by Joe Ho
"Hide the Asians!”
That was a suggestion from a Chinese American student leader as our InterVarsity fellowship prepared for freshman outreach.
For the past couple years, our student leadership core had gone from having very few non-Whites to being about half Asian American. Possibly as a result, we were attracting markedly more Asian freshmen and, in turn, developing more Asian American leaders. So we began to wonder if we had become “too Asian” to reach other populations.
Over the years, other InterVarsity groups have also transitioned to being majority Asian American fellowships. Asian Americans are a sizeable and growing population among InterVarsity staff, management, and participants at the Urbana Student Missions Conference.
In the midst of this growth, a question has emerged in our organization: Have we reached a point where “too many Asians” keep us from attracting and retaining non-Asians?
I see three problems with worrying about “too many Asians”…
Read the rest of Joe’s MEM blog post about his concerns and some recommended alternatives.
Find more articles about race, ethnicity and the Christian faith on InterVarsity’s Multiethnic Ministries Blog.
