Spotlight on Esther Shin Chuang

Savior is thrilled to welcome Esther Shin Chuang as our new Pastor of Music and Worship. Get to know Esther and her family a bit in the post below as we welcome them into our community.

Where do you live now and where are you from?

I’m from many places. I was born in South Korea, then my family moved to the States when I was a year old. I grew up in Austin, Texas until I finished first grade. Then we moved back to Korea, and then when I was 13 years old, we moved back to the States, this time to New York City for my music education. I lived in New York most of my life until 8 years ago when God called me to Moody Theological Seminary in Chicago. Currently, I live in Park Ridge with my husband Tony, who is a preacher and evangelist, and my daughter, Adrielle. My husband and I do ministry together very often (he brings the word, I bring the music to people), and we have a website for those who are interested.

What do you do when you’re not at church?

First of all, I’m a full-time mom to a two-year-old. So that takes most of my time! I go to fun places with her and spend lots of time with her at home. I’m also a concert pianist and singer, so I prepare for my upcoming concerts by practicing piano and singing daily. I like to swim, and I go to the gym regularly to swim, which gives me physical energy for the day. I also like to open up our home. We open up our home to our neighbors for house parties and house concerts. When I’m relaxing, that’s when my husband and I are watching a movie at home.

What is an interesting fact about you?

My husband and I have a heart for those who do not know Christ. So, wherever God opens the doors, we share the gospel. God has opened many doors in many countries for us to minister. Through church services or even crusades, my husband would preach and I would lead the musical worship or do evangelistic concerts. But we are not only sharing the gospel in these “faraway countries,” we try to do that in our neighborhood as well. I believe that wherever God placed us is where we should shine Christ’s light. When we first moved to our neighborhood few years ago, my husband and I knocked on over 100 houses introducing ourselves. We then invited them to our home for house parties and concerts. Our neighbors were suspicious at first, but they started opening up their hearts. They were first strangers, but now many of them have become our friends. As we got to know our neighbors, we started sharing about our faith, the gospel, inviting them to church, and praying for them. We pray that many of them will get to know Christ, and that we will always be a light wherever we are.

How does the ministry you lead serve the life of our congregation?

My role is to encourage the congregation to love God more and worship him more through my ministry of music. There is power in music, and music helps you remember the lyrics. Each song we sing at church are filled with truths about God. When one is going through a difficult time in their life and cannot even utter words to God, maybe the lyrics of the hymn “Lord I need thee” will come to their mind and will become their prayer and worship for that day. When one is going through sadness and despair, the words to “It is Well” may comfort their soul, and will bring praise in their lips despite what they’re going through. I pray that the songs I choose will become the words and thoughts of the congregation, and that the theological truths in the songs will enable people to worship God more earnestly.

How can people get involved in the ministry you lead?

I would like to know the songs that really speak to each person’s heart. Feel free to email me or let me know in person, so that I could keep those songs in mind when I select the worship songs. I believe that understanding the congregation’s heart songs is important. Also, being part of the music team is such a privilege. If you have musical gifts and you want to serve God through the musical worship team, feel free to talk to me. Even if you feel like you’re not a professional musician, that’s okay! There’s always something someone can do in the music team, so just talk to me.

Prayers for Savior

At our Anniversary Celebration this past Saturday, Father Kevin shared vision for this next season of Savior's life together and invited us to join in prayer for wisdom and discernment (listen or read a summary). As the staff, vestry and clergy considered this summer, we are invited to prayerfully consider: 

What are you thankful about in our life together? 

Take some time to talk to the Lord about that.

What are some of the challenges you experience in our life together? 

As you bring these before the Lord, do you sense any invitations?

As our leaders discerned a sense that we are being invited to go deeper that we might be stronger for others, let us pray together about both our Inward and Outward Journey.

Inward Journey:

• What inward communal practices do you enjoy in our life together? Is God stirring something in you there?

• What invitations do you sense for us as a body, in our continual formation as God's people?

Outward Journey:

Let us seek God's direction as we prayerfully consider these categories Father Kevin put before us:

• Serve our Neighbor in Need: As you pray for our friends of the Savior and neighbors, does anything particular come to mind? 

• Sending Out People to Their Vocations: What vocation are you sent out to each week? Does God have something to say to you in this? Whom else at Savior can you pray for as they do their daily work? 

• Start Churches: Please pray for the Pachecos as they plant a church in East Garfield Park, and for the Richters, as they discern the first steps in planting a church in Oak Park, for the community of Oak Park and for God to raise up people to participate in this work. Pray also for others who might be sensing a call to participate in church planting.

• Seek Justice: Let's wonder together about how God will lead us to seek justice in the world. Will it include:

  • C4SO Children's Ministry Leadership?

  • ACNA Women's Leadership Support?

  • Church-to-Church Partnerships?

  • Other outworkings of our gifts/passion?

As you pray, please feel free to share with Father Kevin and our vestry what comes to mind. We are eager to discern together what God has for us in this next season of our life together.

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Sandy Richter, Savior’s Pastor of Adult Formation, grew up in the Church of God, but gravitated toward 'higher church' settings in college, making her way to the ACNA and Church of the Savior in 2013. Sandy and her husband love the liturgy and tradition they have found in Anglicanism, and the warmth and depth of spirituality at Savior.

Savior's Next Season

On October 19, as part of Church of the Savior’s anniversary celebration, I preached a sermon on “Savior’s Next Season.” You can listen to the audio or read this short summary below (if only I could be that concise more often!). Additionally, please click here for suggested prayers for Savior’s next season.

Background

• Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness & streams in the wasteland.”

• A word Karen received in prayer for Savior: “New Season. There will be movement.”

• Our staff’s comment: “When a season changes, any difference is natural and comes gradually.” For example, in fall we still have hot days, along with pumpkin spice lattes.

So what may be gradually coming in our new season? We gathered leaders from our staff, vestry, and clergy in August, who answered 3 questions:

1.     What’s going well at Savior?

• Saturday night worship: preaching, music

• Children’s ministry: VBS; children included throughout our life together

• Spiritual formation: events like retreats; men’s & women’s ministry

• Welcoming: connecting long-timers and less-timers

• Intergenerational

• Kindness and care

• Manageable growth

• Low drama

• Strong staff

• And others…

We must thank God! Jesus promises, “I will build my church,” and he’s building it!

2.     What challenges do we face?

• Finding a new Worship Pastor: after 11 years being led by Erin, people talked honestly about the anxiety they’re feeling around that. (Update: we have 4 viable candidates, and the leading candidate will lead our musical worship on October 26.)

• Parking and space limits. If we keep growing, Are we going to move? (Update: after looking at 21 possible venues, we’ve decided staying at PHCC is our best choice right now. We can always add parking if need be.)

• Pastoring as we grow; maintaining intimacy. (Update: We will continue to do what we do now: Without becoming programmatic, we’ll provide opportunities for people to connect.)

• Giving is lagging the budget. (Update: This church has an amazing track record of giving especially well in final months of the year, so the lag may greatly diminish. For now, our Vestry is cutting some expenses this year, and creating a budget for 2020 with little or no increase.)

3.    What is God inviting us into?

Our leaders said they sensed God’s invitation in several areas:

• “Growing Deeper to Be Strong for Others”

• “Blessed to Be a Blessing”

• “Our External Focus will meet our Internal Needs.”

  • “We have a lot to offer” (examples: children’s ministry, formation)

• “We are on mission together” — we are “journeying together” on mission

Those answers fit us. Church of the Savior was named in part to honor Church of the Saviour, in DC, a church that blended the inward journey of love for God with the outward journey of love for neighbors, serving their community and seeking justice.

Journey Inward

For 15 years, Savior’s roots have grown deep through the inward practices of:

• Sacramental worship

• Sabbath

• Silent retreats

• Spiritual direction

Journey Outward

Now I believe Savior is called to grow more in the journey outward. And since I’m feeling the “anointing of alliteration,” I will similarly offer the 4 S’s of our journey outward:

•  Serve our neighbor in need. We do this through our monthly giving to Outreach, People’s Resource, World Relief, et al. And we welcome and include people, especially ones who often end up on the margins: children, women in Christian leadership, those with mental/physical disabilities and those who care for them, the poor in our area, and refugees and immigrant. 

• Send out people to their vocations. We do this each week, when the deacon says, “Go forth into the world.” Your vocations and hard work in this world bring Christ to it. And we also send people to their vocations elsewhere, with a blessing. 

• Start churches. The Pachecos will be planting in East Garfield Park. Ellen Vosburg may help start a church in Columbus. And closer to home, Sandy and Ian Richter hope to start a church in Oak Park, sometime over the next few years.

• Seek justice. We don’t know fully what this will look like, but we know it will come out of listening to and loving people in need. The Vestry is exploring a possible church-to-church partnership with another Anglican church, one serving the homeless or refugees. I could see us hosting a gathering for women leaders in the local church. We will discern together.

Now that our vestry and staff have had a chance to hear drafts of this beginning discernment, we place it before you. Please pray about it, and please call or email me with your questions, ideas, concerns, and prayers.

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Kevin Miller was editor and vice-president at Christianity Today for 26 years and then associate rector at Church of the Resurrection for 5 years. He has been the rector at Savior since January 2017, and is also the co-founder of PreachingToday.com and CTPastors.com.

Staff Update: Sarah Lindsay

After a brief hiatus on the blog, we’re back with more content! Today, a staff update from me, Sarah Lindsay:

It's been an exciting few months for me as I take on some new roles that allow me to extend and develop my ministry at Savior! My job as Director of Communications remains the same, but my other job title has changed from Coordinator of Children's Ministry to Coordinator of Family Ministries. Ellen Vosburg did an excellent job of developing our youth ministries last year, and Mary I and want to continue and build on her momentum. I'm extending my role on Saturday evenings from children's worship to include youth worship as well.

So what does this mean? I'll be scheduling volunteers for both children's and youth worship on Saturday evenings; I'll help with training and curriculum; and along with Mary I will support families at Savior. I will also occasionally lead youth worship — in fact, I have already spent a few weeks doing this! It has been great to get to know some of the youth at Savior a little bit better and to have another opportunity to teach an older group.

Additionally, we've hired Daniel Gonzalez to be the Assistant Youth Coordinator; he'll be attending youth group on Sunday nights and working with Fr. Andrew Unger to serve our youth. I will be working with Daniel as his supervisor as he builds relationships with the youth at Savior. I'm very excited at the chance to work with Daniel as well as the youth.

Along with expanding my role in Family Ministries, I'm also serving as the College Ministry Resident. Savior has not had a college ministry in the past, but with an increasing number of students attending, I am excited to launch college ministry at Savior. This is an experimental year as we figure out what a Savior-style college ministry looks like, but I am thrilled to come back to working with college students (my background is teaching at the college level).

One of Savior’s greatest gifts is our sense of community, and particularly our intergenerational community. Although we do have ministries aimed at particular sections of our church – men, women, youth, children and families – these ministries work to strengthen particular groups in service to the larger whole, not to divide people into sub-communities. As I work towards building a college ministry at Savior, my overarching goal is to help students find their place in our community and forge connections with others.

College students are in a unique period of life when they are navigating new responsibilities plus the pressures of career decisions and, for some, serious romantic relationships. As the college ministry intern, I will be able to walk alongside students as they go through struggles and transitions. But I also see my role as one of connection: college students can benefit enormously from the intergenerational worship and community at Savior, and I want to help students find their place at Savior (and we older folks at Savior will, at the same time, benefit from the energy and passion college students often bring).

Working with children, youth and college students will certainly stretch me. But over the last 18 months that I've been on staff at Savior, I have come to treasure the intergenerational community we enjoy. Spending time with people of all different ages and in various life situations will help me better foster intergenerational community through all of my roles at Savior.

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Sarah Lindsay currently works as the Director of Communications and Coordinator of Family Ministries at Savior, as well as serving as the College Ministry Resident. Sarah has a background in teaching (English literature and writing) and she enjoys reading and writing. She has been an Anglican since she discovered liturgical worship in college; she and her family joined Savior in 2017.

Resources on Women in Ministry

Interested in learning more about the evidence supporting women in ministry after Fr. Kevin’s sermon? Check out this list of resources:

Books

Sarah Bessey, Jesus Feminist. 2013.

• Rather than defend egalitarianism or feminism, in this book Bessey emphasizes the love and respect Jesus had for women during his earthly ministry and still has for women today.

Bilezikien, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says about Woman’s Place in Church and Family. Baker, 2006. 

• A thorough biblical survey and theological analysis of all the “tough passages” regarding women’s roles in scripture. Comes to a full equality view of women in ministry, advocating an interpretive method that sees God's revelation of himself and his will as progressive. 

Cohick, Lynn. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life. Baker, 2009. 

• This book is a deep historical look at the lives of women in the early church, dispelling misconceptions and oversimplifications. Women during this period were active at all levels within their religious communities. But their influence was not always identified by titles and their gender was not always a barrier. 

Johnson, Alan F. (ed)  How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership: Compelling Stories from Prominent Evangelicals. Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 2010.

• Stories from all corners of evangelicalism about how people have changed their minds from being closed to women in leadership to being open or enthusiastically supportive of women in leadership in the church. Edited by a former Wheaton professor.

Keener, Craig. Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul. Baker, 1992.

• Keener is a world class NT scholar and he gives a deep, contextual reading of the “problem passages” in Paul from an egalitarian perspective.  

Mathews, Alice. Gender Roles and the People of God: Rethinking What We Were Taught about Men and Women in the Church. 2017.

• A new book by an older woman who has been studying this issue for 40 years or more. She gives a compelling interpretation of the 1 Timothy passage on women not teaching in the church. (Read Sarah Lindsay’s review of the book for Christians for Biblical Equality here.)

McKnight, Scot. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Zondervan, 2008. 

• A book about Bible interpretation, generally, but much of what he says has important relevance to the subject of women in ministry. The second half of the book contains a very valuable exploration of the difficult passages from Paul that seem to limit women.

Peppiatt, Lucy. Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts. IVP Academic, 2019.

• Scholarly but accessible book with a foreword by Scot McKnight that offers a vision for women from scripture that is encouraging and empowering. 

Stackhouse, John G. Finally Feminist: A Pragmatic Christian Understanding of Gende. Baker, 2005. 

• A short earlier book from Stackhouse offering a pragmatic, mission-centered approach in support of women in ministry, which he bases on the approach of the Apostle Paul (as he understands it). 

Stackhouse, John G. Partners in Christ: A Conservative Case for Egalitarianism. 2015.

• Starts from the premise that solely from a study of Scripture the question of egalitarianism and women in leadership in the church will never be answered satisfactorily because the Scripture isn’t absolutely clear.  Dr. Stackhouse then approaches the topic pragmatically and thoughtfully.

Torjesen, Karen. When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church. Harper San Francisco, 1995. 

• Details the historical evidence that women were priests, bishops, and prophets in the early Christian church. Also explains the social, political, and cultural factors that eventually led to their suppression.  

Webb, William J. and Darrell L. Bock. Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis. 2001.

• An excellent presentation of the concept of “redemptive movement” as it relates to these three difficult topics. Very compelling.

Online Resources

Bailey, Kenneth E. “Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View.” https://godswordtowomen.org/women_new_testament.pdf

• Bailey draws on his decades as a professor of New Testament living in the Middle East to explain the cultural backgrounds.

Torrance, Thomas. “The Ministry of Women.“ http://www.newhumanityinstitute.org/pdf-articles/TF-Torrance-Ministry-of-Women.pdf

• Explores the topic from a biblical as well as a historical perspective.  A bit dense but worth the read.

Witt, William G. Essays about Women’s Ordination 

• Witt, the Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Trinity School for Ministry, offers 20 essays answering questions about women’s leadership in the church. Helpful in that it addresses both Protestant and Catholic concerns. Begin here. 

Christians for Biblical Equality

• CBE is an organization that promotes egalitarian theology and supports women in ministry. They have a website full of resources, a blog, a print magazine, and an academic journal, all with a range of information on every aspect of women in ministry.

The Junia Project

• Another website with a wealth of useful articles and resources on women in ministry; this site takes its name from a woman named Junia and called an apostle by Paul.