By Jen Lin-Liu

Pastor Andrew Lee began his sermon on Palm Sunday at the largest Christian church in Chinatown with a question: "What happens when you put together an insomniac, an atheist, and a dyslexic?"

The English-speaking congregation of the Oversea Chinese Mission, made up of mostly young, single Chinese-Americans waited patiently for the punch line.

"Someone lying awake a night wondering if there is a dog. Get it, a dog?" Lee said with a grin, as his congregation chuckled softly.

Some last-minute worshipers, dressed in outfits ranging from baggy pants and short skirts to suits and conservative dresses, filtered into the church as it reached full capacity of 300. They filled in the last unoccupied pew where Lee’s head would look no larger than a thumb if it weren’t for the overhead TV screens that projected the pastor’s image to the back of the church.

Pastor Ben Kong, who shares duties with Lee at the Oversea Chinese Mission, says that the English-speaking congregation has grown by several hundred members since 1990. The church has taken special care to reach out to the Generation-X, American-born Chinese population - known as ABCs in Chinese circles - in the New York metropolitan area. Meanwhile, the Chinese-speaking population of the church has grown by 10 percent each year, according to staff member Tina Lui.

Nationally, the number of Chinese Christians is still small: about 3 percent of Americans of Chinese descent go to church. But one of the largest church-growth movements today in the U.S. is among the Chinese, according to Bobby Watts, who in 1997 wrote a book about religion in New York City entitled "Signs of Hope in the City."

In New York’s Chinatown, there are more than 20 official churches, and many more informal Christian gatherings in homes, says Pastor Peter Ng of the Episcopalian Church of Our Savior. But churches in Chinatown face particular challenges, as changing demographics force churches to adjust in order to stay viable in their communities.

Chinatown’s older, more established Cantonese population, which includes immigrants from Hong Kong and a southern province of China called Guangzhou, is dying off, and Chinese-American baby boomers and their children continue to move into the suburbs. Meanwhile, the neighborhood has had an influx of Mainland Chinese immigrants who do not identify with the Chinatown’s mainstream Cantonese culture. The Cantonese, who speak a different language and are more established, are often perceived as rougher and more money-oriented by the Mainlanders of non-Cantonese descent.

Oversea Chinese Mission has grown, as has the Holy Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, because the two churches have catered to specific groups. But most other churches in Chinatown, which are older and more traditional, have seen the size of their congregations level off and even decrease.

In the midst of facing many challenges as a Chinatown church, the Oversea Chinese Mission relies on a simple, though not obvious, formula. Leaders attribute the church’s growth among young, mostly second-generation Chinese-Americans to a strong fellowship program and tradition-breaking services that make the Bible’s messages more accessible to people in their 20s and 30s. Young adults who attend the church spread the message, increasing the church’s popularity.

"We don’t do any advertising," says Kong. "It’s entirely word of mouth."

Oversea Chinese Mission, located at 154 Hester Street, draws about 1,400 worshipers to its five Sunday services, making it the "largest Chinese church east of the Mississippi," according to Kong. As soon as one service is over, the worshipers are escorted to their left, through the exit doors, and onto the sidewalk, while the next group of worshipers, entering from the right, slide into the pews. The nine-floor building also holds English classes, Bible study groups, and after-school programs for Chinatown children.

Founded in 1961 by a Singapore evangelist, the Oversea Chinese Mission attracted college students and young professionals from the beginning. Lee has continued that tradition, speaking informally during his sermons. On a recent Sunday, he even threw in a discussion of the Christian references in the hit movie "The Matrix."

Lee has no qualms about his approach. "I don’t try to cater to the traditional," says Lee, who speaks English and Cantonese, like most of the established people in Chinatown. "It’s not my congregation, and it’s not the future."

Daniel Young, 29, who started going to Oversea Chinese Mission a year ago, says that he enjoys the sermons because they are "more on my level."

"In other churches, they act like a parent telling you not to play with fire," says Young, who is a computer consultant. "But they don’t tell you why. The pastors at Oversea Chinese Mission talk about a section in the Bible and give you examples of how to apply it to real life, so we have a better understanding of why we don’t do certain things."

Wayne Lee (no relation to Andrew), 29, who is a Friday night fellowship leader, had previously attended Caucasian churches because he felt that they were more tolerant of ethnic and racial differences. But he says he was attracted to Oversea Chinese Mission two years ago because of the church’s openness.

"We accept people from every background, unlike other Chinese churches," Wayne Lee says, even as he acknowledge that the number of non-Chinese is very small. "It’s not very important for me to connect with Chinese people," he says. "I don’t care about the location." Rather, he says that is the church’s attitude and the sermons that drew him to the church.

In addition to attracting young American-born Chinese, the church has also been successful in recruiting an often-neglected group in the neighborhood, particularly in the wake of the tides of Mainland Chinese immigrants: poorer, less-established Cantonese. In the past year, they have begun what is informally called "the garment factory service." The service is aimed at the working class, who may feel intimidated by the regular services.

Like most of the churches in Chinatown, the majority of Oversea Chinese Mission’s members do not live in the community. Only 12 percent of the church’s members arrive on foot, according to a survey the church recently conducted. This reflects the persistent problem of suburban flight that the church has lived with for years.

"Members who may have grown up in the community end up getting married and have kids in the ‘burbs," says Andrew Lee. "And the magic word is ‘parking.’ We don’t have enough room, and some people don’t want to deal with parking their cars."

In addition, though the nine-floor building has served the church’s needs adequately so far, the church will not be able to maintain the same rate of growth without physically expanding.

"We’re edging up against SoHo," says AndrewLee. "It’s expensive and difficult to acquire more property."

He adds that having a church that is in Chinatown but has a congregation that is not from the immediate area produces problems. The congregation has a harder time relating to the residents of Chinatown. He wishes that more members would volunteer to help with after-school and day-care programs.

"We’re not doing enough for Chinatown kids," says Andrew Lee, who grew up in the neighborhood but now lives in Staten Island with his wife and two children. "We need people to serve as role models. That’s why I’m here. Otherwise I’d go to a church in the suburbs and work for a six-figure salary."

One other church that has increased its congregation is the Holy Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration. Father Raymond Nobiletti says that his congregation has increased nearly fourfold in the nine years that he has lead the church. But the Transfiguration Church’s approach has been completely different from that of the Oversea Chinese Mission, only a few blocks away.

The contrast was evident on Palm Sunday, as the blessing of the palms began in the Transfiguration church’s courtyard. Dozens of modestly dressed worshipers holding long palm leaves in their hands formed a circle around Nobilletti, whose olive skin is a couple shades darker than his followers. After the Sicilian-born priest, dressed in a white and gold robe, read from the Bible in Cantonese with a crisp, accurate accent, he moved through the crowd and sprinkled water onto the palm leaves from a gold wand.

His congregation is mainly Cantonese, but Nobiletti has tried to connect with the Fujianese, who are the fastest growing group of Mainland Chinese settling in Chinatown. The Fujianese come from a coastal province of China, and are largely less educated and less affluent than the Cantonese. Nobiletti was so struck by the number of Fujianese moving to the neighborhood that he took two trips to the Fujian province in China to try to understand the phenomenon.

Instead, he found insights into the underground Catholic community that was blossoming in the province. This, in China, where the government still has tight controls over religion and allows only a few state-sponsored houses of worship.

In the Fujian province, Nobiletti went to services conducted by devoted worshipers that began at 4 a.m. to avoid attracting attention from the authorities. He learned of growing rivalries between the state-sponsored Catholics and the underground Catholics.

The knowledge of the Catholic community in China enabled Nobiletti to relate better to the religious Fujianese in the neighborhood, some of whom have come his church for English classes or to seek guidance. This year, more than half of those baptized on Easter were Fujianese, between the ages of 20 and 30. He believes that most of the Fujianese who have to come his church already had some exposure to Catholicism. It has not been so much a recruiting effort that has drawn Fujianese to the church, but the ability to accommodate those who practiced Catholicism - either officially or in the underground culture - back in China.

The Transfiguration Church has long been a fixture on Mott Street, even before the first Chinese began arriving in the mid-1800s.

"This has always been called the ‘Church of Immigrants’ because we have served successive waves of immigrants who have settled in New York," says Nobiletti, adding that the church is the oldest Catholic Church building in New York City.

Though the church was originally built in 1801 as a place of worship for Protestants, a Cuban refugee turned it into a Catholic church in 1827. Since then it has served the Irish, then the Italians, and eventually, the Chinese, when U.S. immigration laws were loosened in the 1960s.

Nowadays, as the Cantonese population gets older and new Fujianese immigrants continue to populate the area, Nobiletti says, "All my funerals are for the Cantonese, and many of my infant baptisms are for the Fujianese."

He does not know if the day will come when his congregation will be entirely Fujianese, but he thinks that they will only increase in coming years.

Other churches in Chinatown, whose congregations are made up of more established, older Cantonese immigrants, have not seen an increase in attendance. The pastors at True Light Lutheran Church and Trust in God Baptist Church, whose main services are in Cantonese, say that part of the problem is shifting demographics. Many of the churches were founded for Chinese immigrants of a specific region in China. Fewer Cantonese are entering the country, in contrast to the striking number of non-Cantonese from Mainland China that have emigrated in recent years, according to New York City’s Planning Department statistics.

Because of this shift, the older churches have suffered, according to Bayer Lee (no relation to Andrew or Wayne) senior pastor at Trust in God Baptist Church. These churches have difficulties reaching out to the newer population because of the language difficulties and ethnic differences based on immigrants originating from different regions in China.

"Each church has its own cultural network based on regions," says Bayer Lee. "The established churches are insular, and it’s hard for new members to break in."

The Rev. Lee Hern of the Chinese Evangelical Mission adds that some churches "have lost their critical mass." Several decades ago, many churches in the neighborhood had several hundred members each; now, it is common to see congregations between 50 and 100.

"There’s no stepping back to analyze when you’ve been working on assumptions," says Hern, who says his congregation has been holding steady at 350 for some time. "And suddenly you realize your assumptions are wrong."

Bayer Lee, who recently assumed leadership of Trust in God Church, says he hopes to increase the congregation, which has hovered around 400 for years, by gearing the services more to young people, like the Oversea Chinese Mission.

He says that he personally has been drawn to the Chinatown church because of his own needs to identify with other Chinese. Since his mother died 10 years ago, he has taken several trips to China to explore his family’s history. His most recent job was at a diverse, cross-cultural church. But he left, wanting to pursue something closer to his roots.

"I miss relating to non-Chinese," he says. "But I want to go back to my Chinese-ness. I’m going to try to bridge the gap between ABCs, old immigrants, and new immigrants."