Navigating Transitions, Embracing Change
An Invitation to Our 2025 Mental Health Conference
By David Chao, Director of the Center for Asian American Christianity.
Transitions are never easy. I have learned that firsthand as I have navigated my own life stages—parenting a child into adolescence, caring for aging parents, and shepherding others through profound seasons of change. In my role as both a conference organizer and a fellow traveler on this journey, I have encountered the deep emotional and spiritual challenges we often face. Whether it is the move from adolescence to adulthood, singleness to marriage, professional career shifts, or caring for elders, we crave stability. And yet, throughout Scripture and the Christian tradition, we are reminded again and again that growth takes place in the crucible of change.
For Asian North American Christians in particular, grappling with transition can feel especially daunting. Many of us bear the complexities of immigration histories and cross-cultural realities. We shoulder communal obligations—honoring parents, serving our churches—while also wrestling with a majority-culture emphasis on independence. Throw into the mix our sometimes-shared-struggles around perfectionism and shame, and you have a powerful cocktail that leaves even the most faithful among us feeling ill-equipped.
My own life recently brought this truth home. In the past few years, I have encountered loss in my family and seen pivotal relationships shift before my eyes. Death and change have ceased to be merely theoretical ideas; they now feel like regular companions. Yet I have discovered how seldom we have the language or supportive environments to fully process these transitions—be they the literal death of a loved one or the “death” of familiar roles, relationships, and identities.
Why We Resist Change
On one level, change is simply exhausting. Most of us are accustomed to routines that grant us predictability. When circumstances shift—entering a new job, grieving a loved one, moving to a different city—our once-comfortable patterns no longer suffice. We face the arduous task of unlearning and relearning, and that requires energy we may not have if we are already stretched thin in our roles as parents, professionals, ministry leaders, and church members.
Yet resisting change can stifle our capacity to encounter God’s transformative work. The biblical story itself is full of transitions that recalibrate God’s people, from Abraham setting out for an unknown land to the disciples grappling with Jesus’ resurrection. If there is one biblical constant, it is that God meets us in unexpected thresholds—moments of disorientation that ultimately pave the way for a deeper encounter with God.
Spiritual Dependence in an Age of Self-Reliance
One of the tensions I notice in my own life—and hear often from others—is how to maintain dependence on God when so much of our psycho-social development rightly favors independence. Our cultures and our life stages often tell us: “Grow up. Figure it out on your own. Don’t burden others.” Yet true discipleship calls us to lean on the everlasting arms. This is not a crutch meant only for childhood or old age; dependence on God is, in fact, woven into every stage of Christian maturity.
In planning for our upcoming 2025 Mental Health Conference, my colleagues and I wanted to create a space where we can engage the difficult questions of how to sustain spiritual dependence throughout all of life’s transitions. Pastors, parents, campus workers, counselors—we all want the same thing: a holistic, biblically anchored strategy to face change with courage and faith.
Equipping the Church for the Realities of Death and Grief
Death remains one of the most intense forms of transition we face. In the past year, I have personally wrestled with grief after losing a loved one and seeing another face serious illness. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has only underscored our collective vulnerability, confronting us with death on a mass, social scale. Yet many churches do not quite know how to address death. Some may avoid talking about it, while others over-spiritualize it. Very few consistently help people walk through the valley of grief in a genuinely communal, hopeful way.
At our conference, one emphasis will be on reframing death in the light of Good Friday and Easter—recognizing that Christ’s own suffering and death was followed by resurrection, and that He has entered into our grief. If we can learn to name, process, and hold one another in these deeply vulnerable spaces, we create a stronger foundation for our congregations to embody resurrection hope.
A Holistic, Ongoing Conversation
I want to emphasize that our 2025 Mental Health Conference is not a “one-and-done” event. In my conversations with potential donors and ministry partners, we have been envisioning ways to keep this discussion alive well beyond a single weekend. Already, we’re talking about hybrid reading groups, ongoing learning communities, and resource-sharing platforms. Our goal is to move the needle on mental health within local churches, so that our congregations become known as havens of healing rather than places where pain is hidden.
Having hosted this conference over several years and working to build a national conversation, we have seen pastors, campus ministers, and counseling professionals come together around a shared vision: providing contextually sensitive, biblical, and theological resources for Asian North American Christians. Many of these faith leaders have generously contributed their expertise, from clinical insights on trauma and attachment theory to pastoral wisdom on discipleship and church leadership.
An Invitation to Encounter God in the Thresholds
Ultimately, this conference is an invitation to imagine otherwise—to see that God’s grace meets us in the liminal spaces of our lives. Holy Saturday is the stark reminder that between death and resurrection, there is a sacred pause, a period of grieving and waiting. Sometimes our transitions feel like that silent Saturday: the old is gone, yet the new has not fully arrived. My prayer is that we, as a Christian community, might learn to embrace that in-between, trusting that resurrection hope will dawn.
Whether you are a pastor leading a church through generational shifts, a parent sending your child off to college, or an individual confronting the loneliness of midlife transitions, this gathering is for you. Together, we will explore how to engage change—not fearfully, but faithfully. We will address topics such as perfectionism and shame, different life stages of socio-emotional development, the urgent need for empathy and communal care, and how all of this is shaped by a biblical vision for whole-person discipleship.
Join Us at the 2025 Mental Health Conference
I invite you to join me and a host of gifted speakers, counselors, and ministry leaders who share this passion. Come prepared to learn, to wrestle, and to be encouraged by the diverse experiences and testimonies of others. Bring your struggles with life transitions—be they joyful, sorrowful, or both. My hope is that we will leave better equipped to foster healing and healthy change within ourselves, our families, and our churches.
Let us meet God—and each other—in the thresholds of life, confident that the One who is Lord over death is also the One who guides us graciously through every stage of our earthly pilgrimage. May this conference spark lasting transformation and solidarity as we seek to honor Christ together in all seasons of life.
I look forward to journeying with you at the 2025 Mental Health Conference. Come and be a part of a conversation that aims to echo far beyond a single weekend—shaping our churches, our communities, and our personal walks of faith for years to come.
Check out this introduction video for Sangeetha Thomas’s plenary session!
Dr. David C. Chao is director of the Center for Asian American Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He teaches courses related to Asian American theology and organizes programs in Asian American theology and ministry. His research and writing focus on the faith and practice of ordinary Asian Christians in diasporic context as well as the uses of Christian doctrine for liberation, the convergence and divergence of Protestant and Catholic dogmatics, and the theology of Karl Barth. His research on Asian American religious life and politics is funded by The Henry Luce Foundation, the Louisville Institute, and APARRI.
Read more about the director of the CAAC here.
Thanks for reading Imagine Otherwise! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.