Baptist Press: Asian fellowship to extend awareness of SBC

ST. LOUIS (BP) — Representatives from eight Asian nationalities have formed a national fellowship to expand their involvement in the Southern Baptist Convention.

The fellowship — to be known as A2CP2 for Asian-American Church Planting/Cooperative Program — met June 12 meeting in conjunction with the SBC’s annual meeting in St. Louis.

Leaders from Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Hmong churches formed the fellowship to draw on and reinforce each other’s strengths, Paul Kim, the organization’s founder, said.

Kim, Asian-American relations consultant with the SBC Executive Committee, was part of an Asian-American advisory group that met for three years to formulate ideas to better address the needs and concerns of Asian-Americans. As the task force completed its work, a permanent Asian-American Advisory Council was formed, Kim said.

“I think all the Asian-Americans are getting together for the next generation,” Kim told the 40 or more in attendance at the meeting, which was preceded by a dinner hosted by LifeWay Global, a division of LifeWay Christian Resources.

“This fellowship will help communicate the mission of the Cooperative Program and church planting,” Kim said, so that Asian-Americans can better understand who Southern Baptists are toward becoming more involved with God’s work through the SBC.

“We have 1,800 Asian churches in the Southern Baptist Convention,” Kim said. “They are proud to be Southern Baptist but they only know bits and pieces.”

To aid in understanding, the meeting included 15-minute presentations by Gihwang Shin with the International Mission Board, Jeremy Sin of the North American Mission Board, Hoon Im of GuideStone Financial Resources and Daniel Im of LifeWay.

Executive Committee President Frank S. Page and SBC President Ronnie Floyd welcomed the fellowship’s beginnings.

“It is an honor to be with you today,” Page said. “God is blessing our Asian churches. We thank God for you and what you bring to our convention…. We recognize there is much to be done. If we are going to reach Asians for Christ, we need to reach out to the immigrants among us.”

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