Christian leaders from all over the U.S. will convene next year for a conference tailored for those who serve in the Southeast Asian community.

In Long Beach California, on Jan. 13-15, 2006, 150 leaders from emerging to those serving full-time, will attend the first national Southeast Asian Leadership Summit hosted by the Southeast Asian Committee. It will focus on encouraging, enabling, and engaging the leaders to serve the Southeast Asian community.

The Southeast Asian Committee was established for the purpose of encouraging, developing and mobilizing leaders within the Southeast Asian American Christian community to "impart a legacy upon this generation, so that they will display a Christ-centered lifestyle."

Similarly, the L2 Foundation and one of the endorsers of the Summit specializes in developing leaders among the Asian-American Christians for the same purpose, which is to leave a legacy that will strengthen and encourage the church.

Paul and Alice Chou, the founders said in an interview with Christianity Today in June, "We want to encourage leadership among the Asian-American Christians and help them leave a lasting legacy for the next generation."

The L2 foundation is able to do this by identifying major churches, organizations, and individuals who have shone their leadership skills in the "spheres of influence" and to gather them at one of their conferences in order to hear how the foundation can "help them achieve God's calling on their lives."

"Many Asian-American Christians are successful but 'silent people.' You'll find them in major universities or working professional jobs as doctors or lawyers. But are they really engaging with American society? Some of them do, but the majority just do their job. We want to see them begin exercising leadership in all aspects of society," Paul told Christianity Today.

The Southeast Asian Summit will be led by church planters, directors of Asian-American ministries, youth ministers or pastors, professors, teachers, and social workers who will focus on church leadership, missions, youth ministry, collegiate and young adult ministry, worship, and children ministry.

The keynote speakers are Dr. Kenneth Fong, senior pastor of the Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles where he helped chart its growth as one of the first English-only ministries to Chinese and Japanese Asian Americans, and Paul Tokunaga, a national coordinator for Asian American Ministries with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship who served them by taking a variety of leadership and management roles.