KINH’S FAVORITE MINISTRIES AND PASTIMES

Pastor Vu supports many non-profits in Southern California and across the world to the Asian Continent as well as enjoying hobbies and pastimes. Here’s just a few of his favorites:

1. OUR REDEEMER CHURCH FOOD BAG DISTRIBUTION— Members of Pastor Vu’s church have partnered in the past with Our Redeemer Church. They regularly would fill a shopping cart and donate the food to this important local hunger relief ministry. The food bag distribution takes place every Saturday morning from 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Limited to one bag per family per month. Located at 12301 Magnolia Street, Garden Grove, CA 92841. Contact 714539-9541 or see: www.orcgg.org

2. OCEAN WALKER — From a young age founder and Brit, Adam Walker has always had a passion for both swimming and helping others achieve their goals and dreams. Since 2013 Adam and Head Coach Gemma Clarke have coached more than 40 different nationalities from 16 different countries, of course, including Vietnam. They teach the Ocean Walker Technique™ through Swim Camps in pools and in open water. A ground-breaking swim stroke, learned by Pastor Vu, people of varying abilities are able to swim faster for longer, while reducing the chance of injury. https://www.oceanwalkeruk.com/

3. THE VIETNAMESE MINSITERIAL FELLOWSHIP OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA — A group of pastors from all denominations like Lutheran, Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist and others. They serve as the local chapter of The World Vietnamese Ministerial Association and meet once a month. Goal is to maintain fellowship and work together to serve those in various Vietnamese Communities. Hosted at a different church each month. Contact: Bau Dang at 714-473-5959.

4. TRIBE & TONGUE — A collective of worship leaders, songwriters, and musicians who are creating worship music to engage, equip, and empower the Church to “worship in Spirit and in Truth”. They started their journey together as friends and classmates at Concordia University in Irvine, and now we serve various Lutheran churches around the country. Vinh Vu who writes and plays music as part of this team is Pastor Vu’s oldest son. https://www.tribeandtonguemusic.com/

5. GOOD SAMARITAN MEDICAL & DENTAL MINISTRY — The medical and dental team that serves 3 areas of Vietnam that St. Paul’s Church supports. With one overarching vision to share love with the people of Vietnam they provide 3 main services 1) Medically and spiritually care for the poor 2) Improve emergency medical services in the country 3) Training physicians. For more details read the breakout article on the next page or visit: GSMDM.org shower and I started to cry. I had been having to be strong for my wife and other people. It was there as the water poured over me and with my tear ducts fully stimulated that I had a full realization of God’s compassion and understanding of my exact situation. God must have cried just like I was when His own Son died on the cross.”

“This was the exact moment when I started to question what the purpose of life is. I had been working for a well-known pharmaceutical company that made Botox. Botox was being used by important people even presidential candidates, movie stars and actors. I remember thinking that there must be more purpose to one’s lifework, more reward than to just to get a Rolex watch when you retire. “

That’s when Vu was fully drawn to formal Christian ministry. Everyone is a salesperson of sorts, he determined. “If you are working for a company, you are selling your skills even if your title isn’t salesperson. Everybody is doing a sales job.”

“I realized as a pastor, I could have the opportunity to sell - the greatest product in the world – God’s grace and mercy. Now that is a product you can stand by and be 100% assured.” Vu immediately resigned from his job in research and development and enrolled in seminary.

Vu cites many other Pastor friends in the Asian American Community who have left full-time professional careers to enter the ministry. A close friend was a physicist and left to become a Lutheran Pastor. He knows many people who’ve done this. At his

(Continued on Page 8) current church another pastor had left his self-owned electrical company to become ordained.

It was 1991, when Vu left for the seminary. He returned and was ordained in 1995 serving full time as a Pastor at St.Paul’s Church in Garden Grove. Back then, he had time for all the traditional things a Pastor would do, like multiple Sunday Services in English, Vietnamese and Korean. His family spent Sundays after church leading worship at local convalescent homes and engaged in more community service during the week.

In 2008, when attendance dropped, Vu made the decision, like many other Lutheran Pastor’s, to become bi-vocational. He now works full-time as a Chemist and part-time as a Pastor of his church.

“When I first went back to working at a pharmaceutical company, I didn’t advertise that I was a pastor,” Vu shares. "My immediate group of co-workers now know that I am a Pastor and that on the weekends I preach and teach. It’s a doubleedged sword – I have to behave – people are watching. I didn’t want it to affect my work, I just want them to accept me for who I am. I try not to impose my point of view on others who are not Christian or are people of other faiths. I’m not vocal, yet they do know my stand.”

He’s since connected and networked with a whole host of other pastors doing the same. In fact, a part-time Pastor friend of Vu’s from his seminary days became a financial planner when his congregation aged. He preaches part time and provides financial education and counseling to his members.

“As bi-vocational pastors, our church members may not have the luxury of our full-time attention, but we often can bring practical skills to our ministry that go beyond the spiritual.”

Vu also shares about a Thai church in Anaheim where the part-time pastor there is a full-time neuro surgeon who works for Kaiser Permanente. “I preached there in English, and he translated into Thai. That Pastor schedules office hours on Sundays after preaching to check on his congregant’s physical health. I bet he has saved his members a lot of fees,” he chuckles in sincerity.

This concept is eerily similar to the start of the medical mission group that Vu and his congregation support each year with their fireworks stand in front of Farmers & Merchants Bank. That group, Good Samaritan Medical and Dental Ministry (GSMDM), began when a former Vietnamese citizen, wanted to share the Gospel in what used be North Vietnam. He discovered that missionaries were not welcome and what that area really needed and would be welcomed by the Communist government was medical professionals. Today, the group, GSMDM, is mostly Vietnamese American health workers. They have made nearly 20 medical missions to Vietnam.

Vu’s youngest son, who is currently a pianist and church organist following graduation from Concordia University as a Music Major, has also felt called to GSMDM. The young man had traveled as a teen in 2015 with his father Vu who served as chaplain on one of the groups missions’ trips. They were able to pray and comfort patients. The younger Vu, whose sole passion from childhood had been music, has since taken the Dental

Admissions Test. He plans to attend dental school so he can return to Vietnam having fallen in love with the language, the land and the people.

Mai Choy, the oldest daughter of the Vu family, has recently joined one of the most Avant Garde and thought-provoking ministries within Lutheran circles serving as their Social Media Manager. Following a stellar career as an admission counselor in Lutheran Education, his cherished daughter now works for 1517.org. More than a reference to Martin Luther and the reformation of 1517, this nonprofit organization focuses on assuring all people that the work of salvation is finished in Jesus Christ. They have a singular mission to help others hear that they are forgiven and free on account of Christ alone. And, when they aren’t busy teaching Reformation Theology and preaching the Gospel, they teach others about creative production, marketing, and distribution.

All the Vu children picked up not only their father’s passion for ministry but their mother’s passion for music. A piano teacher, Ahn has seen all three of her children become talented musicians. In fact, her other son who was born in 1995, is the lead guitarist and keyboardist for the popular multi-national contemporary Christian Band known as Tribe and Tongue. The band has not strayed too far from their Lutheran roots and played at the LCMS National Youth Gathering in 2022 for high school and college students. He follows in his father’s steps as a bi-vocational leader and teaches music and serves in worship for St Mark’s Lutheran in Houston.

Those who know him know that Vu must have had a good deal of influence on the LCMS’s second Multi-Asian gathering held last May in St. Louis. "As a member of the planning committee, I have been involved for three years. The second gathering also in St. Louis was held for 60 or more pastors, pastor wives, seminarians, pastor students, and other interested ministry partners. The topic of the meeting was ‘How do we strengthen our families and get them involved in serving the Lord and ministry?'”.

“Being a Lutheran pastor or any pastor’s kid can be a turn off to these kids a lot of the time. They may not want to go into our footsteps,” explained Vu about the choice of topic.

“How do we get support in getting the next generation of youth overall interested in serving the church. I believe that could mean serving the church, not necessarily in the church. It could be teaching, social work, director of education or in the ways my adult children are now doing,” Vu remarks passionately.

Perhaps some youth could take a cue from Pastor Vu about how to keep up a healthy ministry even with a fulltime professional career. Several nights a week when he is done with his personal passion of a good hour-long after work swim, Vu finds him self-refreshed and energized to teach an online Thursday night Bible study. The study is no ordinary study of the Old Testament. The study began online during Covid and soon they were joined by others living in Vietnam. The study, which is set to go from 8 – 9 p.m. sometimes gets so lively it goes past 10 p.m. for Vietnamese speaking locals in SoCal. There is no need to worry, according to Vu, for his friends in Vietnam. It's lunchtime in their part of the world.

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