Pastor understands juk sing

Tom Eng of the Toronto Chinese Presbyterian church (CPC) understands well the Chinese expression Juk sing, meaning "caught between two cultures." Born four decades ago in Chicago to Chinese Christian parents and raised in both Western and Chinese cultures, Eng knew the angst of Juk sing at the hands of bullying non-Chinese school fellows. He also knew the unifying factor of the Christian community that crossed cultural borders.

In 1980, Eng responded to the challenge of working in Toronto, in one of Canada's most concentrated areas of Chinese community, after pastoring Chinese congregations in Chicago and Toronto and seeing how immigrants to America tend to assimilate into their new culture while Canadian newcomers establish cultural enclaves as distinct parts of a national mosaic.

As pastor of CPC Toronto, he ministers to its English-speaking congregation of 200, oversees the church's multi-ethnic day school and the Cantonese speaking congregation of 200 that is now seeking a bilingual pastor. He has worked to make the gospel accessible to the older, established Chinese community through increased pastoral care, community programs, leadership training, home and support groups, and a style of preaching that welcomes seekers while building up parishioners.

Church planting

Church planting to handle the influx of immigrants from Hong Kong is also important. Clergy neighbor Andrew Wong sees the same growth at the Chinese Baptist Church on the other side of the street. Eng's church keeps in close association with the three now autonomous CPC churches in the Metropolitan area that have been planted by members of CPC Toronto over the last 10 years.

Outside the Toronto core, the three churches have helped to meet the challenge of the 90s wave of immigrants, especially during these last two years prior to repatriation. They serve large Chinese congregations of mainly new Christians, many of whom are successful business persons who have emigrated from Hong Kong within the last several years.

The CPC Toronto members who moved with Peter Ma built CPC North York's congregation of 80, and those who moved with Hugo Lau established the 100-member CPC Mississauga. The Markham planting, now serving the largest local immigrant CPC congregation of 300, was started by several families from Eng's church who called Gregory Yu from Hong Kong to their pulpit.

Yu recently returned to Hong Kong to work with the church there to reach those unable to emigrate. Under assistant pastor Vincent Lee, Cantonese and English speaking members from Scarborough and Markham areas are working to find a bilingual senior pastor.

The call to Canadian Christians in this era of upheaval and adjustment for many newcomers, says Eng, "is to realize we are all God's children, and to be in Christ is to be one. Then it is to make Christ relevant to a people who for the most part come from a secular society. Finally, it is to recognize their uniqueness and to be open to learn from them."