Asian American Pastors
May 20, 2008 by seminarian
The website The Holy Observer has articles of Christian satire, and one in particular caught my attention. I’ll include most of the article below, and I encourage you to check out the site if you’re interested
HOUSTON – The employment of James Kim as youth pastor at Mt. Olive Baptist church here has resulted in some disappointment among church members, but not for the usual pastoral dissatisfaction reasons.
“When I saw that we had hired him, I was so excited,” said church treasurer Lilly Rudd. “I thought we could finally start an outreach to the Chinese and Filipino populations of Houston, but when he opened his mouth I noticed there was no accent at all – even his l’s and r’s were all pronounced right. That’s when I had to ask him if he even spoke Chinese at all. I was completely speechless when he told me he’d never even been outside the US.”
“We had a lot of good candidates for the job,” Eisen said. “It was a really close race between some really good guys, and the slightest considerations ended up making the difference. While we may not have discussed it directly with him, the committee talked a lot about how great it would be to start some karate outreach programs with the youth group and how it would be cool to do some Kabuki drama skits on Sundays. Now, it looks like none of that is gonna happen. Needless to say, we were quite disappointed.”
Kim seems unfazed by the nonplussed nature of his new employers.
“We’re talking about starting a basketball ministry to reach out to some of the poorer youth in the African American neighborhoods,” he said. “Then we were talking about some kind of Halo 3 party to draw the kids in, but we’ll have to talk about that, because I’m not very good at video games.”
As far as satiating the hunger of church leaders for some eastern flavor from their youth leader, Kim says that there are a few things that may stand him in better stead over time.
“I’ve had acupuncture a couple of times, and I really liked it,” he said. “Oh, plus, I took some violin lessons as a kid, and I’m a really bad driver, so I think I’ll be OK.”
