also befuddled, frustrated, and – in some cases – angry at what is happening in the church (I encourage you to read Wehner’s article).
While there remains an interest in addressing whether Jesus’ claims are true, an emerging question now appears to be whether being part of his Body is desirable. Wehner concludes, “Something has gone amiss; pastors know it as well as anyone and better than most. The Jesus of the Gospels—the Jesus who won their hearts, and who long ago won mine—needs to be reclaimed.”
The church in America (evangelicalism, in particular) is paying the price of willful ignorance of its hunger for status and power. As many ministry leaders look to restart their ministries, it behooves us to reclaim the Jesus of the Gospels and support this generation’s efforts to rebuild faith.
I recognize that not every ministry or lay leader has the luxury of engaging this reclamation and reconstruction effort, but InterVarsity’s Grad and Faculty Ministries is uniquely positioned to help. Would you be interested in a conversation about this? It’d be great to have partners in this endeavor!
Ministry Updates
Discipleship of the mind
Dan Stringer, our Hawaii GFM Team leader, has written his first book, Struggling with Evangelicalism:Why I Want to Leave and What It Takes to Stay. Preorder now at InterVarsity Press. It will be available November 16.
Darren Hsiung, campus staff minister at U.C. Berkeley, shared a three-part series on postmodernism at the Stanford IV Gra Developing a Christian Mind (DCM) Small Group. This small group seeks guidance from God’s word and each other on topics that intersect with their lives and vocations as Christians within their respective disciplines.
I shared a draft chapter from my book on the history of Asian American Christianity with the Stanford IV Grad International Students Small Group in September.
I am also facilitating book club conversations about 20th Century American Christianity. Ministry partners, doctoral students, and IV staff have met twice already.
Faculty Ministries
There will not be a Spring Nor Cal Faculty Conference next year. Dan Stringer and Brennan Takayama, however, are continuing to support and strengthen the island-wide faculty ministries in Hawaii.
Rev. Ryan Bradley, our newly appointed Staff Associate for Faculty Ministries is gathering faculty at UC Merced.
Next Spring, we are planning on coordinating Faculty Roundtables at Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Other updates
Pray for the Stanford IV Grad Fall Retreat next weekend (Nov. 6-7). Sophia Maganalles-Tseng, adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary, will guide us to reflect on “Embodied Witness and Spirituality.”
Field Op Director, Michele Turek, has returned from maternity leave.
We welcome newly appointed volunteers in the area:
Rev. Ryan Bradley is Staff Associate (volunteer) for Faculty Ministries at U.C. Merced. He is also a Pastor at St. Luke’s Anglican Church in Merced and was an Assistant Professor in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University
Lori Chang is Staff Associate (volunteer) at U.C. Davis. She grew up in San Jose, California. She is a graduate of UC Davis with a Bachelor’s in English Literature and as well as a secondary teaching credential. Lori spent 20 years as a pastor’s wife in Chinese churches in northern and southern California. She is the spouse of Team Leader, Howard Chang, and the proud mom of 3 adult children. She enjoys gardening, taking deep dives into Scripture, and discipling graduate students.
Rev. John Woo is soon to be appointed Staff Associate at Stanford IV Grad. John was formerly Pastor at Millbrae Bible Church and has twenty years of pastoral experience in Northern and Southern California. He also served at Ethnos Asia Ministries, a ministry for persecuted churches. He is married to Cynthia and they have two high schoolers Caleb and Kira.
I’ve lived long enough to know that there will be seasons of stress. Since early summer, the stress related to my dad’s rapid health decline has occupied much of my spiritual, emotional, and physical space. My book project has slowed considerably. I have not had opportunity to remind my financial partners to renew their gifts, so I now face what I hope is a temporary budget deficit. On the other hand, there have been a lot of surprisingly good news in the GFM Pacific Area. I’ll share about these in a couple of weeks.
But for this update, I’d like to invite you to pray for me and my family as we grieve the passing of my father.
My dad passed away on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2021. He died while doing what he loved, namely, spending time with his grandson while visiting my step-sister in the Bay Area. The last time I spoke with him was after I preached at a church in Sacramento last August. I also preached the Sunday he died. Ministry is one of the few areas my dad and I clearly overlapped. Though he was more interested in the church in China than I was, he always expressed concern about me – especially after I was pushed out of the ministry of theological education and academia. Perhaps he felt a bit guilty about the pain that my family and I endured afterwards. But I’ve reassured him repeatedly that everything has worked out for good. Though I will miss him greatly, I’m grateful that his life was a testimony to the goodness of God in the midst of adversity and suffering.
Visiting Tim’s dad in July 2021
In Memoriam Rev. Paul Fan Ping Tseng 曾凡平牧師 (1928-2021)
My photo tribute to my dad can be viewed at this link.
The Rev. Paul Fan Ping Tseng (曾凡平牧師) died on September 26, 2021, from natural causes while visiting family in Milpitas, California. He was 93 years old. Part of the pioneering generation of immigrant Chinese church planting pastors, Rev. Tseng founded the Brooklyn Chinese Community Church in 1970 and helped plant Touch Community Christian Church in Queens and the Suffolk Christian Church in Long Island. In retirement, Rev. Tseng continued to preach and teach the Christian gospel to an ever-growing Chinese audience. His books and online broadcasts touched thousands. Beloved for his spiritual leadership and vision, he nevertheless attributed his blessed and hope-filled life to God and his fellow Christian colleagues.
Paul Fan Ping Tseng was born to an influential and educated family in Wuchuan in China’s Guizhou Province on February 15, 1928, lunar calendar 公元一九二八年 農曆閏二月十五日. As a youth, he opposed the foreign influence of Christianity. He enjoyed telling the story of when he led a group of young people to throw rocks at the stained-glass windows of a local Catholic church. He married Mao Xiang Shen (申茂香) in 1944, who passed away in 1961. In 1948, their only surviving child, Rong Zeng (曾容), was born. They also had two sons who died young.
Paul Fan Ping served as an engineer in the Nationalist Chinese Air Force during the Chinese Civil War. In the wake of the People’s Republic’s takeover of the Chinese mainland, he relocated to Taiwan in 1949 instead of returning to Guizhou. While that decision meant that he would not see his family for many years, it also led to his conversion to the Christian faith. In Taiwan in the 1950s, Paul converted to Roman Catholicism during his recovery from tuberculosis. A caring priest and the near-death experience persuaded him to embrace the Christian faith. Paul later joined the Seventh Day Adventist church and entered the ministry as a chaplain at the Taiwan Adventist Hospital in Taipei. There he met and married a nursing student, Anna Hsieh (謝慧貞), in 1961.
In 1965, Paul, along with Anna and their first son, Timothy, left Taiwan and journeyed to Worcester County, MA, to complete his theological studies at Atlantic Union College. Their second son, Paul Charles, was born in Clinton, MA, at this time. Feeling led to plant Chinese churches, Rev. Tseng moved his family to New York City where their third son, Stephen, would be born. In 1970, the Chinese Christian fellowship that met in the garage of his family’s Brooklyn home was officially organized as the Brooklyn Chinese Christian [now Community] Church. Pastor Paul and Anna faced the hardships of the fledgling church during its early years with determination and faith, all the while devoting themselves to raising three boys.
Under his leadership, the small church sponsored dozens of ethnic Chinese refugee families from Southeast Asia displaced due to a border war in Vietnam in 1979. The church, at the time, also shared facilities with a Haitian, Puerto Rican, and White (transitioning to African American) congregation and became an early model of multicultural ministry at the Baptist Church of the Redeemer.
As the church grew in the 1980s, the Tseng family experienced a bit more stability. They were reunited with Eunice’s family, who immigrated to New York City. Pastor Paul then embarked on efforts to plant churches in Queens and Long Island, New York. In the 1990s, BCCC was able to acquire its own facilities. During that time, Pastor Paul visited China frequently to teach, train, and connect with the local church leaders. He became known as an insightful biblical interpreter and expositor.
Rev. Paul Tseng retired from full-time ministry in 1999, shortly after Anna was diagnosed with ALS. They moved to San Diego, California, where he cared for Anna and continued to reach out to the Chinese community with the gospel. Anna Hsieh Tseng passed away peacefully with her family by her side shortly after moving to Elk Grove, California, on September 9, 2003.
Paul married Amy Meng Xiao (蒙霄) on October 24, 2004 and settled in Elk Grove. He was finally able to enjoy traveling for recreation and treasured spending time with his family. Writing books, preparing lessons, and teaching, Pastor Paul served the local Chinese community and supported ministries in China. When he could no longer travel to China, he trained Christian leaders throughout Asia by teaching and broadcasting online. He continued serving until his death.
Rev. Tseng is survived by his wife, Amy Meng Xiao (蒙霄); his three sons and their spouses: Timothy (曾祥雨) and Betty, Paul Charles (曾祥霖) and Katie, Stephen (曾祥雷) and Vivien; his two daughters and their spouses: Rong Zeng (曾容) and David Mei Lun (王美伦), Peggy (孙湉) and Xiao Li (李潇); 11 grandchildren; 6 great-grandchildren; and his younger sister and her spouse, Fan Xuan (曾凡宣) and Rong (胡榮). He was preceded in death by his first wife Mao Xiang Shen (申茂香) in 1961, his second wife Anna (謝慧貞) in 2003, and his younger brother Fan Zao (曾凡藻) in 2021.
Rev. Paul Fan Ping Tseng leaves a grateful family and an inspiring legacy of faith in God and devotion to the Chinese church worldwide.
A viewing, open to all friends, will be held at East Lawn Memorial in Elk Grove, California, on October 14, 2021, between 5pm and 8pm.
A private viewing and memorial service will be held for family members on October 15, 2021. The service will start at 10am and will be livestreamed from the East Lawn obituary website: https://www.eastlawn.com/obituary/pastor-paul-fan-ping-tseng/
In lieu of flowers or non-monetary gifts, please consider making a gift to these two organizations. Their missions represent the lifework of Rev. Paul F. Tseng. Gifts may be made “in honor of” or “in memory of” Rev. Paul F. Tseng.
Overseas Missionary Fellowship 10 W Dry Creek Circle Littleton, CO 80120 https://omf.org/us
The Alliance of Asian American Baptist Churches Seminarian Scholarship Fund c/o Japanese Baptist Church 160 Broadway, Seattle, WA 98122 https://allianceofaabc.wixsite.com/mysite
I want to wish you a Happy Lunar New Year, even though it feels more somber this year. Despite the recent rash of violence against Asian Americans (which has continued unabated since the start of the pandemic in the U.S.), I will still celebrate with millions of people around the world. Despite the suffering of so many, let us not give up hope. Jesus Christ remains our reason for hope.
In San Francisco, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee died January 30th after getting shoved to the ground. Also, on Oakland, a 91-year-old was brutally pushed from behind. And in San Jose, a 64-year-old woman was robbed in the middle of the afternoon. [image from https://www.instagram.com/jdschang/%5D
Generations of Americans have been taught to see Asian Americans (if we are seen at all) as outsiders and foreigners. Consider this testimony by Rev. O.C. Wheeler (who is regarded as a founding father of California Baptists). His public testimony against Chinese immigrants helped lead to the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Here are some quotes:
the presence of the Chinese has a resistless tendency to degrade labor…, to pollute morals, to destroy virtue among our people. (p. 14)
…under the most favorable circumstances, they fail to show the first step toward assimilation, or the least desire to become Americans. (p. 16)
for every one Christian we have gained from their ranks, they have utterly ruined the morals and led into infamous ways fifty of our sons and daughters. (p. 24)
These perceptions were burned into the American psyche and provided the excuse to treat Asian Americans as unfeeling, less-than-human objects – playthings for bullies. Thus, even our elderly are beaten up because they are easy targets. So, no, mocking Chinese accents and making jokes like “Kung Flu” are not harmless.
Despite anti-Asian racism, hope never fades when we can look to Jesus and follow him. God is raising up a new generation of disciples among college and grad students and faculty. InterVarsity’s campus ministry staff is the vanguard of a new evangelicalism that will not bow to the Baal of Christian nationalism. This rising generation is seeking, praying, and working for a spiritual renewal that points to God’s kingdom of right relationships and shalom.
This is one of the reasons why your support of my ministry with InterVarsity is so important. Yes, we invite people on campuses into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But we also want to bear witness to the healing that Jesus’ kingdom offers to the brokenness in our congregations and society.
(Keep scrolling down to see the recent work that we’re doing to advance the cause of Christ. I’d love to hear back from you!)
And so, because our hope is in Jesus, I can wish you a very Happy Lunar New Year! Please let me know how you are doing and how I can pray for you!
Ministry Highlights
Telling stories of Asian American Christianity
I wrote a series articles on the history of Chinese American Christianity the last issue of Chinasource Quarterly. View at this link.
Dr. Jane Hong and I will co-host a podcast series on the history of Asian American Christianity for Centering, the podcast of Fuller Seminary’s Asian American Center. It will air next week!
Virtual Winter Conference
Thirty-four grad students joined our first ever Pacific Area virtual Winter Conference last weekend. We were blessed with inspiring messages about living out the gospel in a changing world! Thank you for your prayers during a difficult pandemic challenged academic year. Please pray for our chapters as they seek new leaders for the next academic year.
Race, Justice, and Immigration
The next In Search of Shalom session is Sunday, February 21 at 4:00 pm PST! ISOS is a multi-month book discussion series allowing for examination of racial justice from a Christian perspective in a variety of realms. Join us on February 21st as we discuss the topic of Race, Justice, and Immigration. For details and to register to take part in this conversation go to this link!
Christian Faculty Conference
Please join us Friday evening March 12th and Saturday morning March 13th for the Northern California Christian Faculty and Staff Conference, co-sponsored by InterVarsity and Faculty Commons! We welcome participants throughout the Western states and Hawai’i to join us, so please invite your colleagues who are outside of Northern California. This conference is hosted by GFM Pacific, Cru’s Faculty Commons, and IV Pacific Region. Click below for details.
Thanks to the 15 new partners whose pledges allowed me to get a matching grant! Each new partner pledged at least $75 a month for 2021 for the 15/75/21 campaign. This grant will help defray an anticipated loss in financial support and free me up to devote more time to ministry. New partners are still sought, so please consider making a pledge or donation at https://donate.intervarsity.org/donate#21447.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
Because of the pandemic, it has been a year of separation. But because of the Incarnation of God in Jesus, the Messiah, no separation from his love is permanent. With this in mind, we wish you God’s love and presence in the coming year!
I’m glad to report that Betty and I have not been too negatively affected by the pandemic. Betty had planned to concentrate on home projects this year, anyway. And my work was increasingly based in my home office. But 2020 was an emotionally stressful year as we wrestled with how politics, protests, and the pandemic have impacted our neighbors and relatives.
The pandemic has had an impact on our sons this year. Nathaniel’s work in autism services has been limited to remote work. His start-up, Imaginary Horizons Productions, has also encountered several pandemic related obstacles despite their community building software being in greater demand at the moment. Benji moved out and co-owns a home with a church friend. But he lost his job because of the economic downturn due to the pandemic. He is now looking for new employment.
Through it all, we are hopeful. We are also grateful for your prayers, your thoughtfulness, and your support! May you experience a new year of health, fruitfulness, and renewal!
Christmas Gifts for you!
Because you’ve been such a blessing to me, our students, faculty, and staff, allow me to share the following. Here’s a bit of what I’ve been up to:
I was interviewed for Reclaim Podcast of the Asian American Christian Collaborative to share about Asian American Christian leaders in history. In addition to my Asian American Christian Legacy Facebook page, I will share more stories from our past.
Chinasource Quarterly published my three-part article on the History of Chinese Christianity in North America. It’s taken some time, but I’m finally ready to share my life long research. CQ’s articles offer an overview. I’d really appreciate your thoughts about them.
My most recent blog post is entitled, The Revival will not be Televised. We all want revival, but what kind of revival should we seek? I share some thoughts while reflecting on the history of revivals in the U.S.
Other gifts: stories of transformation and outreach.
This professor’s testimony of how God transformed her during her grad studies is one of the reasons why I love my ministry. It also shows why Christian work among grad students and faculty is key to the future of Christianity.
This fall, the Haas Christian Fellowship at U.C. Berkeley decided to affiliate with InterVarsity’s GFM and with our area. We welcome them to our MBA ministry!
Janice Goh, one of the leaders with Acts Christian Fellowship at U.C.S.F., writes for the university’s student newspaper. Through her writings, she has drawn attention to the chapter. Have a look!
A testimony from Taylor Lee and Jessica Marotte, our IV staff at the community colleges in Sacramento, CA (edited):
At our first meeting, one of the faculty that came invited another that I had never even heard of and she came without hesitation with only a day’s notice! And this faculty really ended up inspiring us the most with her stories of how she has been interacting with students before and during covid. This professor, L. is an immigrant woman from China. She teaches in the business department at ARC and oftentimes has international students in her class who are also from China. She said that they can tell she has an accent and will sometimes linger after class to ask her about her story –how she became so successful moving here, what it was like, and any advice she has to offer. She is so bold and always shares with them how intricate God was and is in her life’s story. Because of this, one student decided to join her for church before the pandemic really hit and things were shut down. She shared about this student with us during our first prayer meeting together and was overjoyed to tell us that they had just texted her recently saying they were super grateful that she had invited them and introduced them to faith because they had made a decision to follow Jesus and was baptized at their church that morning!! Because of L’s boldness to share about her faith and eagerness to invite students into that, one more person has joined the Kingdom of God! Praise God!
Allow me to introduce you to Dr. Denise Thompson, ‘s new National Director of Black Scholars and Professionals Ministry. She and her husband, Andre, have lent support to the Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Stanford University and the area. Our area has partnered with BSAP to host “In Search of Shalom,” a monthly zoom series that addresses Race, Justice and a variety of contemporary issues. Have a look at this fall’s episodes!
The GFM Pacific team would like to thank you for your support and prayers! Have a blessed Advent and Christmas!
For more immediate updates and resources, visit these links:
Christian Graduate Students of NorCal & Hawaii Facebook Page.
Christian College Faculty and Staff (NorCal & Hawaii) Facebook Page.
Special request. 2021 will be a challenging year for me and InterVarsity staff to sustain their ministry budgets. I anticipate devoting much more time to support raising during a critical time for our students and university faculty and staff. Would you be open to chatting with me about my specific financial needs? Let me know and I’ll be happy to arrange a zoom or phone call.
If you’d like to give a special end of the year donation, please click the picture below. Thank you!
Tim Tseng 
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