Many of us are familiar with the missional movement, a 21st century approach to church popularized by Tim Keller, Michael Frost, Ed Stetzer, Alan Hirsch, and Mike Breen. “Missional living” declares that the Great Commission is not something ordained for a chosen few, but rather it is a duty given to all Christians to spread the Word of God to the ends of the Earth. The effort to fulfill global missions, which I also refer to as horizontal missions, has been spearheaded primarily by the United States and South Korea. However, the fervor of missional revival has been largely disproportional. Although horizontal missions is absolutely crucial to support and maintain, focusing on spreading the Gospel abroad has left the home front vulnerable. We have forgotten that our battlefield is both domestic and foreign. While Christianity is exploding in Africa and Asia, it has been experiencing a continuous dip in the United States and a sharp decline in Europe. The typical congregation of the United States and South Korea is like an inverted pyramid; we see the elderly make up the bulk of the membership at the top, and funneling down to the bottom is the youngest generation. Simply put: young people are leaving the church or not growing up in church at all. If the current rate of decline continues, there will come a day when there will only be a few churches left in the U.S. At this time, missionaries may return home only to find themselves in a nation even more in need of the Gospel than where they were sent! What should be done to change this? How can we win young hearts back to the church and prepare them for a rich future of faith and obedience unto the Lord? These were my convictions when I planted Grace Community Chapel.

Because my wife Jee and I grew up as troubled teens ourselves, we have always had a special heart for youth ministry. I was a youth pastor for 14 years prior to planting Grace Community Chapel, and although I also worked with parents and adults, youth ministry was the love of my life. During this time, the Silent Exodus was already well underway: 70% of second-generation Asian Americans, the children of immigrants, had abandoned their faith when they left for college. It was during my service as a youth pastor at Antioch Church in Philadelphia that I witnessed the Silent Exodus first hand. Students I had discipled throughout high school silently wandered off in their college years. However, according to my calculations, the turnover rate was less than 70%, because I saw a different problem. These young people were not just abandoning their faith—they did not have any faith to begin with. First generation Korean American churches were not being missional to their own children. Instead of trying to understand the second-generation and engage with them through their own culture as Korean Americans, Korean churches became cultural ghettos where old world values and face-based faith were enforced upon the youth. Children who rejected Christianity after youth group had never been properly discipled. Rather than hiring full-time youth pastors who were wholly trained seminarians, men and women who taught correct and relevant theology, the youth pastors were always part-time. It was a band-aid solution that obscured a much greater problem. Youth ministry was becoming departmentalized, organized, and done for the sake of efficiency rather than as a ministry that served real people with real needs. It was treated and dealt with separately from all the other concerns of the church. It was not a vision and calling that the whole church shared but rather an isolated compartment where the sole responsibility fell into the hands of the youth pastor and the occasional deacon. During my own time as a youth pastor, I combated this by reaching out to the head pastors, elders, deacons, and parents so that the whole congregation was involved in mentoring and serving the youth. These kids were young Korean Americans, and old first-generation Korean churches could not offer them what they needed. As I prayed and struggled through this, the Lord placed it in my heart to plant a new church, one that would address the thirst of these young people. It was during this time of searching that I came across the article “Silent Exodus” by Helen Lee. God first placed the desire in my heart, and then He gave me the playbook to make the moves. The tools I carried with me to share the gospel from Helen Lee’s article were threefold:

1. Renewing traditionalism 2. Planting new churches 3. Having a multi-generational approach

This was the approach I followed as I began my personal mission to combat the Silent Exodus.

The first-generation Korean American churches have been the major cornerstones in sending out missionaries to what is coined the “10/40 window”—the areas unreached. I took my convictions to challenge another 10/40 window—those between the ages of 10 and 40 who are in need of Jesus Christ in our own backyard. As I look upon the cross and our Lord’s outstretched hands and feet, I am reminded of both horizontal and vertical missions. As we look at the cross, we should also be reminded of the missional life Christ led for us to follow. Christ’s arms were laid open wide and His hands nailed to the cross, He died for you, me, and for all (2 Cor. 5:15). He rose again and in Christ “shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). With such good news, we are called to preach the gospel from our own Jerusalems, Judeas, Samarias, and to the ends of the earth, as this is our horizontal mission. His hands are stretched out inviting all who hear His voice, and for us that means to go and be His voice, as this is our second commandment—to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39). The first commandment is to love God with all our hearts, and surely as Jesus Christ was one with the Father. He allowed us to share in that intimacy with the Father. Yet the ministry that Jesus Christ led on earth was one intimately tied to His twelve disciples. Jesus was eating, teaching, and living day by day with His disciples. The two greatest commandments are shown in the cross. If we were to apply this mission horizontally we would be going out and sending people to the nations and vertically we would be taking care of our own children at home. God promises that if we honor Him, then we will be blessed generation after generation (Luke 1:50). “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). This is a vertical multiplication, meaning not only are we to have more children but we are also to keep spreading from people groups to nations as a horizontal growth. Vertical missions is just as necessary as horizontal missions and I would argue it is an even greater priority. How can he who cannot manage his own household become a deacon and manage the church? (1 Tim. 3:4-5) The point of this 10/40 window is to emphasize parents and mentors reaching out to their own households. This goes back to the Silent Exodus: How can a church send good missionaries if it cannot even save its own family members and children? Since Korean churches did not evangelize to their own children, they were not focused on vertical missions. Now our church is reaching out to these people because they were never Christians to begin with in their youth. We should be educating our children right and reaching out to those aged from 10 to 40 years who have been neglected in our church even before global missions. Our church is reaching out to this Silent Exodus, but when we have our own children, we should not make the same mistake. We should focus on vertical missions. We can even see this occurring in the Bible. Moses began vertical missions to ensure that the next generation would have a leader and as a result, the next generation was led to the Promised Land. But a key thing to note is that when Joshua died, there was no one to follow after him. You can even see this contrasted in the book of Joshua and Judges. In Joshua 1, Moses passes away. Immediately after, God speaks to Joshua, the man whom Moses had groomed for leadership. When Joshua dies in Judges 1, there is no one to lead the Hebrew people. Despite the best efforts of the Judges, the Israelites ultimately tear each other apart through in-fighting and civil wars. The Book of Judges ends with this ominous verse: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes”(Judges 21:25). The greatest danger facing the church is not any foreign threat, but a slow death from within. If new leaders are not groomed, the church will fall on its own.

Asian Americans have a unique gift. As a demographic, they are highly educated, successful, and intelligent. They are blessed uniquely through their dual identity as sons and daughters of the two most influential continents in modern history. Asian Americans are natural-born missionaries placed strategically in the most powerful nation in the world at a critical juncture in history. However, many young Asian Americans do not understand or have the proper vision to use these resources.

Queen Esther was the same in many respects. Esther was an intelligent, prudent, and beautiful Jewish girl who became the Queen of Persia, who did not fully grasp the high position beheld of her. She was a good woman of faith, but it was not until she was under Mordecai’s guidance that she gained a Kingdom perspective. At the time when Haman was plotting to exterminate the Jews throughout the Persian Empire, Mordecai was sure that even if Esther kept silent, that deliverance would rise from another place.

As a result, he suggests to her, “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Because Queen Esther used her power for the sake of her people, an entire lineage was saved and God’s saving work was fulfilled. Like Mordecai, it is my mission to arouse the sleeping Silent Exodus generation to show them that this is not the time to lounge. Like Esther, God has strategically situated Asian Americans not for their useless American dreams but for the salvation work of the Kingdom. The truth is, God can do this with or without us. My calling, however, is to make sure that this generation rises up so that they may experience the power and joy of serving God. Only then will their talents and experiences shine, have power, and be fully maximized by the Lord.