Supporting communities of Asian American female faith leaders at PastoraLab
VALLEY FORGE, PA (05/22/2026)—Across many church contexts, female faith leaders still navigate assumptions about gender and authority. Asian American female leaders face many pressures related to patriarchal church norms, racial marginalization, and family expectations. For many, being one of the few women who serve in their churches leads to loneliness.
PastoraLab, a project of Innovative Space for Asian American Christianity (ISAAC) is a safe space where Asian American female clergy can attend to their wellbeing. They can share their stories of leadership and name their gifts there. As a vital third space — a social space separate from home and work — Pastora Lab supports their leadership formation rooted in their identity.
“It provides a unique space of belonging among fellow Asian American women ministers across denominations, generations, and regions,” said Rev. Dr. Young Lee Hertig, cofounder and executive director of ISAAC. “Most participants shared that they have never had such a space as PastoraLab and that they no longer feel like unicorns.”
In the spirit of leadership empowerment and healing and transforming communities, American Baptist Home Mission Societies has supported PastoraLab since 2021. In 2025, ABHMS assisted ISAAC in rolling out a new, ambitious program with the goals of constructing a field-based Asian American hermeneutics for prophetic preaching and increasing gender equality and equity in Asian American churches. Two retreats were also held in 2025 as part of the initiative.
“I learned so much about power dynamics today and how in conflict there is always a power dynamic, and as great leaders we need to know this,” said one of the retreat participants. “Conflict is not a sign that something is broken. Conflict is often a signal that different values, perspectives, or needs are present.”
“I have a more concrete framework to navigate church politics among leadership, which is going on right now for me, as well as parachurch/organizational leadership dynamics,” said another. “I’ve been able to identify and start addressing adaptive challenges both in my local church context and parachurch ministry. When I met with two pastors a couple weeks ago, I mentioned specifically the technical and adaptive challenges in our church situation. I think it helped put a framework and better understanding of the situations we were addressing.”
Healing communities begins with healing leaders. ABHMS is dedicated to fostering safe, culturally rooted spaces for ministry leaders. Help us show them that they are not alone by giving here.
By Rev. Dr. Anna Piela, ABHMS senior writer and editor of The Christian Citizen
