By Joy L Wong

Another year has begun! When I was a child, the new year always felt fresh and new: a new calendar, new resolutions, new hopes. In spite of the fact that Christmas in all its lights and splendor was over, the new year still brought an excited anticipation of what could be.

Fast forward 25 years or so and now, I am in my mid-40s, looking at the new year with some hesitation and doubt. I wondered to myself the other day, Did I ever anticipate that being a Christian would become so confusing and difficult? Many of us surely know of those who have either left the Church completely, or who want to hold on to some semblance of their faith, but cannot find a church they can stand to be a part of. Political allegiances have been taken, dividing families, some marriages with husbands and wives on opposing sides, some generational divides widened all the more.

As the words church, Christian, and Christianity have become loaded terms, we are hoping to find common ground through the person of Jesus. Our themes for this year are drawn from the book Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass: namely, Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence. Not all our writers will be basing their blogs on the book, but all of them will be basing their reflections on the person of Jesus at work in their own lives.

Regardless of what can or cannot be stomached in what the Church has become, might we find a way to bypass it by accepting an invitation of friendship from the person of Jesus? And so, with hopeful anticipation, this is where we begin! May we all find a way forward in our faith, not by any way of coercion or obligation, but by gentle invitation.

Joy L Wong has been the administrator of the AAWOL (Asian American Women On Leadership) blog since 2009. She holds an M.Div degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a BA in English from Princeton University. She and her family reside in LA county.