If you have been thinking about joining our short-term missions trip this year but neglected to apply and had imagined you were too late because our application deadline had passed, I have some great news! The PaLM Short-Term Missions Committee has extended this year's application deadline to April 23!

So, if you've been praying for a "second chance" to apply for our trip, it has just arrived! Don't delay any longer....apply today!

For those who may not know...

If you are a minister and a resident of New York State AND you own property within New York State, you may be eligible for a reduction in your property tax.

The application deadline for this reduction is March 15, which if approved, will be applied to your taxes effective July of the same year.

To obtain an application for this reduction, you need to get in touch with your local government (e.g. township, village) for an application.

For New York City residences, you can find more information about the clergy tax reduction (as well as other tax reduction programs) and the application to apply for the clergy reduction here:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property_tax_reduc_taxreductions.shtml

Almost all of us are aware of the fact that in the past contemporary music has divided many church congregations as they struggled over the adoption and use of contemporary music in their Sunday worship services. This is NOT what this article is about. That is to say, I am not writing about what has happened, or is happening, in our INDIVIDUAL churches. Instead, what I am writing about is a bigger, but less obvious division of THE church - all of God's churches as a whole - due to the adoption and use of contemporary music as our primary means of corporate worship at our Sunday worship services.

First, let me establish the fact that there is nothing wrong with contemporary Christian songs per se. In essence, they are no different than hymns in their purpose, to glorify God; however, they seek to do it in a different way (e.g. via a different style, beat, etc.) To be honest, I can't say that I love singing contemporary songs every Sunday but neither do I say that I "hate it." But, what I can say is this, "too much of ANYTHING (no matter what that thing is) is never good." And that, may I suggest, is where the problem lies! Or, to put it another way, I believe that our only singing, or mostly only singing contemporary songs is hurting our unity as Christians and will increasingly do so if we fail to see this as a problem and do something about it.

What, you may ask, am I talking about? As you may or may not know, I serve our region as an itinerant pastor, helping to fill the pulpit of our Asian American churches that have no pastor; or if they have a pastor, to give that pastor a one week break from preparing a sermon. The vast majority of us do not travel from church to church as I do. In general, most of us worship and serve our Lord at one church and one church only. Some of us may attend a second service for different reasons but mostly we worship and serve the one church we attend/are a member of. Thus, the vast majority of us worship with the same people, at the same location week after week except for the one, or two times a year, that we might attend an interchurch service, or parachurch conference where Christians from a number of different churches come together to worship.

I, on the other hand, am in a different church almost every Sunday. Thus, I am unable to worship with “the same group of people” every week as most of you do. This gives me a perspective that most of us don’t have….a much wider and bigger picture of what is taking place in our church worship services.

Based on the observations that I have made in the last five years as an itinerant pastor, I am beginning to wonder if our always, and often only, singing of contemporary Christian worship songs isn’t hurting the kingdom of God without our even realizing it! How, you ask? As I see it, it has hurt us in at least two different ways and the damage is growing deeper and wider by the year!

One way contemporary Christian music has hurt "the kingdom" is in the way that it has devalued Christmas, and other Christian holidays! To see how Christmas has been "devalued" read a previous commentary entitled "Why Don't Chinese Churches Celebrate Christmas?"

A second way contemporary Christian music is hurting "the kingdom" is that it is making it more and more difficult for us, as a diverse body, to feel that we are one. This happens to me every week as I enter different church worship services. Rare is the Sunday that I am able to sing every song in any particular Sunday Worship Service. Why? It is because in all likelihood I won't know some, and at times any, of the songs being sung that particular Sunday. More often than not, I/we (the church congregation) needs to learn a new song, or two or three….

The main reason for this is because our Christian song writers and publishers are, in my opinion, too prolific in their writing and introduction of new songs. Naturally, we assume their motives are good and pure (e.g. they are giving us new songs to help us worship God more meaningfully). And no doubt, most of them do have "pure" (or as pure as they can be) motives. But, when a vast array of new songs are constantly being introduced and worship leaders are constantly looking for new songs to sing or risk being seen as anachronistic, our worship services consists of a steady diet of new songs, few of which is widely adopted and fewer still are those that endure, leaving our congregations the unenviable task of learning new songs in almost every worship service. I wonder if some of our song writers and/or publishers are not more interested in producing the “next big hit” and/or making a killing in the market place. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not against creativity. And I am not against new songs per se. But, the ceaseless flood of new songs being introduced each year keeps growing with no apparent end in sight.

In the secular world, this works fine because people buy songs for the purpose of listening and self enjoyment. Thus, hundreds of artist can produce hundreds of songs for the secular market place and no problem exists, or will arise.

Worship songs on the other hand, are ultimately, written for corporate singing. And that is the way it should be. But, when hundreds (and those numbers are constantly increasing) of Christian song writers are constantly introducing new songs, they present two problems. First, many of the songs written are mostly “mediocrity warmed over.” I know that that sounds harsh. But, it’s true. Just because a song can be found on a CD doesn’t make that song a quality song. Publishers of CDs can’t afford to give you only “the best of the best.” Instead, they can only give you two or three songs that fall into that category. But, they also have to give you "your money's worth." And how do they do that? By giving you the ten-twelve songs you expect when you buy a CD. That is to say, the music publishers add "fill-ins" in order to give you "all that you paid for." Most of these "fill-ins" are okay but the publishers know that, in general, these songs will soon be forgotten. The need to offer fill-ins in a CD is going the way of the dinosaurs thanks to new technologies which allows us to download only those songs that we truly want and thus free us from paying for that which we never wanted to begin with.

But, even when we have the option to download only the songs that we want, the problem remains. It remains because whenever new songs come out, every worship leader chooses what he/she likes which will likely be different from what your worship leader might like and choose and what my church worshiper leader might like and choose. As a result, next Sunday each of our churches will be learning three different sets of new songs to worship God. That's fine for each of our churches as a "stand-alone" church. But, what happens when we come together for a Christian community event (e.g. ordination service, special recognition service), or an interchurch worship service? Invariable, a portion of the people who come will know the some or many of songs being sung, but for the rest of us it's something that we never heard of before and will have to learn.

Have you ever tried worshipping God in song when you don't know the song? It's tough to get into it isn't it? But, that is exactly what is happening in our churches every Sunday. In 2008 I attended the ordination of a pastor friend. I went to the service expecting to celebrate this joyous occasion with exuberant singing. What happened ultimately was much different than what I had anticipated. Of the six songs sung that evening, I knew only one...the rest I didn't know at all. I wasn't alone. Many of those around me struggled with the songs as well. Could the ordination service I attended be considered a community worship service if more than half the time, more than half the people at the service could not worship in song because the songs chosen were unfamiliar to the vast majority of us?

I personally find this situation unacceptable. For centuries and for a good portion of my early Christian life, every church sang the same hymns that everyone else knew. Thus, I could attend ANY church service and worship God with everything within me because we all worshipped with the same songs. And that would remain true if the service I was in were an Hispanic service or Korean service, or etc. Yes, the language would be different. But, I could still join in the singing in my own language while everyone else sang in their language. Today, I struggle almost every Sunday in an ENGLISH worship service as I strive to learn the never-ceasing flood of new songs that enter the marketplace and finds its way into our churches.

There's got to be a better way. Don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying that we have to go back to hymns...although I do love them for their words and their harmonies. But, the Christian church has a problem which needs to be addressed and unless we do, churches/congregations in the future will never feel united. Don't believe that? Wait and see if I am wrong. I hope and pray that I am wrong. But, what I fear most is that I will be right. What do you think?

These are my opening remarks to our June 17, 2009 special OBC/ABC Meeting.....

Good morning everyone and welcome to our special OBC/ABC meeting. Today is an historic day. It’s an historic day because this is the first time, and hopefully not the last time, that OBCs and ABCs from the New York Metro area have come together to ponder….to share….and to dialogue about how all of us can work together to strengthen, to build up, and to advance God’s kingdom among our people. For too long ABCs and OBCs have had their difficulties and problems and without a doubt, we will continue to experience some difficulties in the days ahead. But, this meeting and your presence here this morning greatly encourages me and gives me hope to believe that a new day is here and with it comes new potentials and new possibilities.

When the idea of this meeting first arose in my mind, I pondered how we could best use our time together. After much prayer and thought, I came to conclude that the best way that I can help us begin to dialogue about how OBCs and ABCs can begin to work together is for me to first share with you the three burdens that God has placed on my heart that motivated me to call this meeting today.

My sharing of my three burdens with you this morning will be intentionally brief for two reasons. First, our time is short. I don’t want to squander it. And second, I want to give all of us here today the time and opportunity to respond and interact with what I will be sharing. Okay? Let’s get started….

One burden that God has placed on my heart concerns the shortage of ABC pastors serving our churches. Today, as many of you know, many of our ABC congregations do not have ABC pastors. And those churches that do have an ABC pastor are dropping steadily as each year more and more ABC pastors leave the Chinese church. And the future doesn’t look much better with the number of ABCs entering seminary at an all-time low.

If this trend is to reverse, all of us in this room need to be more proactive in plowing the field and helping to recruit and raise up more workers for the harvest. This can be done in a variety of ways. However, we at PaLM believe that one of the best ways to do this is through a program that we call MAP which stands for Ministry Apprenticeship Program.

For those who are unfamiliar with MAP, the primary mission of MAP is to encourage our pastors to look for and identify potential full-time Christian workers within their congregations; and once identifying such a worker, to challenge that person to consider the possibility of serving God on a full-time basis. And if that challenge is accepted, the pastor will then begin to mentor that young man or woman in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively serve God in a Chinese church. If during that time, it is discovered that that the young man/woman does not have the gifts or character for ministry, then he/she is encouraged to return to the church as a layperson, a little better trained than when he or she began. Or, if it is discovered that the young man/woman does have the gifts and character for ministry, then he/she will complete a two year mentoring program with the pastor. And upon completion of MAP, he/she may then go to seminary where he/she can learn the academic skills needed to serve as a pastor or other full-time Christian worker.

Unfortunately, to date PaLM has struggled to find enough ABC pastors to serve as mentors. One reason we haven’t been able to find enough ABC pastors to serve as mentors is that most of our pastors themselves have never been mentored and thus lack the knowledge, skills and experience needed to take up that task. In recognition of that fact, PaLM is in the process of establishing six month mentoring modules where our senior mentoring pastors will help equip and mentor our less experienced mentoring pastors in the art of mentoring. And I am pleased to report that PaLM is in the processing of recruiting our mentoring pastor trainees and expect to begin our first pastor mentoring class this coming August.

Eventually, it is our hope and dream that the OBC side of our churches will also adopt MAP or, at the very least, support it. For such an adoption or support by the OBC side of our churches will only increase the bounty of new workers for our churches whether they be ABC or OBC.

A second burden that God has placed on my heart is our region’s need for more adult ABC congregations and churches. When I was in seminary, I was told that the Chinese church has and is losing 90% of it young people. Now I don’t know how accurate that percentage is. But, based upon my own experience and observations, that 90% figure looks like a “ballpark” figure to me despite how outrageous that percentage looks to a reasonable person.

And it is my conviction that we will continue to lose our young people at that rate until and unless we establish more adult ABC churches. At present, most of our ABC congregations and churches are ministries that are extensions of immigrant churches. Today, most of those immigrant churches understand and realize the importance of establishing an ABC ministry within the church to retain their young people. But, when those young people go off to college, most of those churches are now discovering to their surprise, that many their young people still do not return…even after the church has established an English Ministries service. And if they do return, most don’t stay long. So, why don’t their young people return or stay?

There are, naturally, many answers to that question but I would suggest to you that a primary reason is because the ABC work in that immigrant church is geared for children and not adults. By the time our young people graduate from college, they are no longer children. Instead, they are young adults who feel out of place and boxed in when they return to their home church. They may then stay in their home church for a time to try and help the ABC children but those young people themselves need to be fed, nurtured and cared for. But, there is no one in that church that can do that for them and so they begin looking elsewhere for nourishment…eventually finding other churches such as Redeemer to attend.

At the present only a very few, loyal young people return to their home church and stay. And those that do return are often overworked and overused in the English ministries side of the church. And as a result they eventually burn out. When these burnt out young people leave our churches, they often have a bad taste in their mouths and vow never to return to a Chinese church again.

I understand and realize that most of our churches desire that their young people remain within their home church. But, it is also true that that strategy has been followed for more than 60 years and has only resulted in the lost of 90% of our young people; there’s got to be a better way. One of those ways I would suggest to you is for us, as a region, to establish adult ABC churches so that there are options and opportunities for our young people to remain within a Chinese or Asian American church.

If we are ever to have any chance of retaining our young people in our Chinese churches, more adult ABC congregations and churches need to be established. At present, we do have some adult ABC congregations or churches but they are too few and the few that we have are mostly overcrowded. Our Korean brothers have done a far better job in this area than we have on the Chinese side. I have visited a number of adult Korean American churches that are not only attracting Korean American young couples and families but they are also attracting a significant number of Chinese American couples and families as well. In fact, a few of those Korean American churches could boast that more than half of their congregations are comprised of ABC couples and families.

I have no problems with our ABC couples and families ending up at these Korean American churches because I know that they will be ministered to and that they will be actively involved in serving our Lord in those churches. But, what I find disturbing is seeing so many of our young people going to places like Redeemer where they are nothing more than a number in a crowd and do little, if anything, to serve God.

More adult ABC churches are needed….what can be done about it? How can we, as a region, plant more adult ABC churches?

These questions bring me to my third and last burden…the fissure that divides OBCs and ABCs. My third and last burden is that we ABCs and OBCs heal our relationships and begin to work together for our region. For too long we ABCs and OBCs have work independently of one another as if the other side did not exist. Because of past difficulties, differences, and hurts ABCs and OBCs have stayed out of each other’s way. On the surface that appears to work. But, the truth of the matter is, each side is hobbled because each side is missing a piece of themselves that makes each of us whole.

Adam was incomplete until God made Eve and gave her to him as his partner. Likewise, each of us is incomplete until we can reconcile our differences and mend our fences. For that to happen, each side must confess their sins and seek forgiveness from the other. It is time to put aside our hurts, mend our fences and bring healing to our relationships.

In all probability, most of us sitting here do not harbor any ill feelings towards “the other side” but neither do we make the effort to reach out to “the other side.” Today, you don’t have to work too hard to meet an OBC if you are an ABC or to meet an ABC if you are an OBC. Today, you have the opportunity to begin that healing process. At lunch time make it a point to sit with someone from the other side. I realize that the ratio this morning is a little lop-sided and so not everyone will have that opportunity. But, if PaLM has anything to do with it, there will be other opportunities in the future.

While each side has been able to accomplish some things while working independently of one another, I would suggest to you that so much more could be accomplished if both ABCs and OBCs were to work more closely with one another.

I am not so naïve as to be unaware of the fact that there would be a number of problems and issues standing in the way of our working together. However, I also do not see any one particular problem or issue that cannot be overcome if each side would be willing to set aside its own interests and focus on the interests of the greater good of our region as a whole.

Now don’t misunderstand me. I am not proposing that we form an ecumenical movement; nor am I suggesting that we establish a formal association of churches. But, what I am asking is this…can we, as group, commit to coming together once or twice a year to discuss and implement strategies and projects that will benefit our region as a whole?

That is to say, let us stop looking at our world solely from within the four walls of our church buildings. Instead, let us also look at our world from a regional perspective and see how our church can contribute to the greater good of our region. Too often, you and I look only at own church needs, our own church desires and our own church resources. I would suggest that we need to look beyond our four walls and understand that our churches and congregations are but only small pieces of a larger puzzle.

As I have already told you, this morning I seek only to provide some “food for thought” and give all of us an opportunity to discuss further my brief presentation. I now open the floor to give you the opportunity to respond and interact with my comments.

On March 7, 2009 PaLM honored Lee Hearn for his faithful service to the New York Asian American Community. Here are the introductory remarks made by Howard Chan in that presentation...

One of my favorite movies is "It's A Wonderful Life." One reason I love that movie is because it's a story about an ordinary guy, who lives an ordinary life, only to discover - thanks to an angel - that his life wasn't really that ordinary after all.

The movie is about a family man named George Bailey. Generally, all goes well for George until his absent-minded Uncle Charlie loses a large sum of money from his Savings and Loan business. George frantically searches for the lost money but cannot find it, or replace it, and as a result falls into despair and prepares to take his own life by drowning himself.

But, before George could carry out his intentions, he is saved by Clarence, an angel from heaven. Though saved from drowning, George is still depressed and expresses to Clarence a wish that he had never been born.

Clarence wisely grants George his wish and George is given a great gift...an opportunity to see what the world would be like...if he had not never been born. George soon discovers that the world of Bedford Falls would be very different if he had not been born.

• In this world with no George Bailey, a life-long friend who is a pharmacist ends up going to prison and becoming a drunkard because George wasn't there to stop him when he accidentally put poison in a prescription he was filling.
• In this world with no George Bailey, George's younger brother, Harry dies in a winter sledding accident because George wasn't there to rescue Harry from the icy waters he fell into.
• And in this world with no George Bailey, the town of Bedford Falls turns into a town of disrepute and is renamed Pottersville because George wasn't there to stand up to mean-old Potter and his greedy ways.

In these and in many other ways George discovers that his ordinary life wasn't so ordinary after all. For his life touched and made a difference in the lives of the people of Bedford Falls in ways, and to a degree, that he never realized and understood until now.

This afternoon, I submit to you that there exists another George Bailey; and this "other George Bailey" is not a fictional character. He is, instead, a real human being. And that person that I speak of, of course, is Lee Hearn the man we have come to honor this afternoon for his faithful service to the New York Asian American community.

When we look at Lee, and the service he gave to the NY Asian American community and CEMC-M, we see nothing out of the ordinary. But, the fact of the matter is, the life that Lee lived as a pastor may appear to have been ordinary, but in terms of the impact that he has made on the NY Asian American Christian community and CEMC-M, in particular, is anything but ordinary.

Let me play the role of Clarence the angel, and help you to see three reasons why Lee's service to God was anything but ordinary.....

The first reason why Lee's service to God was anything but ordinary is due to his longevity. Lee began serving CEMC-M in 1962 when the church was simply known as CEM, Chinese Evangel Mission. He started going to CEM in 1962 to teach Sunday School and he continued to do that for three years, until 1965. In 1965, Lee's routine changed because that year he graduated from Nyack. Upon graduating, he moved into CEMC-M and continued to serve there until 2001 when he retired. In other words, Lee served CEMC-M for the entire time he served God as a pastor; and if you include the three years that he taught Sunday School while in seminary, Lee faithfully served God and CEMC-M for some 39 years. Statisticians tell us that a typical pastor stays at a church an average of 3 years before moving on to another church. In Lee's case, he stayed on at CEMC-M 39 years - 13 times longer, 13 times longer than most pastors stay at any one church! Would you say that that was ordinary? Or, extraordinary?

A second reason why Lee's service to God was anything but ordinary is the number of workers he nurtured and sent into God's harvest field. While serving as the English pastor of CEMC-M he inspired, discipled and sent forth ten...ten people into full-time Christian work. These ten people include some of the people who are sitting in this room. They include:

• John Eng, current pastor of Chinese Evangel Mission Church, Manhattan
• John Ng, seminary professor at ATS and an Associate Director of PaLM
• and Lisa Yu, an InterVarsity Christian Staff Worker

In addition to these three we have seven others:

• Frank Chan, professor at Nyack College
• John Chan, former missionary to Africa
• Steve Chin, senior pastor of Boston Chinese Evangelical Church
• Dan Ho, serving in a church in Texas
• Derrick Jackson, planting a church in New Jersey
• Sally Johnson, missionary to Hong Kong
• and Bayer Lee, serving a couple of churches in New York Chinatown

Lee nurtured and sent forth each of these men and women. The number ten may not sound like a very big number to some of us.... trust me, it is a big number...it is a very big number. It is a number you would appreciate more when you realize that in far too many churches, this idea of nurturing and sending forth workers into the harvest field is, too often, overlooked. But, that wasn't the case with Lee.

In Lee's service to God, sending forth new workers into the harvest field wasn't an incidental job to done when he felt like it. Instead, for Lee it was a cornerstone of his ministry. And because it played such an important role in his service to God, Lee today, continues to influence a wide-range of people; no longer directly as he once did with these ten people but when he nurtured and helped these men and women to become pastors, missionaries, and professors, he through them has influenced hundreds and thousands of others. Would you say that that was ordinary? Or, extraordinary?

A third, and last reason why Lee's service to God was anything but ordinary is due his character. When people look at Lee, who do they see? That question made me curious. So much so, that I decided to post a survey online to see what people would say when asked, "when you see Lee, what kind of person do you see?" I had hoped a large number of people would take advantage of the opportunity and participate in the survey; but alas, only 30 people took the survey. While the number of participants was not as high as I would have liked, what these 30 people shared about Lee was revealing nevertheless.

Can you guess what was Lee's top quality, or character trait? What do you think?
Let me share with you the TOP FIVE qualities or character traits people see in Lee....

05. Patient, Honest 22/30 (73%)
04. Always available 23/30 (77%)
03. Caring, Servant, Well-liked 24/30 (80%)
02. Easy to talk to 25/30 (83%)
01. Humble 29/30 (97%)

29/30 people see Lee as a humble man. And no doubt, the vast majority of us here this afternoon, including myself, would agree with that assessment.

And that is why I must confess to you now that I am deeply appreciative of Lee's willingness to accept PaLM's invitation to honor him here this afternoon. There is no doubt in my mind that there is no person more deserving of such a recognition than Lee. But, as we all know because Lee is so humble, receiving such a recognition makes him feel extremely uncomfortable. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that Lee would gladly give up drinking his beloved Chinatown coffee for the rest of his life than to be sitting where he is right now...in the spotlight. Is he squirming yet? Thus, despite his intense dislike of being in the spotlight...he agreed to come and be recognized nevertheless. And for that, I thank you Lee.

In my survey I had also asked people to share their special stories about Lee with me. I received nine stories. This afternoon I would like to share one of them with you. The rest you can read for yourselves....I will put a copy of the stories at each table after this presentation.

Of all the stories shared, I believe this one captures the essence of Lee....

I'll never forget how hard and wonderful it was to laugh at what Lee did on the day Johnny Soohoo got married. Lee once again revealed what a self-sacrificing person he is when he willingly gave his white shirt away to a member of the bridal party, who had forgotten to pack it. Many of us had not seen Lee in a while since he retired, and when we saw him, he was only wearing a white tee shirt under his suit jacket.

Pictures were taken of Lee and other wedding guests showing Lee with his "new, more hip and modern" look. Knowing Lee, he must've felt pretty embarrassed, but he did it anyway. Thanks Lee for being such a great example of a self-sacrificing person and for the laughter you bring into our lives.

This is Lee's legacy. He is someone who is willing to literally give you the shirt off of his back. Lee, you are extraordinary human being and an exceptional man of God.

In recognition of your contributions to the New York Asian American community at large, and particularly to CEMC-M, PaLM would like to present to you a special gift...a special made crystal bowl.

As we understand it, you like to have potpourri around your house. We hope that this special bowl that we had made especially for you will help you enjoy your potpourri.

The inscription on the bowl reads....

The PaLM Logo is on top...

Below that is your name...Rev. Alfred Lee Hearn, followed by the inscription....

In Appreciation of Your Faithful Service, Saturday, March 7. 2009

Congratulations Lee!