About us...

In 1999, CRC Home Missions staff (Al Mulder, Gary Teja, and Tong Park) organized what was then called the Asian Planning Group to function as a ministry consultation and leadership training group for the Asian churches.

In late 2003, the group applied as a peer learning group and was awarded a grant through the CRCNA-Lilly Endowment Sustaining Pastoral Excellence Program. Read "Asian Pastors Poised for Leadership, Church Growth" at the CRCNA-SPE website.

The group took on a new name, Asian-American Pastoral Ministry (AAPM), to reflect the changing demographic profiles of their communities and to direct its purpose towards pastoral excellence.

As of May 2006, the AAPM membership includes twelve Asian CRC pastors, all first generation couples from these ethnic groups: Cambodian (2), Chinese (1), Hmong (2), Laotian (2), Philippines (2), South Korean (1), and Vietnamese (2). Serving as advisors/consultants to the group are Gary Teja (for Home Missions) and Mike & Lois Vander Pol (for World Missions).

For two years now, AAPM had developed into a self-managed and self-directed group whose members learned to take charge of its peer learning process. Read "Take charge of your learning" at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship website.

Rev. Jerry Dykstra, CRCNA Director of Denominational Ministries, concluded that the AAPM has become a viable model of peer group learning for pastoral excellence worth sharing to the other Asian CRCs. Rev. Dykstra made this statement after he participated in the group's 4th Semiannual Meeting in Hayward, CA on February 27-March 2, 2006.

In line with the current denominational emphasis on creating and sustaining healthy churches (read the Ministries Priorities Committee Report Phase III, February 2005 on the CRC website), AAPM reaffirmed its commitment to be an active partner not only in the seven (7) classes its current members belong to, but everywhere in the US and Canada where Asian CRCs had been planted or are still being planned.

In its 2006 Annual Report to the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the CRC-SPE Project recognized the impact the peer learning group process and the focus on creating a culture of pastoral excellence had to the member pastors and spouses of AAPM.

Having experienced the positive transformational effects a peer learning group can do to generally isolated and struggling ethnic minority pastors and spouses, AAPM reaffirmed its mission to help "Connect, Strengthen, Engage, and Sustain" more healthy Asian CRCs today and in the future.

To this end, AAPM humbly submits itself to the abundant grace and sovereign will of our Triune God for the Asian-American communities in close partnership with the Christian Reformed Church in North America. 

To God be the glory, honor, and praise!

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