At the end of the workshop session, while chatting with attendees, I waved goodbye to two 18-year-old Filipino participants after a photo together. Then, a young woman with curly black hair and a bright smile approached me and said, “Thank you for your sharing. It felt like the entire time, you were speaking in the language of my heart.”
I am a Chinese American, born into an immigrant family and raised in a Chinese heritage church. I never expected a sister from northern India to say those words to me, especially at a conference for missions and the church in Asia. Until that moment, India had reached me mainly as a mission field in the 10/40 Window and in the monthly reports my church receives from pastors there, but her comment and story mirrored my own closely enough to close that distance. What I expected to be an awkward outsider’s intrusion—an American girl’s simple story in a room where some participants face persecution and trials for Christ—instead became a bridge across cultures and a call to remember the person beneath our achievements.
The Call to Go
Arise Asia brought together more than 4,000 young people from over 50 countries.1 Leaders who have spent years serving the church in Asia encouraged the next generation to pursue Jesus joyfully and make him known despite the cost.
Again and again, I heard the language of mission, sacrifice, going, and obedience. Speakers motivated us to persist through uncertainty, obey willingly despite hardship, surrender comforts, and rely on Christ’s power to do costly kingdom work. Young people raised their arms in worship and outstretched their hands in surrendered prayer. In smaller settings, they shared the conviction of their heart—God’s unique missional callings for them—and the hours already poured into bringing forth those visions.
At the same time, twice I found myself in rooms with hundreds of young people who wanted to talk about sustainability and burnout, identity and calling, and worth beyond achievement.
Many of them had grown up teaching youth Sunday school, arriving early to rehearse music sets, staying late to clean up, and hosting small groups and prayer meetings. Alongside these responsibilities were parents’ hopes that they would find stable jobs and spouses, as well as friends who had already found both and were content. In the identity workshop, I watched them nod at familiar scenes: having full schedules and still another commitment waiting to be added and being among a faithful few carrying a disproportionate share of the load. They laughed at GIFs of overwork and The Office memes on identity. I recognized their laugh as the sound of jokes that resembled reality.
Their desire to obey the call to go grows from love for the Lord. Yet alongside their willingness to bear the cost was a quieter struggle: how to stop striving for intimacy with God and rest in an identity already secured in Christ.
Near the end of the identity workshop, after a long silence, one Filipino college student slowly raised his hand and asked, “How do I know when it is okay to take a break and say no?” The room answered with a louder murmur of agreement.
The Same Question in Me
When I was asked to join as a workshop cohost, I still considered saying no. Being in the same age range as the attendees, I questioned my qualifications as a speaker. I did not feel that I knew more than the people listening or that my story was valuable enough to deserve a workshop slot. At a gathering with global attendees, I thought, “Surely there are more valuable voices in the room that should have the time and the space.” The same questions returned minutes before the workshop began, when I saw far more people crowding by the doors than I had expected. I wondered, “Are my thoughts going to be worth their time?” My search for labels and experiences to justify my place exposed a familiar inner narrative. The question beneath my own sharing was simple: “Who am I when my worth is not defined by what I accomplish, even for the kingdom of God?”
Abiding Before Bearing Fruit
What drew me out of that familiar shadow narrative was the even sweeter voice of Jesus, calling me to abide in him and rest in an identity found in him before bearing fruit.
Using words from Psalm 139, “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well,” my cohost and I invited workshop participants to consider, beyond the labels and roles, successes and failures, “Does your soul really know its worth?” And if not, consider the Father’s love for Jesus even before he began his ministry (Matthew 3:17). Through our personal stories of burnout and doubt, we invited them to see abiding in an unearned, freely given identity and going in sacrificial obedience not as competing calls, but as movements in the same direction.
Returning to our secure identity in Christ allows obedience to grow from rest rather than striving. Abiding does not make costly obedience unnecessary; it changes the place from which that obedience grows. We still go, serve, sacrifice, and sometimes endure disappointment, but not to secure our place with God. We do so from a place already given to us in Christ. Abiding in Christ is what keeps calling from becoming another form of striving.
The Work of Remaining
During the workshop, I had shared about my own eighteen-month job search. The Indian woman was in a season that looked much like it: she discipled young seekers in her church, and yet the prolonged waiting in her job search had surfaced the same questions about identity and worth that mine had surfaced in me. She said that during the workshop, she felt deep peace, choosing to receive the reminders of God’s love over her even in the midst of waiting that had its moments of disappointment and fatigue.
Remaining in Christ is active: a continuous choice to live out of our God-given, rather than earned, identity and to reject the voices that suggest otherwise.
Even in writing this reflection, I feel the tension of speaking about the church in Asia as someone born and raised in the US. Growing up in a Chinese immigrant church shaped me deeply, but my experience does not allow me to speak for young Christians across Asia.
Still, within this tension, the One who is the way, the truth, and the life calls me to write anyway from a secure identity in him, rather than an earned place.
The Gift of Honest Presence
Shortly after the Filipino student asked his question, another 28-year-old Filipino woman asked, “What do you do when your heart is compelled to go out for the nations and yet you also carry a burden to provide for your family? How do you carry those two together?”
In my own experience in a Chinese heritage church, the collective community was a significant gift. Families often gathered outside church, sharing everything from plant seeds to furniture, even financial help. That kind of life together fostered comfort and belonging—safety in the support. At the same time, that same communal strength sometimes added pressure to keep serving—to stay available—where saying no felt selfish and disappointing to others. Stepping back from serving sometimes meant stepping out of view, and slowly, the check-in messages stopped too, leaving one to wonder whether usefulness had quietly become confused with belonging.
After Arise Asia, I have been wondering how the strength of collective community might create more space for honest presence and cultivate belonging. In the room, three Taiwanese young adults came up afterward and told us that they felt seen by our transparency. In industries marked by intense workloads, even honesty from strangers serving as workshop hosts reminded them that they were not alone in their struggle. We did not say anything new. We simply returned to Jesus’ words: his call to abide in him as the true vine.
From the Filipino student’s question to the Indian woman’s comment and Taiwanese young adults’ shared sentiments, I found that the most valuable thing we could offer in the workshop was honest confessions about our struggles and questions, and a call to remain with Christ. To the Filipino student, I didn’t give a perfect, clear answer of when it is okay to take a break and say no. Instead, I offered the admission that I have asked the same question and that maybe the strongest decision forward is asking the question in community rather than alone. We needed one another as branches, remaining rooted and abiding in the true vine together.
Even among strangers in a one-hour workshop, a bridge between hearts and cultures can form. And if that can happen among strangers in an hour, what might happen in churches where people gather week after week, if we made more room to be honestly present with one another?
- Arise Asia 2026 Congress Opens in Manila with Call to Reach 3 Billion Unreached,” Christian Daily International, July 27, 2026, https://www.christiandaily.com/news/arise-asia-2026-congress-opens-in-manila-with-call-to-reach-3-billion-unreached
