Our four-and-a-half-year-old Presbyterian church plant officially particularized this year. In regular ministry terms, it means we installed our own elders, became financially independent, and have been received into our presbytery as an official church. That’s ten years of fundraising—three and a half as a campus ministry worker and six and a half as a church planter—officially coming to an end for our family. During that period, the Lord was kind and gracious to provide for us well over $400,000 from incredibly faithful and generous external donors.

As someone who has finally come out of this season, I want to address a particular audience: Asian American Christians who receive support letters and fundraising requests. You may love the gospel, value missions, and genuinely want the church to flourish and still feel uneasy when someone asks you to give. If that describes you, I don’t think you’re alone. Many of us were raised with a complicated relationship to money, need, and asking. Fundraising often feels socially awkward for the asker and morally ambiguous for the receiver. But for Asian American Christians in particular, it can also carry heavy cultural baggage of honor, shame, pride, and the desire not to burden others.

Here are five things I wish more Asian American Christians understood about what it’s like to fundraise and why your response matters more than you might think.

1. Fundraising triggers shame long before it reaches your inbox

Fundraising requires asking. And asking requires vulnerability. For many Asian Americans shaped by cultures that prize self-sufficiency and emotional restraint, the act of asking for help can feel like failure. Even when we can articulate a sound theology of partnership, our bodies can still interpret a support letter as dishonor. The subtext becomes: If I were truly competent, I wouldn’t need help. If I were truly faithful, I wouldn’t feel anxious. If I were truly called, support would come naturally.

After we launched our church plant, we saw such explosive growth during the first year that we were running out of funds much quicker than we anticipated. So I had to do what was one of the most shameful experiences of my life: cold-call for funds. The effort was largely fruitless. Only a few people gave one-time donations. Others started ghosting me after my initial attempt to reach out to them. To this day, I wish I just didn’t reach out at all. And that shame doesn’t disappear once donations arrive. In some ways it intensifies. You wonder if people gave because they believed in your calling or because they pitied you. You worry you’re exploiting relationships. You second-guess your motives. Even gratitude can feel complicated: you’re thankful, but you also feel exposed.

So when you receive a support letter, please understand that you’re not seeing the whole story. You’re seeing the final, public layer of something that often took weeks of emotional wrestling to send. And Scripture is clear: there’s no shame in dependence. Christians aren’t independent contractors with spiritual side projects; we’re members of one body (1 Cor. 12:12–26). Fundraising isn’t begging. It’s inviting others into shared obedience. It’s an embodied way of saying, I need you, and that isn’t a defect. That’s discipleship.

When supporters respond thoughtfully—by praying, giving, or even declining with care—they’re being discipled as well. They’re learning to loosen the grip of fear around money, to see resources not merely as personal security but as entrusted means for the kingdom. Partnering with fundraisers trains us to discern God’s work beyond our immediate circles, to practice generosity that is relational rather than transactional, and to trust that God uses shared dependence to mature his people. In that sense, fundraising is not just about sustaining ministry; it’s one of the ordinary ways the Spirit forms the church into a people who give and receive with humility.

2. Many Asian American workers are fundraising without the “right” networks

Most Christian fundraising relies on networks: sending churches, campus ministries, ministry-adjacent communities, well-resourced donors, and people who already understand the system. But many Asian American believers are first-generation or come from immigrant churches where ministry is expected to be bi-vocational, low-budget, and largely supported internally. Fundraising can feel foreign or even suspicious, something “other people” do. And even when there’s generosity, the resources of a community may be limited because many families are still building stability in a country that hasn’t always made stability easy.

There’s also a deeper dynamic. Some institutions with the most resources haven’t always seen Asian American ministries as central or strategic. That doesn’t mean support never comes—it often does, and there are many who have given sacrificially across racial and cultural lines. But fundraising isn’t a level playing field.

So if you’ve ever read a support letter from an Asian American ministry worker and thought, “Why don’t they just…,” it may be worth pausing. They may already be doing everything they know to do, with fewer relational bridges and fewer people who instinctively understand their context. If we’re serious about being one church, then we should be serious about sharing burdens, not only spiritually but materially (Gal. 6:2; 2 Cor. 8:13–15).

3. “Just ask boldly” is not always helpful advice

Some Asian American workers are told (sometimes indirectly, sometimes explicitly), “You just need to ask more boldly.” And sometimes that advice is true. But it can also be too simplistic to be pastoral. For many of us, “be bold” can sound like, “Stop being Asian about it.” It can imply that our hesitations are merely cowardice, that our emotional complexity is simply faithlessness, and that cultural instincts toward modesty and restraint are spiritual weaknesses.

But fundraising is not only about technique, it’s about formation. Many of us are learning how to ask without manipulation, receive without shame, and speak plainly about financial realities without performing desperation.

Boldness isn’t the absence of fear. Boldness is obedience in the presence of fear. So when you receive a support request, don’t assume the asker is confident, comfortable, or “salesy.” It may have cost them far more than you can see.

4. Fundraising can be lonely, even when it “goes well”

Fundraising can produce a peculiar kind of isolation. It’s intensely relational, yet it can feel emotionally solitary. You’re always aware that relationships are, in some sense, “funded.” You wonder if your thank-you notes are enough. You feel pressure to update supporters with good news because you don’t want them to worry or regret giving. You feel pressure to censor yourself  when what you say or post  might offend a supporter. Even when things go well, you may hesitate to share the weight you’re carrying because you don’t want to sound ungrateful.

Loneliness also compounds when fundraising slowly becomes part of your identity. You start seeing every conversation as potentially strategic. You calculate whether it’s appropriate to invite someone into partnership. You carry a constant low-grade anxiety about sustainability. You don’t know how long support will last or what happens if it dries up. One of the kindest things a supporter can do isn’t merely give but accompany. Pray beyond the transaction. Reach out with encouragement. Ask how they’re holding up. Remind them they’re not an object of charity but a coworker in the gospel (Phil. 1:3–7).

5. The stereotype of Asian competence makes it worse

Asian Americans are often stereotyped as competent, high-achieving, and self-sufficient. That stereotype may sound like a compliment, but it can quietly undermine the support ministry workers need. People assume we have it handled. They assume we’re doing fine. They assume our churches are stable, our families are secure, and our ministries are “low risk.” As a result, fewer people check in, fewer people advocate, and fewer people recognize the hidden strain. But competence can become a curse when it disguises need.

I know Asian American workers, including myself, who took on risky side jobs, loans, or extra hours just to make ends meet—writing books, flipping homes, grinding late nights—because it felt less shameful than asking for help or their respective networks were tapped out. The world might applaud that productivity but many of us honestly wish we didn’t have to do all of that in order to serve God’s kingdom.

A closing word to Asian American supporters

If you receive support letters, I’m not asking you to give to everyone. Prudence matters. Stewardship matters. You have responsibilities, bills, and limits. But I’m asking you to see what’s happening beneath the surface. When an Asian American brother or sister asks for support, they’re often stepping across deep internal barriers: fear of burdening others, fear of being misunderstood, fear of being seen as needy, fear of dishonoring family expectations, and so on. Your response, whether you give or not, can either reinforce shame or communicate dignity. A thoughtful reply. A prayer. A small recurring gift. A note that says, “I’m with you.” These aren’t minor things. They’re expressions of the communion of saints.

Fundraising isn’t the end goal. But it’s one of the ways God forms his servants and mobilizes his church. And if the church is truly one body, then we have the privilege of partnering with one another—not reluctantly, but gladly—until Christ is made known and his people are built up.

Moses Y. Lee is the lead pastor of Rosebrook Presbyterian Church in Rockville, Maryland, and a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, where he is conducting research on Herman Bavinck, J.H. Bavinck, and Harvie Conn.