Welcome to Our Blog
We're your ministry mentors with simple talk and practical ideas for ministry with next-gen Hmong.
Here on the blog, we like to use the tagline:
We are your ministry mentors with simple talk and practical ideas for ministry with next-gen Hmong.
What does that mean? Well, here you go.
Your Ministry Mentors…
Looking for a mentor in ministry? Someone to guide and share insights with you? Your search ends here!
No matter if you're a church planter, English ministry pastor, young adults leader, or youth director serving and ministering to second or third-generation Hmong, we're here to support you.
Ministry in a Hmong church can be a lonely journey, especially when you feel like you have no one to turn to for guidance, training, or emotional support.
If you're feeling that way, we would love to be your mentors, walking alongside you on your journey to honor God and shepherd your people well. Although we may be a few steps ahead, we're committed to being in this together with you.
I wish we could sit down for coffee so I could listen to your struggles and successes, share some of the lessons we've learned, and encourage you that you're not alone. But for now, we will connect through our blog, chats, and direct messages.
…With Simple Talk…
It’s easy to make ministry abstract, theoretical, or even theological. But sometimes you just want simple talk.
We promise to make every article clear, concise, and easy to understand. That’s our style at RiverLife. While we may discuss big ideas, we always aim to keep the conversation grounded. If you ever feel like we're speaking above you, then we haven't accomplished our goal of mentoring you well.
When I taught high school math in the mid-90s, my first performance review noted, "In his teaching, he simplifies complex concepts for easy understanding." This quality is essential for both a good math teacher and ministry mentor.
…And Practical Ideas…
Our goal is to provide practical ideas and insights, tested in the church, by those actively involved in ministering to second and third-generation Hmong.
God has brought together the best team of ministry leaders I’ve ever worked with. They are caring, passionate, emotionally healthy, and innovative Christ-followers. They are high-capacity leaders with incredible ideas and the courage to implement them.
RiverLife launched over nine years ago, so we’ve had a lot of Sundays to experiment. Some things have worked great, while others bombed gloriously. I’m excited to share both.
We plan to include as many downloadable and editable resources as possible—documents, graphics, spreadsheets, etc. Anything to make your job easier and help you make a more significant impact in the kingdom of God among the Hmong Americans you serve.
Our objective is to provide as many resources as possible that you can download, edit, and make your own. We will be including graphics, documents, templates, and anything else that will help you be more efficient and more effective.
When I first started working in youth ministry, I had a full-time job and volunteered at the church in my free time. I often found myself struggling to come up with new ideas for my ministry. During that time, I discovered morethandodgeball.com, a blog run by the high school ministry at Saddleback Church. The website was incredibly helpful because they posted new ideas and downloads every week that we could use in our own ministries
That's exactly what we aim to do here - provide practical ideas and resources that you can use in your ministry right away.
…For Ministry with Next-Gen Hmong
RiverLife's leaders are passionate about serving the next generation of Hmong. But who exactly are they? We use this term to refer to second, third, and soon-to-be fourth-generation Hmong Americans.
When RiverLife was founded in 2014, our focus was on second-gen Hmong. However, a few years later, we realized that the third-gen was already in their midst—the kids and youth. Therefore, we broadened our mission to include both groups.
Now, the third generation will soon be graduating high school, and soon they may get married and have children of their own. This means that in just a few years, fourth-gen Hmong will be in our churches. How’s that for a reality check?!?
Since the second, third, and fourth-gen nomenclature quickly became cumbersome, we shifted to using the catch-all phrase “next-gen” Hmong." It’s a widely used term among other Asian American churches and even many mainstream churches to denote the younger members of the church.
One great benefit of this term is that it’s timeless—there will always be a next generation. And any church that wants to last more than one generation needs to be looking to the next one.
Join the Conversation
Would you like a ministry mentor? Do you have any questions regarding next-generation Hmong ministry? Have you come up with any innovative ministry ideas?
We would love to hear from you. Feel free to message us directly or share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Welcome to the team.