Conference Sessions
A Long Faithfulness Across Generations: Rupture and Repair in Asian American Families
Family rupture in Asian American contexts is shaped by immigration narratives, cultural scripts, and intergenerational silence that can sometimes fuel disconnect and distance. This plenary explores the sources of familial rupture and offers a multi-layered framework for repair that integrates intrapersonal reflection, neurobiological regulation, and relational attunement while honoring generational distinctions and Asian American relational ethics. The conversation will be grounded in the reality that repair is sanctification work – a decades-long journey across seasons of life that finds its sustaining hope not in resolution but in Christ who came to give us fullness of life.
When We Stay But Disappear: Hidden Ruptures and the Hope of Church as a Healing Community
This plenary examines subtle and often unseen relational ruptures within church communities—those marked not by open conflict, but by emotional withdrawal, quiet disengagement, and unspoken disconnection. Within many Asian and Christian cultural contexts, values such as harmony, endurance, respect for authority, and sacrificial service may unintentionally foster the concealment of hurt, discouraging lament, repair, and honest confrontation. This plenary seeks to give insight into how these unacknowledged ruptures affect spiritual vitality and community belonging. It also seeks to offer a hopeful vision for how church communities can be a place of healing, connection, and repair.
This plenary will explore how we can grieve ruptures that are left unresolved between persons and endure our experience of separation through faith. Whether by estrangement, emotional cutoff, immigration trauma, abuse, or death, some ruptures may not be repaired in our lifetimes, leaving our hearts with an ever-aching longing for connection. Participants will learn how to navigate this separation through the lens of neuroscience, psychology, and faith and discover rest in the peace and love of Christ.
Healing the Asian American Family: Practices for Repairing Generational Rupture with Honor
Generational rupture often begins with disconnection from self, others, and the stories shaped by survival, sacrifice, and systemic forces. This workshop invites participants to practice honor by reconnecting to their God-given worth (Self), relating with courage and grace (Other), and sharing vulnerable family stories (Context). Together, we explore how honoring self, others, and context opens pathways for repair so families may stand seen, known, and honored in God’s presence and in one another.
Church Culture and Mental Health: Building Congregations That Support Well-Being
This workshop will explore how pastors, elder/governing boards, and volunteers together shape a church’s cultural environment in ways that support mental health and overall well-being. Through practical tools, real examples, and actionable strategies, this workshop will help participants understand how behaviors and leadership practices ultimately influence congregational well-being. Attendees will leave equipped to nurture healthier church cultures where leaders and members alike can thrive.
Unresolved Ruptures: Find Healing When Repair is Not Possible
What do we do when the ruptures we face have no easy resolution? At both the individual and collective levels, many Asian Americans suffer from deep relational wounds that cannot be repaired because the other party is gone or because interactions with them harm us. When that happens, we are left with emotional hurricanes that disrupt our sense of normalcy and safety, as well as our ability to connect to God, ourselves and those with whom we desire to continue relationship.
In our time together, we will seek healing by applying frameworks that help us make meaning of what we are experiencing, learning to be present to our emotions in God’s presence, and exploring practices that facilitate healing in the absence of the other party.
This workshop will involve optional opportunities for group participation with guidelines for creating safety as we share and listen to one another. Bringing a journal or writing surface is recommended.
