This blog is adapted from a Khora Conversation webinar with Joel To on December 3, 2025. Joel is founder and executive director of SoulRoots and an ordained pastor and spiritual director with over twenty years of experience walking alongside leaders who feel spiritually stuck. 

I’m a second-generation Vietnamese American, the son of refugee parents who escaped Vietnam at the end of the war. My parents were doing Christian relief work when they fled, eventually making their way—by boat, through Wake Island and Guam—to Portland, Oregon. Later, we settled in a small rural town called Medford, near the Oregon-California border. Growing up there meant being one of very few Asian Americans, and that shaped me deeply.

Like many Asian Americans, I grew up straddling worlds. At home, the expectations were familiar: get good grades, honor your family, don’t bring shame. Outside the home, I learned quickly what it took to be accepted in white-dominant American culture—be confident, lead well, succeed, perform. Over time, those dual narratives fused into a single message I carried everywhere: you are only as valuable as what you achieve.

That belief followed me into every space—social work, education, campus ministry, and eventually into the church. I became a pastor, thinking maybe this would finally be the place where I could rest. Instead, I found myself burning out again, trying to meet expectations I didn’t fully understand. In predominantly white church spaces, I felt pressure to perform in ways that didn’t come naturally to me. In Vietnamese church contexts, I felt like I didn’t quite fit either—tattoos, piercings, and all.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I was losing myself.

The Gap Many Leaders Carry

As I’ve walked with Asian-American leaders over the years—whether in ministry, business, or nonprofit work—I’ve noticed a common gap. We’re incredibly capable. We’re disciplined. We’re hardworking. But many of us are disconnected from our inner lives.

We become the main character in our own story, defining ourselves by output instead of belovedness. Even in Christian leadership, it’s easy to confuse spiritual activity with spiritual intimacy. Theology—what we know and think about God—often outpaces spirituality—how we actually experience God.

And when that happens, our souls get cluttered.

I often describe the soul like a snow globe. All the anxieties, expectations, deadlines, and pressures shake it up until we can’t see clearly anymore. God is still there—but everything feels cloudy. Spiritual practices like silence, solitude, and spiritual direction don’t add more to our lives; they allow things to settle so we can see God again.

Rediscovering the Soul

For me, learning the language of the soul changed everything.

I’ve come to understand the soul as the place of our truest, most sacred self—the self God delighted in while weaving us together in the womb. It’s the place where we are fully known and fully seen by God.

Spiritual formation, then, isn’t about self-improvement. It’s what happens to us when we encounter God again and again over time.

Ironically, the practices I taught for years as a pastor—Bible study, quiet time, structured prayer—eventually stopped working for me. That was terrifying. I was preaching rhythms I couldn’t sustain.

Everything shifted when I encountered centering prayer and imaginative prayer through spiritual formation training. What finally stuck, though, was something simple and deeply personal: having coffee with Jesus.

Every morning around 5:30, before the house wakes up, I make coffee and sit in my office. I imagine Jesus already there, waiting. Some days I sit quietly. Some days I read. Some days I fall asleep. And once, when I felt guilty about sleeping through my prayer time all week, I imagined God saying, “I wasn’t frustrated. I enjoyed watching you rest.”

That kind of grace changed me.

For the last four years, this has been my most faithful practice—not because it’s impressive or disciplined, but because I don’t want to miss time with Someone who wants to be with me.

Beloved Before Anything Else

One of the most grounding truths I return to again and again comes from Jesus’ baptism. Before Jesus preached a sermon, healed a person, or did anything productive, the Father said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

We call Jesus Lord—but we often forget to call ourselves beloved.

That forgetfulness fuels so much of our striving. Even right before speaking in public spaces, those old narratives still flare up for me: What if I’m not enough? What if I don’t represent well? What if I don’t belong? I need constant reminders—from God and from trusted friends—that I don’t have to perform to be loved.

That realization is what led to the creation of SoulRoots. When we live and lead from belovedness, we stop trying to prove ourselves. We work from identity, not for it.

A Word for Asian-American Leaders

If I could say one thing to Asian-American Christian leaders, it would be this: embrace the fullness of your story.

Our dual-culture experience isn’t a liability—it’s a gift. Many of us are bridge-builders, able to hold complexity, navigate multiple worlds, and create spaces where others feel seen. God doesn’t waste any part of that story.

We don’t have to love our Asian selves or our American selves. We get to love both.

A Few Questions to Sit With

As you reflect on your own spiritual life, here are two questions I often return to:

• Am I slowing down enough for God to catch me?
• Do I actually want to be loved by God?

The second question is harder than it sounds.

Spiritual formation isn’t about productivity or getting something out of every moment with God. It’s about showing up—again and again—trusting that God is already there.

Wherever you are, however you show up, God can meet you there.

Joel lives in Portland with his wife, Lisa, and their two teenage children.  If you’d like to journey deeper into Joel To’s work, you can find him at soulroots.space, on Instagram at @soulroots.space, or on substack at @soulrootsspace