[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal clergy and lay leaders of Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage are gathered in Kansas City, Missouri, to share their hopes and desires for The Episcopal Church at the annual AAPI Clergy and Lay Leadership Retreat.

The Episcopal Church’s Asiamerica Ministries organized the April 2-4 retreat, underway at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral, in the Diocese of West Missouri. Fifty-seven people of East Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islander descent came from across the continental United States, Hawai‘i and Guam to attend the retreat. This year’s theme is “Sharing Our Stories, Revealing Dreams, Living in Hope.”

The Rev. Jo Ann Lagman, the church’s missioner for Asiamerica Ministries, told Episcopal News Service before the retreat started that she was most looking forward to the camaraderie.

“The kinship, the time to be together and to be with, in a sense, my chosen family … part of my life story has some similarities with theirs, and I’m really looking forward to sharing that,” said Lagman, who is of Philippine descent. “I’m looking forward to the space to think about my own stories and dream with my community as their missioner.”

The retreat began April 2 with a morning Eucharist celebrated by West Missouri Bishop Provisional Diane M. Jardine Bruce. Her successor, Bishop-elect Amy Dafler Meaux, also attended. New York Bishop Suffragan Allen K. Shin, who is Korean American, preached. Shin’s sermon focused on the importance of storytelling, especially now amid government entities’ “whitewashing” of U.S. history in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Asians have been on this land for 400 years and have been members of The Episcopal Church for 150 years, yet our stories are too often silenced in the story of this nation and in the story of this church. When AAPI stories are included by the dominant culture, it’s often with performative caricatures or for scapegoating for plagues. Our stories are often discarded as the stories of inconsequential outsiders who do not belong here,” Shin said in his sermon, which he provided to ENS. “AAPI people are not a monolithic group with a single stereotypical story and identity. We embody a rich tapestry of diverse stories and experiences, and individually each of us also embodies diversity and intersectionality of cultural experiences and identities.”

Shin and Bruce formed the first iteration of the retreat in 2017 in Los Angeles, California, where Bruce then served as bishop suffragan. Interest and participation quickly germinated, with retreat and churchwide Asian ministries continuing to grow annually.

“I think one of the hallmarks of this gathering is that people make friends in different parts of the country, and when they come up against something, those friendships are what sustain them,” Bruce told ENS in a phone interview. “There’s something to be said about having somebody that has a lot of your same life experiences. … If there’s a difficulty in church or elsewhere, it’s somebody that you can talk to who can relate to what you’re going through.”

Bruce said AAPI ministries are growing in the Diocese of West Missouri. The AAPI population is also growing throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area, which encompasses 14 counties alongside the Missouri-Kansas border, and is the fastest-growing demographic in the United States.

Participants of the 2025 AAPI Clergy and Lay Leadership Retreat at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, Missouri, which is taking place April 2-4. Fifty-seven people of East Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islander descent came from across the continental United States, Hawai‘i and Guam to attend the retreat. Photo: Zach Phillips

On the first day, attendees participated in icebreaker activities, including “AAPI Episcopal Bingo.” During the game, players filled out blank squares on a bingo card each time they could answer a question that highlighted AAPI Episcopalian experiences, such as, “Did your parents or grandparents recycle every empty container around?” or “Did you grow up cradle Episcopalian?” or “Have you eaten Spam in the last month?” (Spam – canned salty pork produced by Austin, Minnesota-based Hormel Foods – is a staple ingredient in several AAPI cuisines.) After filling out the squares, participants compared them to learn which answers they had in common.

Adrienne Elliott, program coordinator for Multicultural Ministries in the Seattle, Washington-based Diocese of Olympia and a member of the retreat’s planning team, told ENS that AAPI Episcopal Bingo is meant to be both entertaining and a way for retreat participants to learn what they have in common despite coming from different cultural backgrounds under the wider AAPI umbrella.

“[AAPI Episcopal Bingo] is pretty funny and a really great way to get people out of their shell and laughing. It’s not often that we get to be in a space where it is AAPI and Episcopalian, and to have that experience with other people is really, really special,” said Elliott, who is half Japanese. “To be able to connect with so many different people from all over the church is a gift and something that I look forward to every year.”

While professional networking is a goal, the retreat is designed to foster fellowship. Programming is discussion- and storytelling-based, with participants welcomed to express themselves through speaking, music or any way that best suits them.

Rachel Ambasing is the Diocese of San Diego’s missioner for community, vitality and diversity and the retreat’s programming lead. She told ENS that, rather than have a traditional keynote speaker, the retreat offers all participants a chance to speak.

“Sometimes it can feel like we as leaders might feel pressure to assimilate to somebody else’s model of leadership, when each of us in our own backgrounds have all been formed in different ways by our communities – created in the image of God, shaped by different cultural traditions, with different gifts that that we might not really be able to see in The Episcopal Church,” said Ambasing, a cradle Episcopalian who is of Igorot Philippine and Chinese descent. “The deeper we can embrace those gifts and those stories, the richer everyone in The Episcopal Church would be.”

Everyone ENS spoke to said they were especially excited to listen to the Rev. KyungJa “KJ” Oh, who in 2002 became the first Korean American woman ordained in The Episcopal Church, speak at the retreat. Oh, who is now retired, previously spoke at the retreat in 2024 and 2023.

Philip Han Lofflin, senior warden of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Kansas City, served as co-chair of the retreat’s planning team and this year’s “local host.” He told ENS that he took charge of most logistics, including transportation and meals, and added in the itinerary ample opportunities for sightseeing and eating food from local AAPI-owned restaurants.

“No one really thinks of Kansas City when it comes to AAPI communities … but we’re here. That’s why these types of opportunities for AAPI Episcopalians must continue in the church for there to be more representation and to have a voice,” Lofflin, who is of Korean descent, told ENS. “We cover a lot of ground in these retreats with networking, but then also personal stories for growing in faith and in leadership and to see God at work during the retreat. It’s a wonderful thing.”

Shin told ENS in a phone interview he was “slightly skeptical” at first when Bruce proposed hosting the 2025 retreat in Kansas City, but then he remembered that many people who attend the retreat every year come from states that don’t have significant AAPI populations, such as Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee.

“I think it’s extremely important to include this essential work in areas we wouldn’t normally think of because otherwise that Asian American person in Arkansas or here in Kansas City will be disconnected, isolated and lonely with no support network and no community,” Shin said. “Everyone needs to feel like they belong and are nurtured, and that their stories and their gifts are acknowledged. This is how we nurture and develop new leaders.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.