Asian and Asian American authors are asking vital questions, offering fresh theological insight, and speaking with hard-won wisdom into the life of the church and the world. Their work challenges, forms, and enlarges the faith of every reader who encounters it. Every May, we celebrate AAPI Heritage Month by spotlighting these authors and the conversations they're leading. Explore their books, articles, videos, and podcasts below!
Manuel Luz is the creative arts pastor of Oak Hills Church in Folsom, California, and has been an active advocate for worship and the arts for more than twenty-five years. He is also the author of Imagine That, a working musician and songwriter, and the co-inventer of the musical instrument the WalkaBout.
Tanita Tualla Maddox (DMin, Phoenix Seminary) is the national director for generational impact for Young Life and serves as an associate regional director in the Mountain West Young Life region. With an expertise in contextualizing the gospel for GenZ, Tanita has been featured on
The Holy Post podcast and has been published in
The Great Commission Research Journal, the
Journal of Youth and Theology, and more. She has served as Young Life leader with adolescents for over twenty-six years and serves as a volunteer Young Life leader in her local community. She lives in Spokane, Washington, with her husband and two children.
Shin Maeng (MA, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) now resides in Aberdeen, Scotland, but he grew up in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. He is married to Sarah and together they have a wee lass. Shin loves to create on his iPad and also loves to get his hands dirty. Music, cities, stories, Marvel comics, dancing, most things on YouTube, food, justice, and the movement of God are a few things that inspire Shin's hands to create. You can find out more about what he's up to at www.shinhappen.com.
Kirsten Sonkyo Oh (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is on the faculty of Azusa Pacific University in biblical and religious studies and practical theology.
Janette H. Ok is associate professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. She is the author of Constructing Ethnic Identity in 1 Peter (T and T Clark). She is currently writing a commentary on the Letters of John (NICNT, Eerdmans) and To Be and Be Seen, coauthored with Jordan J. Cruz Ryan (Baker Academic).
Glenn Packiam (Doctor of Theology and Ministry, Durham) is the associate senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He is the songwriter of more than fifty worship songs, including "Your Name" and "Mystery of Faith," and the author of several books, including Blessed Broken Given: How Your Story Becomes Sacred in the Hands of Jesus and Discover the Mystery of Faith: How Worship Shapes Believing. He is also a visiting fellow at St. John's College at Durham University and an adjunct professor at Denver Seminary.
Adrian Pei is an organizational development consultant and leadership trainer who has worked in two of the largest corporate and ministry organizations in the world. He specializes in speaking and writing about crosscultural dynamics and ethnicity-related topics. Pei served as associate national director of leadership development of Epic Movement, the Asian American ministry of Cru. He and his family live in southern California.
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah (ThM, Harvard; DMin, Gordon-Conwell; ThD, Duke) is Robert B. Munger Professor of Evangelism and Church Renewal at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books including The Next Evangelicalism, Many Colors, and Prophetic Lament, and he is the co-author of Unsettling Truths. Rah has extensive experience in cross-cultural preaching and has been a main stage speaker at the Urbana Student Missions Conference, the Congress on Urban Ministry, the Urban Youth Workers Institute Conference, the CCDA National Conference, the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary National Preaching Conference, the Fuller Missiology Conference, the Justice Conference, and Verge, Catalyst, and Calvin Worship Conferences.
Vinoth Ramachandra lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He holds both a BS (summa cum laude) and a PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of London. An Anglican lay-theologian, writer, teacher and human rights advocate, he combines multiple interests in his international work with IFES, a global partnership of over 150 university-level Christian movements.
Sarah Shin is associate national director of evangelism for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF). She is a speaker and trainer in ethnicity, evangelism, and the arts, and she previously served IVCF as an area director in Boston and as a regional coordinator of multiethnicity. A fine artist and painter, Sarah has a master’s degree in theology from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a master’s in city planning and development from MIT. She and her husband live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hear More from AAPI Authors
Prayer can be daunting as a parent and as a family because what can be more intimate and vulnerable than opening ourselves with humility, hope, and honesty to the all-knowing, all-seeing God of the universe? Inspired by Kaylee Prays for the Children of the World, here are four ideas for how you can lean into the lessons of the book and create a culture of prayer in your own family.
In this interview, IVP authors Carmen Joy Imes, Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young, E. K. Strawser, Nijay Gupta, Rob Dixon, and Sandra L. Glahn reflect on Women’s History Month and the importance of hearing women—and what we miss when we don’t. Gilmore-Young and Gupta are hosts of the IVP podcast Hear Women.