Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Wong, Enoch. How Am I Going to Grow Up? An Exploration of Congregational Transition among Second-Generation Chinese-Canadian Evangelicals and Servant - Leadership. Carlisle, UK: Langham Publishing, 2021. (Langham Monographs) ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Wong, Enoch. How Am I Going to Grow Up? An Exploration of Congregational Transition among Second-Generation Chinese-Canadian Evangelicals and Servant - Leadership. Carlisle, UK: Langham Publishing, 2021. (Langham Monographs) [ Citation Page ] How Am I Going to Grow Up? An Exploration of Congregational Transition among Second-Generation Chinese Canadian Evangelicals and Servant-Leadership Chapter 1 Excerpt Enoch Wong Langham MONOGRAPHS [ Title Page ] © 2021 Enoch Wong This chapter is an excerpt from How Am I Going to Grow Up? which can be purchased at https://bit.ly/3umMyfj Published 2021 by Langham Monographs An imprint of Langham Publishing www.langhampublishing.org Langham Publishing and its imprints are a ministry of Langham Partnership Langham Partnership PO Box 296, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 9WZ, UK www.langham.org ISBNs: 978-1-83973-226-3 Print 978-1-83973-636-0 ePub 978-1-83973-637-7 Mobi 978-1-83973-638-4 PDF Enoch Wong has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency. Requests to reuse content from Langham Publishing are processed through PLSclear. Please visit www.plsclear.com to complete your request. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-83973-226-3 Cover & Book Design: projectluz.com Langham Partnership actively supports theological dialogue and an author’s right to publish but does not necessarily endorse the views and opinions set forth here or in works referenced within this publication, nor can we guarantee technical and grammatical correctness. Langham Partnership does not accept any responsibility or liability to persons or property as a consequence of the reading, use or interpretation of its published content. [ Title Page Verso ] CHAPTER 1 Introduction A few years ago, my older daughter, Sarah, was engaged in the process of selecting a university for higher education during her last year of high school studies. With an interest in attending a business school, she consulted with me regarding various strengths and merits of different institutions. The discussion quickly turned into a debate. She and I had very different notions of how to appraise a school. After summarizing my assessment of several universities, I recommended the University of British Columbia for her consideration. Pausing for a moment, she replied in a subdued voice: “How am I going to come home, Dad? It’s so far away!” Puzzled by her remarks, I asked, “Why do you want to do that?” Sarah replied, “Well, I still want to see you and Mom once in a while and not have to wait till Christmas or the end of school in May. Besides, I want to do laundry at home!” Sensing that she was falling right into my ruse of luring her to study at my alma mater, I immediately suggested: “Well, why don’t you stay at home and attend the University of Toronto?” She hollered without any hesitation, and her voice still rings in my ears to this day: “Dad, how am I going to grow up if I stay in Toronto?” Reflecting an interest of a second-generation Chinese Canadian, Sarah’s dialogue with me demonstrates how “tertiary education is highly valued in contemporary Canadian culture” as “education attainment has . . . acquired the status of a vital benchmark of integration and inclusion for immigrants.”1 More importantly to Sarah and many immigrant children like her, univer- sity selection and post-secondary education are critical parts of negotiating the life passage of growing up into adulthood from adolescence, as well as ________________________ 1. Beyer, “Religious Identity,” 178, 197. [ Page ] 1 [ Page ] 2 a key part of the assimilation process.2 In a broader context, the process of growing up has always been a challenge for immigrant children since they “are torn by conflicting social and cultural demands while they face the chal- lenge of entry into an unfamiliar and hostile world.”3 Portes and Zhou argued that the growing-up process can oscillate “between smooth acceptance and traumatic confrontation depending on the characteristics that immigrants and their children bring along and the social context that receives them.”4 Apart from school being a critical arena in which assimilation takes place for immigrant children,5 religious institutions, where immigrants and their children comingle and attend services, are the other major venues in which the ethnic and religious identity of the second-generation Chinese Canadian evangelicals (SGCCE) like Sarah is constructed and negotiated as a part of their assimilation into the mainstream society.6 R. S. Warner identified gen- erational transition in the local congregations as one of the four emerging themes of research in the area of religion, immigrants, and their children (the other three are: the role of religion in how immigrants renegotiate their iden- tity; the nature of relationship between immigrants and host society, and; the immigrants’ religious experience at local congregations).7 This study explores how church leadership of both the first-generation immigrant church and the nonimmigrant congregations SGCCE were attending at the time of interview, mediated the transition of SGCCE from their parents’ religious institutions to their current venues of worship in the context of ethnicity and religion. ________________________ 2. Portes and MacLeod, “Educating the Second Generation,”374. 3. Portes and Zhou, “New Second Generation,” 75. 4. Portes and Zhou, “New Second Generation,” 75. 5. Beyer, “Religious Identity”; Li, “Expectations of Chinese Immigrant”; Portes and Hao, “Schooling of Children,” 11920-27; Portes and MacLeod, “Educating the Second Generation.” 6. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Bramadat and Seljak, Christianity and Ethnicity; Bramadat, “Beyond Christian Canada”; Busto, “Gospel according to the Model?”; Carnes and Yang, Asian American Religions; Cha, “Ethnic Identity Formation”; Chen, Getting Saved in America; Chong, “What It Means”; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Jeung, Chen, and Park, “Introduction”; Kim, “Second-Generation Korean American”; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Muse, Evangelical Church in Boston’s; Tseng, “Second-Generation Chinese”; Tseng, Asian American Religious Leadership; Warner and Wittner, Gatherings in Diaspora; Yang, Chinese Christians in America. 7. Warner, “Introduction,” 14-27. [ Page ] 3 Background Canadian Immigration Policy underwent a major sea change in 1967 when it effectively shifted the admittance of immigrants formerly based upon the preference for the applicant’s country of origin to one anchored upon a uni- versal point system. The new protocol assessed applicants on the basis of, among many other things, “education and training . . . adaptability, motiva- tion, initiative . . . occupational demand and skill, age, arranged employ- ment, knowledge of French and English, relatives in Canada, and employment opportunities in the area of destination.”8 The new Immigration Act led to a sharp increase in Chinese emigrants in the ensuing decades, bringing in a “new class” of upwardly mobile, urban-dwelling, confident, and independent immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, mainland China, and Southeast Asia, newcomers who were either skilled professionals or self-employed entrepre- neurs with fluency in English and sophisticated expertise, financial capital, business acumen, and corporate experience.9 This uptake was clearly reflected in the census data. The Chinese population in Canada was at 58,197 in 1961. With the change of Immigration Policy in 1967, the Chinese population shot up to 118,815 in 1971 and expanded to 289,245 in 1981.10 According to the Canadian National Household Survey of 2011, over 1,324,700 identified themselves with Chinese ancestry.11 Many of these new immigrants were drawn to Christian churches as they discovered that faith communities provided a place for preservation of the immigrants’ cultural heritage and tradition values in the midst of the metamorphosis of their social network and ethnic identity in the new home.12 Religious institutions also function as “a concrete space in which the younger generation and the older generation are brought together in face-to-face interactions”13 In fact, 27.7 percent of the 1996-2001 cohort of Hong Kong immigrants who came to Canada were reported to be affiliated ________________________ 8. Marr, “Canadian Immigration Policies,” 197. 9. Li, “Chinese Minority in Canada,” 274. 10. Li, Chinese in Canada, 89. 11. Statistics Canada, 2011 National Household Survey. 12. Connor, “Religion as Resource”; Ebaugh and Chafetz, “Dilemmas of Language”; Ebaugh and Chafetz, Religion and the New Immigrants; Ley, “Immigrant Church”; Warner, “Introduction.” 13. Cao, “Church as a Surrogate Family,” 190. [ Page ] 4 with the Christian faith, according to the 2001 Census.14 More than 350 Chinese churches were reported to be active in Canada with more than 140 in the Greater Toronto Area, according to a survey conducted by the Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism (Canada) in 2005.15 The Canadian National Household Survey 2011 identified more than 150,000 of the Chinese Canadian population as evangelicals.16 Over time, many “new” second-generation, children of immigrants whose parents arrived after 1967, began to grow up on the heels of their parents in the religious setting.17 These Canadian-born Chinese often found themselves struggling with their own identity: Are they Chinese, or are they Canadian?18 What about their faith identity as Christians?19 The struggle was further com- pounded at the religious institutions, where conflict flared up around the different needs of the first-generation and the second-generation. Apart from cultural differences in values and traditions between the two generations, the conflict manifested itself also in other areas. The most obvious one was the style and language of worship.20 The first-generation found it easier to participate in services in their mother tongue of Cantonese or Mandarin, and felt more comfortable with a conservative style of hymns, usually championed by the pastor who himself or herself was an immigrant.21 The younger genera- tion, however, desired to express themselves in a freer style of worship, one that was more in line with the popular culture of the North American evan- gelical churches that favored, among other things, music that was modeled after the pop songs with a mix of instruments such as guitars and drums.22 On a deeper level, the conflict lay with the spiritual messages and the _________________________ 14. Skirbekk et al., “Religious Composition,” 178. 15. Chinese Coordination Centre of World Evangelism (Canada), “Jianada huaren jiaohui pucha yanjiu 加拿大華人教會普查研究 (The Survey Result of the Canadian Chinese Churches),” Jiaguo huaren jiaohui 加國華人教會 (Canadian Chinese Churches) 11 (2005): 1. 16. Statistics Canada, “Household Survey Custom Tabulation.” 17. Reitz and Somerville, “Institutional Change and Emerging.” 18. Costigan, Su, and Hua, “Ethnic Identity among Chinese”; Lee and Hebert, “Meaning of Being Canadian”; Ooka, Growing Up Canadian; Tung, Chinese Americans. 19. Cha and Jao, “Reaching Out”; Chen, “Postmodern Principles; Jeung, Chen, and Park, “Introduction.” 20. Kim, Re-Writing the Silent Exodus; Song, “Constructing a Local Theology”; Song, “Patterns of Religious Participation.” 21. Mullins, “Life-Cycle of Ethnic Churches.” 22. Lee, “Silent Exodus.” [ Page ] 5 understanding of faith by the second-generation. The younger cohort often found the messages of their parent’s generation spiritually uninspiring and culturally restricting. The immigrant pastors tended to talk about faith and obedience at the personal level as a way of finding assurance in the new home and to reinforce cultural values.23 The second-generation desired to have a spirituality more germane to the day-to-day life of school, office, and fam- ily as well as a faith that linked their interests in community involvement, social concerns, and advocating justice.24 Finally, as the children were grow- ing up and being influenced by the ideals of democracy and equality, they wanted their voices and aspirations to be heard in their spiritual communi- ties.25 Though eagerly wanting to participate in church life and ministry, the second-generation constantly found themselves in conflict with the leadership style of hierarchy and control of their parents’ generation, and with a govern- ing body with power concentrated in an oligarchy of elders.26 In an attempt to assert freedom and autonomy, and finding the immigrant church offering no creative platform to realize their aspiration, many second-generation Asian North American Christians have decided to exit their parents’ church. In so doing, many either have abandoned their faith altogether, or formed congre- gations in line with their own identity, one that is shaped by their ethnicity, culture, and faith.27 H. Lee characterized this phenomenon as a “silent exo- dus”: it is silent, because the younger generation left quietly; it is an exodus, because the size of their departure was massive.28 Yet on another level, C. Chen contended that other second-generation Asian American Christians exited their parents’ churches and attempted to stretch their wings because their parents’ religious institutions may have played a role in democratiz- ing the relationship between parents and children, thus consecrating the _________________________ 23. Kim, Faith of Our Own; Ling, “Chinese” Way of Doing; Yang, “ABC and XYZ”; Yang, Chinese Christians in America. 24. Jeung, Faithful Generations; Tseng and Wu, “Children of Light.” 25. Kim, Faith of Our Own. 26. Alumkal, “Preserving Patriarchy”; Cha and Jao, “Reaching Out”; Chen, “From Filial Piety”; Tseng, Asian American Religious Leadership. 27. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Cha and Jao, “Reaching Out”; Chen, “From Filial Piety”; Chen, “Postmodern Principles”; Garces-Foley and Jeung, “Asian American Evangelicals” ; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Tran, “Living Out the Gospel”; Tseng, Asian American Religious Leadership. 28. Lee, “Silent Exodus,” 50. [ Page ] 6 individuality and autonomy of children.29 Be that as it may, research has been devoted to analyzing both the causes and the outcomes of this phenomenon, and multiple scenarios have surfaced since the mid-1990s. Although some second-generation Asian American Christians have abandoned their faith after their departure, many have creatively crafted different pathways for their transition: creating parallel congregations with the immigrant churches yet maintaining autonomy; establishing separate and independent ethnic churches with English services; forging an alliance with other Asian ethnics to form pan-ethnic congregations; joining congregations with multiethnics; or simply worshiping at the mainstream Caucasian churches.30 Most studies examine the phenomenon from the perspective of assimilation and the role ethnicity and religion play in abetting the choices the second-generation make during this process. Apart from the active role the second-generation play in the silent exodus transition, pastoral leadership from the first-generation immigrant churches as well as that of the current congregations attended by the second-generation are also key actors in facilitating the process. For example, the root cause of the silent exodus has been attributed to the failure of first-generation Chinese Canadian church leaders in recognizing the aspiration of the second-gener- ation for growth and autonomy.31 In addition, cultural clashes as manifested in the intergenerational leadership conflicts are singled out as one of the major pressure points for the exit of the second-generation.32 Conversely, the second-generation are aided by the leadership of the churches they were attending at the time of interview to legitimize their move. For instance, Jeung suggested that pan-Asian ethnic church leaders purposefully alter their leadership and rhetoric in order to create meaning and identity on the part of the newcomers and thereby sanction the Asian American Christians in their transition into the new congregations.33 As he attested: “What ministers say, _______________________ 29. Chen, “From Filial Piety” 592-93. 30. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Carlson, Reaching the Next Generations; Chen, Getting Saved in America; Garces-Foley, Crossing the Ethnic Divide; Garces-Foley and Jeung, “Asian American Evangelicals”; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Muse, Evangelical Church in Boston’s. 31. Evans, Impending “Silent Exodus,” 74-75. 32. Kim, Faith of Our Own, 30-41. 33. Jeung, Faithful Generations. [ Page ] 7 and do not say, about ethnicity and pan-ethnicity in front of the congregation represents their articulation of ethnic and racial meaning.”34 In Canada, this phenomenon has received very little academic attention. Song addressed this trend by looking at how different religious participa- tion theories may be applied in mitigating and preventing the silent exodus from happening in Korean Canadian congregations.35 Evans, on the other hand, asserted that the silent exodus of the Canadian-born Chinese from their parents’ church is inevitable, and that only through a development of “a more inclusive theology of identity and community for the second gen- eration” can the younger cohort be prevented from being “completely lost to the Church at large.”36 Significance of the Study Although many studies on how second-generation relate to their religious affiliation were conducted for Asian American Christians,37 only a few address Chinese Canadian Christians.38 Studies do exist in exploring religious and ethnic identities in Canadian Coptic and Calvinist churches;39 Mennonites;40 Muslims as a collectivity;41 Sikh youth;42 Sri Lankan Tamil youth;43 and a non-Christian visible minority.44 On the other hand, though inquiries have been made regarding the assimilation of the second-generation Chinese Canadians,45 very few have focused on how ethnicity and religion intersect 34. Jeung, 5. 35. Song, “Patterns of Religious Participation.” 36. Evans, Impending “Silent Exodus,” 1. 37. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Chen, Getting Saved in America; Garces- Foley and Jeung, “Asian American Evangelicals”; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Muse, Evangelical Church in Boston’s; Yang, Chinese Christians in America. 38. Evans, Impending “Silent Exodus”; Li, Ethnic Minority Churches; Liao, Role of Christian Faith. 39. Botros, Competing for Future; van Dijk and Botros, “Importance of Ethnicity.” 40. Driedger, At the Forks. 41. Ramji, “Creating a Genuine Islam.” 42. Nayar, “Intersection of Religious Identity.” 43. Amarasingam,“Religion and Ethnicity.” 44. Beyer and Ramji, Growing Up Canadian; Bramadat and Seljak, Religion and Ethnicity. 45. Costigan, Su, and Hua, “Ethnic Identity among Chinese”; Hiller and Chow, “Ethnic Identity and Segmented”; Ooka, Growing Up Canadian. 8 with each other among the Canadian-born Chinese evangelicals in their con- gregational transition and how leadership mediates the process. According to Statistics Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, among those whose mother tongue is neither French nor English, Canada’s two official languages, Chinese languages are the most common ones spoken at home.46 SGCCE number about 35,000, thus representing a cohort that has come of age for research.47 My study explores how, in the first-generation immigrant churches and the nonimmigrant congregations SGCCE were attending at the time of interview, the church leadership mediated the transition of SGCCE from their parents’ religious institution to their current place of worship in the context of ethnicity and religion through a multi-case study. Personal Reasons for This Study Two factors motivated me to pursue this study on the Canadian-born Chinese evangelicals in their congregational transition. To begin with, most of the children of the immigrant parents of the 1970s and 1980s have now come of age and reached adulthood. Collectively referred to as the “new” second generation, these young adults are capable of asserting their autonomy and negotiating their identity.48 More than 90 percent of second-generation Chinese Canadians were born after the 1967 open-door immigration policy which favored those immigrants with skills, experience, and education that matched the demand of the rising labor market of Canada.49 In the same manner, SGCCE follow in lockstep with their overall counterparts; more than 93 percent of SGCCE were born after 1967.50 Many SGCCE have begun to experience “growing pains” similar to their American counterparts, who began this process in the life cycle of their eth- nic churches in the mid-1980s.51 According to Evans, many Canadian-born Chinese Christians would eventually depart from the church because of the __________________________ 46. Statistics Canada, Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity, 5. 47. Statistics Canada, Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity. 48. Reitz and Somerville, “Institutional Change and Emerging.” 49. Li, Chinese in Canada, 91-95; Statistics Canada, 2011 National Household Survey. 50. For details, see Table 1 and Table 2 in chapter 2. 51. Goette, “The Transformation of a First-Generation Church”; Mullins, “Life-Cycle of Ethnic Churches.” [ Page ] 9 fractured relationship with their parents and the schism with the immigrant church.52 Whether the outcome would lead to their faith abandonment or drive them to forge different pathways informed by their faith and ethnic- ity is largely unexamined in academic research. For that reason, this study engages with samples from a meaningful sized cohort of SGCCE to under- stand the phenomenon. On a personal level, I had been an elder at a Chinese church associated with the denomination of Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. A good part of my church experience has been at the leadership level. I have been curious about what role leadership may play in assisting both the first-generation and the second-generation in understanding their inter- generational differences and in creating space and freedom for the second- generation to grow in autonomy. Purpose Statement The purpose of this research is therefore to explore through a multi-case inquiry how the foresight of church leaders in the context of ethnic and reli- gious social changes mediated (or failed to mediate) the SGCCE’s transition from their parents’ churches to the current congregations of their own choice. Conceptual Framework The key concepts examined in this study are organized into two broad cat- egories: (1) ethnicity, religion, the incorporation process, congregational pathways; and (2) leadership and foresight. Servant-leadership will be the framework adopted to determine how religion and ethnicity affect the out- come of second-generation Chinese Canadian evangelicals in their search for transition from their parents’ religious institution to congregations of their own choice. _______________________ 52. Evans, Impending “Silent Exodus.” [ Page ] 10 Ethnicity, Religion, Incorporation, and Congregational Transition Pathways for the “New” Second-Generation Ethnicity Ethnicity is commonly referred to as the marker of a group of people whose members are related to each other through shared ancestry, common culture, history, and place of origin.53 Feagin and O’Brien suggested that contemporary scholars have used the term ethnicity or ethnic group as an umbrella concept to “cover all racial ethnic and religious groups.”54 Defining ethnicity can be problematic, but the concept can be examined from two pairs of contrasting perspectives: primordial versus situational55 and objective versus subjective.56 Seen through the lens of the first pair, the primordial conception is rejected in favor of situational or constructional stance due to the fluid and malleable nature of ethnicity.57 In addition, objective characterization of ethnicity in terms of physical appearance and cultural heritage is not chosen for this research because, for a study on SGCCE, it is best to construe their ethnic- ity as being defined subjectively by themselves as they attach meaning and significance to the membership of the group they belong to as well as to the group boundary.58 Extending the subjective constructionist approach to problematizing ethnicity, Isajiw suggested that the second-generation of immigrants goes through a double process of socialization: one that takes place through ethnic settings in families and ethnic communities; and the other in public institutions through their interaction with the broader society.59 Isajiw further identified five social-psychological options for the second- generation to respond to conflicts arising from this double process.60 These options include: (a) keep the two worlds apart; (b) favor the ethnic world and 53. Bramadat and Seljak, Religion and Ethnicity, 8; Gin, “Asian American Ethnic,”184; Kim, Faith of Our Own, 6. 54. Feagin and O’Brien, “Studying ‘Race’ and Ethnicity,” 53. 55. Kivisto, “Rethinking the Relationship,” 492. 56. Breton, Different Gods, 47-48. 57. Breton, “Introduction”; Conzen et al., “Invention of Ethnicity”; Lee and Zhou, Asian American Youth; Min, “Introduction.” 58. Barth, “Introduction”; Isajiw, “Process of Maintenance”; Isajiw, “Ethnic-Identity Retention”; Isajiw, Understanding Diversity; Kallen, Ethnicity and Human Rights; Zhou and Lee, “Introduction.” 59. Isajiw, Understanding Diversity, 193. 60. Isajiw, 193-94. [ Page ] 11 reject broader society; (c) reject the ethnic world in favor of broader society; (d) push both worlds aside and seek alternatives; and (e) bring the two worlds together in creative ways.61 In addition, Isajiw introduced three patterns of ethnicity retention or loss for the second-generation.62 Transplantation refers to adhering to parents’ traditions, practices, and values.63 Distancing and rebelling represent rejection of the parents’ traditions, practices, and values.64 Rediscovery means symbolic attachments to traditional and cultural values.65 Isajiw’s framework will be used to postulate the role of ethnicity in SGCCE’s choices in the context of their transition to congregations of their own. Religion As is the case with ethnicity, defining religion is also problematic.66 Researchers attempt to conceptualize religion along the continuum represented by sub- stantive definitions and functional definitions at each end.67 The substantive approach is rooted in the beliefs or ideas that religious adherents commit to and find important.68 Conversely, the functional definition focuses not on the idea of religion but rather on how it operates in people’s life in terms of offering support and comfort for those who follow a set of beliefs.69 Influential scholars such as Durkheim, Geertz, W. Herberg, Robertson, Stark and Finke, Tylor, and Weber, offered definitions of religion of their own along the con- tinuum.70 Finally, C. Smith stated that religions constitute “sets of beliefs, symbols, and practices about the reality of superempirical orders that make claims to organize and guide human life.” Smith continued, “Put more simply, 61. Isajiw, 193-99. 62. Isajiw, “Process of Maintenance.” 63. Isajiw, Understanding Diversity, 193-99. 64. Isajiw, 133. 65. Isajiw, 134. 66. Bramadat, “Beyond Christian Canada,” 11; Mol, Identity and the Sacred, 4. 67. Dawson and Thiessen, Sociology of Religion, 25. 68. Pals, Eight Theories of Religion, 13. 69. Pals, 13. 70. Durkheim, Elementary Forms; Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures; Herberg, “Religion”; Robertson, Sociological Interpretation; Stark and Finke, Acts of Faith; Tylor, Primitive Culture; Weber, Sociology of Religion. [ Page ] 12 if less precisely, what we mean by religion is an ordinarily unseen reality that tells us what truly is and how we therefore ought to live.”71 C. Smith’s definition is adopted for its straightforward characteristics and suitability for examining religious expression at the congregational level as well as for his articulation of evangelical identity that is applicable to SGCCE. According to Breton, religion in the congregational form plays a significant role in assisting immigrants and their children in their incorporation into the Canadian mainstream society.72 However, it is R. S. Warner,73 regarded by Kivisto as one of the most prominent sociologists of religion, who has advanced the study of new immigrants and religion.74 Warner focused on “what the immigrant communities do religiously for themselves and not what others do or not do on their behalf.”75 Moreover, it is in religion in the congregational setting that immigrants and their children find their religious expression comes alive and is manifested.76 Thus, for the purpose of this research, religion in the congregational form as applied to the arena in which SGCCE’s religious experience and ethnicity are manifested is adopted as part of the conceptual framework. Incorporation One of the key research areas on the second-generation Asian American Christians concentrates on the relationship between ethnicity and religion and how they intersect with one another in these believers’ congregational experience.77 Most studies have situated the intersection within the frame- work of immigrant incorporation. Ethnic incorporation is construed as a pro- cess “in which ethnic groups move their loyalties, expectations and political _______________________ 71. Smith, Moral, Believing Animals, 98, emphasis in original. 72. Breton, Different Gods, 17. 73. Warner, “Introduction”; Warner, “Approaching Religious Diversity.” 74. Kivisto, “Rethinking the Relationship,” 497. 75. Warner, “Introduction,” 9. 76. Warner, 21. 77. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Bramadat and Seljak, Christianity and Ethnicity; Bramadat and Seljak, Religion and Ethnicity; Busto, “Gospel according to Model”; Carnes and Yang, Asian American Religions; Chen, Getting Saved in America; Chong, “What It Means”; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Jeung, Chen, and Park, “Introduction”; Kim, “Second- Generation Korean American”; Kim, God’s New Whiz Kids?; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Muse, Evangelical Church in Boston’s; Warner and Wittner, Gatherings in Diaspora; Yang, “ABC and XYZ.” [ Page ] 13 activities toward a new center, whose institutions assume sovereignty over and responsibility for the ethnic groups.”78 In general, the process is conceptual- ized along the continuum between assimilation and pluralism at each end.79 For instance, R. E. Park80 and Park and Burgess81 advocated assimilation as the process for incorporation by advancing a “race relation cycle” that goes through the form of “contacts, competition, accommodation and eventual assimilation.”82 Known as the “melting pot” process, assimilation understood from this perspective is irresistible, irreversible, and natural.83 Extending R. E. Park’s theory, Gordon conceptualized a modified assimilation process of seven stages: (a) cultural or behavioral assimilation; (b) structural assimi- lation; (c) martial assimilation; (d) identification assimilation; (e) attitude receptional assimilation; (f) behavioral receptional assimilation; and (g) civic assimilation.84 For Gordon, the outcome of assimilation is not inexorable, and he sees three possibilities: (a) Anglo-conformity; (b) melting-pot; and (c) cultural pluralism.85 Glazer and Moynihan shifted the discussion of incorporation toward plu- ralism by arguing that incorporation is not a straight-path, zero-sum process but rather a process of combination of change and retention.86 With the emer- gence of the new immigrants and their children, classic incorporation theo- ries that are based upon early twentieth-century European North American immigrant experience are rejected in favor of more nuanced flavors.87 New researches focus more on the adaptive, adhesive, and additive manner with which ethnicity is construed by and for the second-generation.88 Emerging ________________________ 78. Li, Ethnic Minority Churches, 23. 79. Kallen, Ethnicity and Human Rights (3rd ed.), 162; Li, Ethnic Minority Churches, 23; Ng, Chinese in Vancouver, 195. 80. Park, Race and Culture. 81. Park and Burgess, Introduction. 82. Park, Race and Culture, 150. 83. Alba and Nee, “Rethinking Assimilation,” 828; Ooka, Growing Up Canadian, 8; Park, Race and Culture, 150. 84. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life, 71, table 5. 85. Gordon, 85-86. 86. Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 292-94. 87. Alba and Nee, “Rethinking Assimilation”; Alumkal, “Preserving Patriarchy”; Zhou, “Growing Up American.” 88. Bacon, “Constructing”; Kim and Hurh, “Beyond Assimilation”; Ooka, Growing Up Canadian; Yang, “ABC and XYZ.” [ Page ] 14 from these researches is the new idea of conceptualizing assimilation in a segmented manner.89 Segmented assimilation theory suggests three options for incorporation. The first one is the traditional path of assimilation into the dominant White society with upward mobility. The second one points to the opposite direction, yielding persistent poverty and downward mobility. The third option is for the second-generation to achieve economic advancement through social capital made available through co-ethnic communities to allow the second-generation to preserve social solidarity and ethnic identity.90 In the Canadian context, incorporation is distinctive because of its mul- ticultural milieu. With the influx of immigrants after the change of the Immigration Act in 1967, Canada had evolved from the imperial British and French charter with people assuming their own monolingual/mono- cultural states to an increased ethnic and demographic diversity that forms a multicultural mosaic.91 Two aspects of multiculturalism in Canada need to be differentiated. First, multiculturalism refers to the official policy of the Government of Canada first introduced in 1971 and later enacted by the legislature in 1988.92 The policy was “construed as a doctrine that provides a political framework for the official promotion of social equality and cultural differences as an integral component of the social order” in Canada.93 Second, the term multiculturalism also refers to a broad Canadian public tradition of pluralism with respect to culture, ethnicity, race, and religion.94 In this regard, Driedger conceptualized an incorporation model for integrating different dynamics of assimilation and pluralism in the Canadian context.95 Called the conformity-pluralist conceptual model, Driedger’s framework takes into consideration different forces (i.e. voluntary versus nonvoluntary as well as conformity versus pluralism, or multiculturalism) that shape the ethnicity of the visible minority in Canada. I argue, along with Driedger, that in the _________________________ 89. Portes and Zhou, “New Second Generation.” 90. Portes and Zhou, 82. 91. Bibby, Mosaic Madness; Driedger, “Multiculturalism.” 92. Bramadat and Seljak, Christianity and Ethnicity, 9. 93. Wilson, “Tapestry Vision,” 654. 94. Bramadat and Seljak, Christianity and Ethnicity, 9. 95. Driedger, Ethnic Factor. [ Page ] 15 context of SGCCE, the concept of race has been subsumed under the notion of ethnicity and multiculturalism.96 Congregational Transition Pathways Building on the phenomenon of the silent exodus, this study focuses on how SGCCE depart from their parents’ congregations. Originally concep- tualized as a problem of how second-generation abandon their faith due to generational conflicts regarding spirituality, church mission, style of worship, leadership and hierarchy, and control and assertion of autonomy,97 I postulate the silent exodus as a reflection of a broader process of transition through which the second-generation Asian North American Christian cohort has matured to demand their spiritual growth and autonomy and are yet met with inadequate supply for their spiritual needs by the first-generation. Recognized as such, the transition for SGCCE is presented as having a number of pos- sible pathway models as identified in the literature review. These options can be conceptualized into two broad categories: (a) continuous evolution, and (b) discontinuous pathways. Continuous evolution looks at deploying English language ministry as well as resolution of generational conflicts as the vari- ables through which the first-generation church leaders attempt to mitigate the crisis in order to ameliorate the departure issue.98 Thus, English language programs together with judiciously delegated authority and autonomy to the second-generation are deployed as tactics by the leaders.99 In this category, a number of gradually progressive modes of operations exist. They range from the paternal approach that continues to concentrate power among the first-generation, to parallel congregations with joint decision-making respon- sibility between generations, to partnership alternatives with a high degree of autonomy ceded to the second-generation, to a town-house arrangement ________________________ 96. Driedger, “Multiculturalism.” 97. Kim, Re-Writing the Silent Exodus; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Lee, “Silent Exodus”; Song, “Constructing a Local Theology.” 98. Skelton, “Churches Offer Services.” 99. Carlson, Reaching the Next Generations; Goette, “The Transformation of a First- Generation Church.” [ Page ] 16 with complete second-generation independency but sharing facility with the first-generation.100 The discontinuous pathways category, however, suggests that other vari- ables exist to account for the transition phenomenon. Assimilation and ethnicity are the two key variables highlighted by a number of researchers to account for why the second-generation are choosing different options.101 Several pathways exist under this category: (a) straight-path integration into mainstream congregations;102 (b) pan-ethnic congregations to allow for a homophilic and common solidarity with the believers of Asian heritage;103 (c) a hybrid model whereby co-ethnics create their own congregations but forge a faith of their own that is different from the tradition of their parents;104 and (d) multiethnic or multiracial congregations to encourage the faithful to break down ethnic and racial barriers and to embrace cultural diversity, racial reconciliation, and church unity; and to realize the biblical ideal of gathering all tribes and nations under one faith.105 To sum up, these models in the continuous evolution and discontinuous pathways categories present themselves as viable options for SGCCE to select as places of worship of their own through the process of congregational transition. Leadership The second aspect of the conceptual framework for this study is based upon the phenomenon of leadership and specific principles of servant-leadership as identified and advocated by Greenleaf.106 Specifically, foresight as a ser- vant-leadership characteristic is highlighted as a less-researched yet relevant variable in studying the leadership of both the first-generation immigrant _______________________ 100. Carlson, Reaching the Next Generations; Chang and Chuang, “Future”; Kim, Faith of Our Own. 101. Alumkal, Asian American Evangelical Church; Chen, “From Filial Piety”; Jeung, Faithful Generations; Kim, Faith of Our Own; Kim and Kim, “Korean American Christian Communities.” 102. Ley, “Immigrant Church”; Mullins, “Life-Cycle of Ethnic Churches.” 103. Jeung, Faithful Generations; Park, “Second-Generation Asian.” 104. Kim, Faith of Our Own; Kim and Kim, “Korean American Christian Communities”; Mak, “English Speaking Ministry.” 105. De Young et al., United by Faith; Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith; Garces-Foley, “Comparing Catholic and Evangelical”; Garces-Foley and Jeung, “Asian American Evangelicals”; Marti, “Fluid Ethnicity.” 106. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership. [ Page ] 17 church and the current nonimmigrant congregations SGCCE are attend- ing. Furthermore, the foresight of these leaders, in terms of its presence or absence, is examined through the lens of Ladkin’s framework of two suites of phenomenological concepts of “whole” and “moment” as well as “ready- to-hand” and “present-to-hand.”107 Although the definition of leadership varies,108 researchers point to the Industrial Revolution as the starting point, and to Carlyle’s Great Man theory as the origin of the modern study of leadership.109 This classic conception of leadership speculates that certain men (sic) are born with natural leadership gifts that differentiate them from the followers.110 The Great Man theory soon evolved into Trait theory in the early twentieth century. Trait theory differs from the Great Man theory in that the former does not make explicit assump- tion about the origins of the traits, whether they are innate or acquired, but rather implies that such characteristics are inherent in only a few select people.111 In the 1950s, researchers shifted their attention away from traits as the salient factor to focus on leaders’ behavioral styles as the key variable for analyzing leadership.112 Thus, good leaders are those who make adjustments in adapting appropriate behavior.113 The shift is significant, for this approach implies that leadership behaviors can be learned and therefore leadership is no longer construed as being limited to a select few but is accessible to all.114 By the 1960s, the behavior model of leadership gave way to the contingency model that moved the focus away from the dominant role of leaders to the social and structural factors that form and shape the contexts or situations to which leaders are called to respond.115 In this construct, leadership of the contingency approach looks at a suite of components that constitute the total- ity of leadership: leadership style, follower characteristics, and situational or ______________________ 107. Ladkin, Rethinking Leadership, 25, 43-44. 108. Bass, Bass & Stogdill’s; Ciulla, Ethics of Leadership; Kellerman, End of Leadership; Northouse, Leadership; Rost, Leadership. 109. Carlyle, On Heroes. 110. Daft, Leadership Experience (6th ed.). 111. Rowe, Cases in Leadership. 112. Antonakis, Cianciolo, and Sternberg, “Leadership.” 113. Daft, Leadership Experience (6th ed.). 114. Daft, Leadership Experience (6th ed.). 115. Bryman, “Leadership”; Grint, “History of Leadership.” [ Page ] 18 contextual factors.116 These factors led Fiedler to conceptualize two major styles of leadership under the contingency approach: task-oriented style and relationship style.117 By the 1980s, Bryman observed that a collective of “New Leadership” emerged that essentially advocated examining leadership from the context of leaders as managers of meaning rather than in terms of an influence process. Charismatic leadership,118 visionary leadership,119 and transformational leadership120 are regarded as representatives of this col- lectivity. 121 Transformational leadership appears to differentiate itself from others based on a number of impressive findings and its strong theoretical framework.122 However, it is criticized, among other assessments, for its lack of a sound moral and ethical foundation.123 Thus, among various emergent issues, the importance of the moral and ethical dimensions of leadership is increasingly appreciated.124 It is within the context of the contemporary study of leadership that scholars have identified servant-leadership as a viable candidate of ethical leadership for research.125 Contrary to traditional leadership theories that tend to emphasize on either the leader’s personality, traits, skills, or the styles to achieve results with approaches that can be “top-down” and command-and-control in nature or via power and influence,126 servant-leadership distinguishes itself by placing the priority of serving the needs and the development of individual con- stituents above the achievement of organizational objectives.127 According to _______________ 116. Daft, Leadership Experience (6th ed.). 117. Fiedler, Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. 118. Bryman, Charisma and Leadership; Conger, Charismatic Leader; House, “1976 Theory.” 119. Sashkin, “Visionary Leader”; Westley and Mintzberg, “Visionary Leadership.” 120. Bass, Leadership and Performance; Tichy and Devanna, Transformational Leader. 121. Bryman, “Leadership.” 122. Jackson and Parry, Very Short, Fairly Interesting. 123. Avolio and Bass, Developing Potential; Fernando, “Spirituality and Leadership.” 124. Ladkin, Rethinking Leadership, 10. 125. Ciulla and Forsyth, “Leadership Ethics”; Daft, Leadership Experience (6th ed.); Northouse, Leadership; Sendjaya, “Demystifying Servant Leadership”; Yukl, Leadership in Organizations. 126. Bass, Bass Handbook of Leadership; Burns, Leadership (2010); Covey, Seven Habits; Northouse, Leadership; Rost, Leadership. 127. Andersen, “When a Servant-Leader”; Greenleaf, Servant Leadership; Russell and Stone, “Review of Servant Leadership.” [ Page ] 19 Patterson, servant-leaders are those “who lead an organization by focusing on their followers, such that the followers are the primary concern and the organizational concerns are peripheral.”128 Yukl echoed the emphasis on the necessity to work with the followers: “Servant leaders must listen to followers, learn about their needs and aspirations, and be willing to share in their pain and frustration.”129 Sendjaya pinpointed servant-leadership’s primary tenet succinctly: “Servant leaders set the following priorities in their leadership roles: followers first, organizations second, their own the last.”130 To accomplish this set of objectives, a servant-leader is required not simply to rely on management skills or human resources tactics but to “draw out, inspire and develop the best and highest within people from the inside out,” rather than being the traditional manager who “drives results and motiva- tion from the outside in.”131 Sendjaya summed up the interior approach of servant-leader’s engagement this way: Servant leadership is not so much a theory as an attitude of the heart which shapes the decisions and actions of corporate leaders at all levels. It is not another leadership style one can choose to use whenever she likes . . . Servant leadership is a commitment of the heart to engage with others in a relation- ship characterized by service orientation, holistic outlook, and moral-spiritual emphasis.132 Because of its focus on the interiority of the leader, servant-leadership has been characterized not merely as a leadership theory but as a way of life “in which devotion to the good of others takes priority and evokes greater integ- rity in individuals and in society as a whole.”133 In commenting on Greenleaf’s notion of servant-leadership, Jaworski expressed the opinion that it is “much more about being than doing.”134 Spears concurred that “at its core, servant- leadership is a long-term, transformational approach to life and work - in _________________________ 128. Patterson, Servant Leadership, 5. 129. Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, 349. 130. Sendjaya, “Leaders as Servants,” 1. 131. Covey, “Foreword,” 3. 132. Sendjaya, “Leaders as Servants,” 1. 133. Ferch, Forgiveness and Power, xxiii. 134. Jaworski, “Destiny and the Leader,” 264. [ Page ] 20 essence, a way of being that has the potential for creating positive change throughout our society.”135 The concept of servant-leadership gained prominence when Greenleaf introduced it in his seminal writing The Servant as Leader in 1970.136 Unlike the hierarchical system of leadership, which places a premium on the com- mand-and-control style of leadership, Greenleaf stressed the importance of the leader’s serving the needs of followers and attending to the growth of those being served.137 The essence of servant-leadership, Greenleaf contended, is that a leader must not aspire to lead first, but to serve first.138 He asserted: “The servant-leader is servant first . . . Becoming a servant-leader begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”139 Greenleaf differentiated servant-leaders from those who want to be leaders first. The leader-first individuals are perhaps motivated by the “need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possession.”140 Conversely, servant-leadership manifests itself in the care taken by the servant - first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is this: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become health- ier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?141 Greenleaf drew inspirations for servant-leadership from Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East.142 The central figure of the story, Leo, was first portrayed as a servant accompanying a group of men on a mythical journey, with his real identity actually being the head of the Order that sponsored the journey.143 _______________________ 135. Spears, “Understanding and Practice,” 12. 136. Spears, “Introduction,” 2. 137. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership. 138. Greenleaf, “Who Is the Servant-Leader?” 139. Greenleaf, 6, emphasis in original. 140. Greenleaf, 6. 141. Greenleaf, 6, emphasis in original. 142. Greenleaf, Servant-Leader Within. 143. Greenleaf, 32. [ Page ] 21 For Greenleaf, Leo played two roles that are diametrically opposed to one other: the servant, “who, by acting with integrity and spirit, builds trust and lifts people and helps them grow”; and the leader, “who is trusted and who shaped other’s destinies by going out ahead to show the way.”144 The moral of the story is that these two roles can in fact co-exist and be brought together to create what Spears called “the paradoxical idea of servant-leadership.”145 A leader must first be a servant, and the true essence of leadership can only be authenticated through service to others. Such leadership action demands not so much the skills as the character and the morality of the servant-leader, as Covey echoed: “The essential quality that set servant-leaders apart from others is that they live by their conscience - the inward moral sense of what is right and what is wrong . . . [which differentiates] leadership that works and leadership - like servant leadership - that endures .”146 Three reasons form the selection of servant-leadership as the leadership framework to mediate analysis of the process through which SGCCE exercise their choice of congregation. First, the concept of service and putting follow- ers first has resonated well among faith-based organizations and religious institutions.147 Wong and Davey contended that servant-leadership has been “the most influential leadership model” within the Christian community.148 The authors cited the alignment of servant-leadership principles with the Christian tradition of Jesus Christ’s practices of servanthood as the primary reason that many Christian leadership publications have focused on servant- leadership. Baldomir took a step further and argued that servant-leader- ship is the right model to unify the first- and second-generation Chinese American churches because of its advocacy of placing others’ needs above one’s own.149 Second-generation Chinese church leaders can use the model of servant-leadership to establish an attitude of service and to better under- stand the needs of their congregations. Second, the concept of autonomy of the followers as espoused by Greenleaf forms a purposeful ministerial foundation in mediating the growth and the identity shaping of SGCCE. Last, ________________ 144. Greenleaf, 32. 145. Spears, “Understanding and Practice,” 10. 146. Covey, “Foreword,” 4, emphasis in original. 147. Lemler, “Holding the Mission in Trust,” 77. 148. Wong and Davey, “Best Practices,” 3. 149. Baldomir, “Servant Leadership,” 4. [ Page ] 22 Greenleaf’s articulation of servants as healers of society presents a greater appeal to SGCCE, as many may have experienced frustration and hurt under the control of the first-generation leadership.150 Servant-leaders are healers and bring healing to the communities they serve.151 The healing characteris- tic sets servant-leadership apart from the power-based and control-centric leadership approaches and will stand congregants in good stead in building caring and empowering communities, an end-goal scenario which, I argue, both generations of Chinese Canadian church leaders desire to construct. With these three reasons supporting the choice of servant-leadership as the framework, I have selected Greenleaf’s concept of foresight as the key dimension of servant-leadership characteristics to be adopted as the leader- ship framework in this study. For Greenleaf, a mark of leaders “is that they are better than most at pointing the direction” because they have the ability “to foresee the unforeseeable.”152 Foresight, according to Greenleaf, is the ability to make sense of the unforeseeable. For this reason, foresight is what Greenleaf wrote of as “the ‘lead’ that the leader has.”153 I, therefore, argue that foresight is the crucial leadership lens through which leaders of both generations can see the phenomenon of the silent exodus not merely in the light of defection of second-generation from their parents’ churches but as a process of growth on the part of their children in their negotiation of their own faith and ethnicity. However, foresight as a characteristic of servant-leadership appears to be seldom researched.154 Part of the reluctance to explore this characteristic stems from the difficulty in gauging the parameters within which the measure- ment of foresight is to be operationalized. I argue that the challenge is also rooted in large part in the evasiveness of foresight’s effect, in which avoid- ance of certain events and risk mitigation are not easily or visibly linked to the exercise of foresight. As Ladkin observed, when leadership foresight is “serving its purpose,” it is difficult to detect.155 I found Ladkin’s framework of two suites of phenomenological concepts of “whole” and “moment” and of _________________ 150. Greenleaf, “On Being a Seeker,” 25. 151. Ferch, Forgiveness and Power, 14-15. 152. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, 29, 35. 153. Greenleaf, 40. 154. Spears, “Character and Servant Leadership.” 155. Ladkin, Rethinking Leadership, 46. [ Page ] 23 “ready-to-hand” and “presence-to-hand” effective in probing the presence or absence of foresight on the part of leaders from both first-generation immi- grant church and the current congregations SGCCE are attending.156 Research Questions In support of the purpose of study, I proposed the following research ques- tions for my investigation: 1. What is the extent to which ethnicity and religion play a role in the way SGCCE think of themselves and in the choices they make concerning the nonimmigrant congregations they worship in while making the transition from their parents’ church? 2. To what extent is ethnicity overshadowed by religious identity and vice versa in SGCCE’s decision as they transition away from their parents’ congregation? 3. What role does church leadership of the first-generation Chinese Canadian evangelicals play in guiding and shaping SGCCE’s search for growth and autonomy as expressed in the congregational transition through exercising the servant- leadership characteristic of foresight? 4. What role does church leadership of the current nonimmigrant congregations SGCCE are attending play in legitimizing the ethnicity of the congregants and shaping the ethnic boundary of the congregations through exercising the servant-leadership characteristic of foresight? Overview of Research Method This study utilizes the multi-case study methodology to gain a deeper under- standing of how the foresight of church leaders in the context of ethnic and religious social change mediated (or failed to mediate) the congregational transition process for the SGCCE. I probed four cases of second-generation Chinese Canadian evangelicals (SGCCE) attending different congregations _______________________ 156. Ladkin, 25, 43-44. 24 that represent the various pathways these second-generation worshipers took as a consequence of the transition process. Furthermore, I conducted post- analysis interviews with the representatives of the first-generation Chinese Canadian church leaders and the leadership with the current nonimmigrant congregations the SGCCE were attending to gain a perspective on the pres- ence or absence of servant-leadership foresight on their part. Definition of Terms The study uses the following terminology to describe different groups of people in Canada and the United States: First-Generation: People who were born outside Canada. For the purpose of this study, the term can refer to people who were born outside the United States of America.157 Second-Generation: Individuals who were born in Canada and had at least one parent born outside Canada.158 Third-Generation and more: People who are Canadian-born and whose par- ents and grandparents were Canadian-born.159 Visible minorities: Unlike the United States of America, which categorizes its population based on the racial categories of White, Black, American Indian, Hispanic, and Asian American,160 Canada tracks its population with three broad categories: people “Caucasian in race or white in colour,” aboriginal people, and visible minorities.161 The Employment Act of Canada further differentiates visible minorities as not belonging to the first two types and categorizes them under the following groups: South Asian, Chinese, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Arab, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean, and Japanese.162 _________________________ 157. Statistics Canada, Generation Status, 3. 158. Statistics Canada, 3. 159. Statistics Canada, Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic, 36. 160. Jeung, Chen, and Park, “Introduction,” 7; Zhou and Lee, “Introduction,” 11. 161. Statistics Canada, Immigration and Ethnocultural Diversity, 14. 162. Statistics Canada, 14. [ Page ] 25 Evangelicals: David Bebbington’s quadrilateral emphasis that gives evangelical faith its character is followed. The four emphases are: (a) Conversionism: The conviction that each person must turn from their sin, believe in the saving work of Christ, and commit themselves to a life of discipleship and service; (b) Activism: Cooperating in the mission of God through evangelism and charitable works; (c) Biblicism: Reverence and devotion to the Bible as God’s word; and (d) Crucicentrism: The centrality of the cross of Christ in evangeli- cal teaching and preaching.163 Evangelical denominations in Canada: When these groups are used in this study in numeric forms for reporting census or statistical findings, the term evangelicals refers to the denominations in Canada. Beyer’s inclusion of denominations as reported in Census Canada 2001 is followed in this study: Apostolic Christian, Apostolic (not otherwise specified), Associated Gospel, Baptist, Brethren in Christ, Born Again Christian (not otherwise specified), Charismatic Renewal, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Christian Assembly, Christian or Plymouth Brethren, Christian Reformed Church, Church of Christ Disciples, Church of God (not otherwise speci- fied), Church of the Nazarene, Congregational, Evangelical Free Church, Evangelical Missionary Church, Evangelical (not oth- erwise specified), Free Methodist, Methodist (not included else- where), Moravian, New Apostolic, Pentecostal, Salvation Army, Seventh-Day Adventist, Standard Church, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Wesleyan, and Worldwide Church of God.164 Overview of the Study This study is arranged in five chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the background and the context of the study and the theoretical framework through which the study was conducted, together with the purpose statement and the research questions. Chapter 2 reviews the literatures pertinent in addressing the theo- retical issues related to the following areas: the Chinese evangelical church _______________________ 163. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 2-17. 164. Beyer, “Appendix,” 437, note 2. [ Page ] 26 in Canada in terms of its ethnicity, religion, and incorporation; congregation transition pathways and the silent exodus of SGCCE; and servant-leadership. In chapter 3, the choice of a multi-case study as the research approach is con- ceptualized and discussed. Chapter 4 presents data gathered from interviews with SGCCE, the first-generation Chinese Canadian church leaders, and lead- ers of the congregations that SGCCE were attending at the time of interview. Last, chapter 5 discusses the findings as well as the themes emerging from the study, and concludes with implications and suggestions for further study. — This is an excerpt from How Am I Going to Grow Up? — The full edition can be purchased at https://bit.ly/3umMyfj ***** This is the end of the e-text. This e-text was brought to you by Tyndale University, J. William Horsey Library - Tyndale Digital Collections *****