Ep. 289: Navigating Post-Pandemic Life

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, my name’s Daniel Markin, and today I have Vinh Doan on the show. Vinh is a friend of mine. I’ve worked alongside him and so we’re talking about all things young adults, talking about many of the issues that young adults are facing as we both are doing young adult ministry here in Canada. So we hope you find this helpful.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to indoubt, my name’s Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by Vinh Doan. Vinh, how’re you doing my friend?

Vinh Doan:

Doing good, brother.

Daniel Markin:

It’s good to see you. For many of you, you might have no idea who Vinh is, and that, too, was true for me a few years ago until I met him when he got hired on at Northview Church. And so, if you’ve been following on our program for a while, I was at Northview Church for a while and currently I am now on staff at Westside Church. But Vinh and I crossed paths just as I was leaving for Westside, and he was just coming to Northview. And here comes this, you can’t see it, but he’s this sharp-looking, well-dressed Australian guy with an accent. We definitely played that up quite a bit. We like to pump your tires when you arrived here, especially for the Australian accent.

Vinh Doan:

You did.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. But-

Vinh Doan:

Yeah, but now the air’s out of the tire, so no one cares anymore.

Daniel Markin:

Now no one can understand what you’re saying, right? So, Vinh, it’s good to have you on here, man. And what we’re going to be talking about today is largely just, we want to talk about some of the issues that we’re facing in ministering the young adults together. So nothing’s off the table at this point and it’ll be a fun conversation. Hopefully you’ll take away something from it, but yeah, it’s a tricky time to be a Christian, let alone a young adult. So, Vinh, I think we’ll start right there. Why don’t you tell us a little bit though first about where you came from and how you arrived in Abbotsford, and your story in ministry. Tell us a little bit about who you are.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah. Hey everyone online and listening and all that. Yeah, look, born and raised in Australia by Vietnamese immigrant parents who escaped the Vietnam war in the mid-70s, and they landed in Australia. I was that first generation born in Australia. And so, living at home in a different sort of cultural upbringing to the Australian culture, I had a lot of growing up to do and understanding of life and knowledge and wisdom and all that.

Vinh Doan:

Anyway, many years went by, things probably didn’t go the way that my parents wanted it, even for myself. Upbringing for me in Australia was very difficult. I didn’t understand what it meant to be Australian, but I also didn’t understand what it meant to be Vietnamese, growing up with Vietnamese parents. Long story short, got into ministry after a very long struggle in my life from drugs to prison, to all that. God saved me out of that. God then called me into ministry.

Vinh Doan:

I did ministry in Australia for about 12, I would say 12 years. About that, 10 to 12 years. Then it was time, I met my wife while doing a preaching sort of series in Toronto, in Edmonton, and met my wife, who was born and raised Calgarian. We eventually dated and got married. As a typical Australian and as a typical guy, I didn’t read the fine print of what it meant to be married and then move into a country and living in Calgary. I didn’t read the fine print of what it meant to live with snow. That was brutal on the Australian physical body. It was so brutal on me.

Vinh Doan:

Lived in Calgary for seven years, so much to learn, especially with the Canadian culture and how to preach into that, and for that and to that as well. That was such a difficult journey, but God was so gracious to keep me in it, and for the people to respond in a godly and healthy manner. After seven years from church planting to doing youth ministry, I got called in to Abbotsford to do young adults, and something I’ve never done before. So it’s not like I came in as an expert and the weight of that was really hard. And I’ll still say this publicly, if I knew what I was truly coming into and the people that I was replacing, I probably wouldn’t have taken the job. I think God gave me some type of adventure and maybe a little bit of ignorance coming into it because I replaced a guy like Andy Steiger.

Daniel Markin:

Who is a friend of the show.

Vinh Doan:

Right, right. And many listeners, you’ll know Steiger’s… The size of his head, and what I mean by that is the size of his brain, and what he’s done for our country and apologetics and all these things, right? And then we had Jeff Buckham who was a former lead, who’s moved to Chicago now. And there’s all these names that have come before me, and the weight of that. But don’t get me wrong, there’s no mistakes in God’s Providence in all this. I am exactly where I am. It’s been a difficult last two years of me serving young adults, but I thoroughly have enjoyed it, and I’ve had to learn so much, I think more so than in any other time in my ministry. I just have to learn and read and have conversations with people.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I mean, it’s been a difficult two years regardless. I think a lot of people aren’t realizing the toll that it’s taken on ministry leaders, like we’re seeing what they’re calling the great resignation.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

And not only like in people’s companies, as they’re pursuing more mobile work, but we’re seeing that in ministry. The great resignation, we’re seeing people burning out, leaving ministry. And at the same time, we’re not seeing a lot of people replacing them. It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of young men who are being called to ministry. It’s a really interesting time.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah. I know we face that even here, Northview to beyond that. Every church I know has been hit on some level. I think pastors have held on as much as they can for the last two years. I think the resignation will continue for the next… Maybe to the end of the year potentially. I think pastors have held on tight because a deep love for the sheep. I’ll go as far as I can. But I think pastors will go. But I think a lot of the impact has also been on administration staff, like from secretaries to receptionists. Where, I think for administrative staff to receptionist, you would expect those types of people in the way they’re gifted and wired to… There’s got to be stability in the way things run. You know what I mean? In the way a spreadsheet is done to a bulletin. You know what I mean? There’s stability.

Vinh Doan:

There are things that happen day in and day that they can control, but when COVID hit and the ups and downs and protocols, and you know what I mean, like everything. That hit them, I think, almost more than anyone else on all churches across the board. So we found that resignations on that field to production, the weight of ministry on those who were like, “Look, I just wanted to production, like do audio or do a video.” And the weight of that for the sake of the people, because now the ministry rises and falls on the video that you send out.

Vinh Doan:

And so I think our production teams, our audio and visual teams have felt the weight of that too. And that’s been a big burnout. So it’s hit a lot of people in many different ways. And you know this, Daniel. You’ve had pastors who have had to do video and audio, something that we were never trained to do or taught to do. And you’ve had to Google that and YouTube that, and the weight of responsibility has been so great on so many people. Yeah, it’s been a heartache to see.

Daniel Markin:

Especially for, I think on young adults too. And maybe we can start going there. Let’s talk about isolation, and let’s talk about that in regards to young adults and the issues there.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah. With our young adults, for those of us who are listening, for those who are maybe in the older age bracket, who can think back, the young adult, that time in your life. Or that time in life, like I’m 44 now. But that time in my life, as a young adult from what I can remember were, was so community driven, it was driven by my friendships. Everything we did< everything we said, everything I was interested in, everything we talked about was community driven. It was never done in isolation. Whatever my friends did, I did. Whatever sort of pub they went to, I went to. Whatever music… It’s literally everything. I was consumed by community. And then for COVID to happen and to have so many of our young adults be sort of driven to isolation was hard.

Vinh Doan:

Some, I’m not saying all, but some would say. “The government is driving me to be sort of non-human. You’re telling me not to be myself and not to be what naturally comes to me or how I naturally thrive as a human, because my humanity says I need people. And I want to be obedient.” Especially more so, I would say, coming in as Australian and now being in the country for nine years and understanding our political climate, like Canadians are politically quite obedient. I’m still unsure where our, especially when you talk to young adults, you’re sort of unsure where the line is. “If the government does this, then I’ll sort of react and I’ll push back.” Whereas say in the US, our Southern cousins, the line is a bit more defined, where I think in Canada is a bit more gray.

Vinh Doan:

So our young adults have really struggled. Like, “This is what I desperately internally really want. I want to be with people, but I’m so obedient, I’ll do it. I will be in complete isolation.” And so we’ve seen depression go up a lot. We’ve seen from drug abuse to alcohol abuse. I’ve noticed now that we’ve sort of been able to come back in the last few months for young adults, anxiety has been so high. Our young adults have sort of forgotten to function in public. But not just that, but the anxiety of even walking out in public with no masks. It goes back to our Canadian culture.

Vinh Doan:

I’ve had to deal with myself personally, but also deal with young adults who don’t know how to deal with the comments that are thrown out in public. So we’re not talking about even being in a shopping mall or the supermarket grocery store, anything like that. But they could be out in public, going for a walk publicly in the park, walking their dog, whatever it is. And they will hear comments of people shouting out, “Where’s your mask?” Or, “I can’t believe people don’t wear their mask.” So, this very passive aggressive, I think a very Canadian way to attack a situation, or to deal with a situation. So we’re not talking to the person who’s not wearing the mask, we’re talking about the person in general to make sure they can hear it. That causes anxiety. And you don’t know how to deal with that. Most of my young adults don’t want to overreact to that.

Daniel Markin:

Well, no one wants to cause offense and no one wants to hurt someone else. But those conversations, I mean, with anything, is better if you do it in person. You have a relationship with the person and then you can begin to talk with them. But you’re speaking to something about, it’s like a lot of drive by shootings, right? Where it’s like they’re insults, and it’s like someone drives up, insults you and drives away. And it’s like there’s no response. There’s no opportunity for that. It’s almost like you trying to one up each other, even on social media for stuff like that.

Vinh Doan:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I just think it’s still taking time for our young adults to adjust with anxiety in the room. And now it’s going to a different side and sense of I feel for those that sort of want to wear their mask, but majority of the people in the room are not. What do you do about that? And the anxiety that causes, or the self awareness, right? Like, “Oh, I’m the only one in a group of 300 people right now.” Whatever it may be. And it’s trying to be loving and encouraging to them as well. But the anxiety is so tremendous right now.

Vinh Doan:

That stems from even back from, if we think about historically from even 2007. If you read stuff from like the Coddling of the American Mind, to iGen and all these sort of books from a non-Christian perspective about what happened 2007 when the iPhone was introduced and the anxiety that already caused on social media, because now you could be critiqued and criticized on what you wore, what you look like, you have big ears or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, you look funny and now these comments are being shots being fired, but now this is happening publicly as well.

Vinh Doan:

So, on social media you could escape. You know what I mean? You could turn it off or take a break from social media. But now publicly, and then social media wise, there’s no chance to escape. And so I’ve got deep concerns for our young adults. Now you are seeing the very strong… There’s personality traits of certain young adults who are very strong, very opinionated, they’re swinging even stronger. “No one’s going to tell me what to do and what to say.” Which I think is fair to me, that’s just me personally. For those who know me, I’m a very dominant and very strong personality.

Vinh Doan:

So if you push me to one side, I’ll go. I’ve got to be wary of those who on other side where they’ve been knuckled down and they’ve been put to an absolute grind. And so what do we do about those people? I think that’s an intriguing part, because I wouldn’t want to leave them sort of back in the cave. You know what I mean? While I’ve escaped the cave and now I’m going out and “Hey, no, one’s going to tell me what to do.” But they’re still my family, my brothers and sisters are still in the cave that I’ve got to take care of.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. There’s an identity piece there that I think you’re picking up on. Because now, okay, emerging from COVID where do I find my identity? And yeah, it’s easy to say we’re all believers, we’re all Christians and that my identity’s in Christ, but then there is other layers to that- that bring struggles, like your questions around work and jobs, and even gender. I wonder if you could speak to some of those things?

Daniel Markin:

I’m noticing there’s a lot of young adults who just don’t know what to think anymore.

Vinh Doan:

Mm yeah.

Daniel Markin:

And it’s just almost like the amount of information being thrown at them, it’s so overwhelming. So many people have just checked out. They’ve checked out of COVID stuff. They’ve checked out of gender identity stuff. They have just checked out and it’s almost like they’re coasting. And I wonder if you’re seeing the same thing?

Vinh Doan:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I think now there’s more uncertainty than ever. Uncertainty because of, okay, which news outlet do you believe now? Maybe a year ago it was more of a US problem, but we’re starting to see that in Canada now. We’ve seen it in the last quite a few months now, I would say in the last at least eight months. You’re starting to see our news outlets, whatever side you sort of lean upon, but you’re starting to see it. It is like a US, where it’s this sort of blue and red sort of aspects of how they approach the news and how it’s presented. And it’s now I’m getting more and more young adults either going on either side, or you’ve got the middle of, “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I literally don’t know what to believe because it’s sort of vague and it’s too strong in its opinion.”

Vinh Doan:

So some will sort of bury their heads under the sand as well. So you got these now three parties, I would say in Canada. You’ve got the right, you’ve got the left and you’ve got the middle. And so it goes back to that sense of insecurity and uncertainness in what to believe, how to believe it. But also you got the other part, Daniel, where, how do you speak into something when the culture has defined everything for you? Or they think they’ve articulated everything perfectly for you and if you go against it, you’re going to get shot down publicly and you’re going to be canceled. There’s no place to go. There’s no place to speak into that anymore. And that’s yeah, that’s-

Daniel Markin:

To question anything.

Vinh Doan:

Oh, absolutely. So where are they supposed to go now? There’s no sort of public place to have that healthy dialogue from those that we know who are the most intelligent, and now I’m seeing our young adults go behind people that can speak on behalf of them. And the danger is that they’ll go behind people now who are non-Christian, but they’ll speak on their behalf. So for instance, in my young adult demographic here in where I serve, the two people that will come up will be Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. Jordan Peterson maybe vaguely has some Christian understanding and worldview, but they’ll stand behind him. Why? Because they’ll say, “He has that public platform to speak into the public, and people will listen and debate and he will be able to articulate and argue my point of view.”

Vinh Doan:

And Joe Rogan, the same thing. A lot of our young adults here in our church might not agree with everything Joe Rogan says or everything Jordan Peterson says, but enough that they have enough of a big public platform that they can’t be canceled that will sort of go behind those guys. And so then my question is, why don’t we have that Christian voice in public? You know what I mean? And in our country to speak into those things, and to be able to articulate things well.

Vinh Doan:

And so maybe that’s where, I’m thinking, “okay, maybe that’s where I’ve failed my young adults.” I hope not. Most of my young adults would say I’m very open and I very confrontational, and be able to speak truth to what I believe the Bible has clearly said. And I will not hide behind anything besides the word of God. But that’s a scary thing to know that a lot of very young adults now are hiding behind big names like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan to speak sort of that truth.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. It’s interesting. I have not connected the dots there, but you’re right. And maybe it feels like there’s more weight to them because they’re secular. And it’s almost like Christianity and the Christian faith, especially in Canada, has been so slandered, maligned, and it’s just kind of like you’re idiot for believing it. So we’re trying to find other people who are somewhat okay with it, expressing the same worldview more or less like. I mean, that’s what Jordan Peterson is doing without full out saying that he’s a Christian, he more or less is espousing the Christian worldview.

Vinh Doan:

Yes.

Daniel Markin:

And it’s almost like he’s running there, but not quite getting there. And then Christians be like, “Ah!” But there’s another step that Peterson misses, but at least he’s saying all this other stuff and he has that audience.

Daniel Markin:

And even with Rogan, right? His willingness to speak with anyone. Because he has like some really, really conservative people on his show, but then he has really, really liberal people on his show too. And it’s very interesting. He’s able to, just by being curious, allow for people to speak on that. So man, yeah, it’s so tricky and I don’t know what the solution is to Christian voices.

Daniel Markin:

Because part of that too is in Christianity is this desire to be humble, but then asking out loud here, are we doing a disservice by the not having voices then who are doing just that? Pushing people to Christ? They can be big voices. But then think about this aspect. How many megachurch leaders have we seen fail in the last two years? Who have completely failed out of ministry through scandal, through sexual scandal, through money, through anger, through whatever. Sex, money, power. And we’ve seen tons of these influential leaders abroad, in America, and in Canada lose their churches because of their conduct behind closed doors.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah. And the sad thing Daniel, is we got to anticipate that there will be more to come. You know what I mean? And whether that’s a season where God is continually teaching his bride, “Hey, you’re relying on this person.” Because it goes back to what you were saying, the sense of humbleness and we are looking to Christ, and I think there’s going to be a time when I think… I believe Christ is calling the church more so to repentance. I think we’ve idolized the celebrity pastor, and that’s why we fear when these celebrity pastors fail or walk away or have a moral dilemma. Or even if they resign and go to a different church. We fear. There’s a sense of deep fear.

Vinh Doan:

Why? Because we’re truly idolizing. We think the church was built on that personality, on that characteristic, on that guy’s preaching style or whatever it is. And when you take that big piece away, we’re like, “Oh, what are we left with?” We forget, the whole time Christ built the church. So this is going to be a season of repentance. But even going back to what I was saying about our young old’s being unsure. But yes, I one hundred percent agree with you. We are called to humbleness and gentleness and self control and having salt in our tongues when we have an answer for the world about the hope that we have in Christ.

Vinh Doan:

And yet, Christ would come in and say, “Hey, there’s other things I want from you too.” He wants us to be what? Wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. Christians, we’ve done such a good job in being innocent as doves. You know what I mean? We know how to act holy and do our best to be holy, but especially acting holy in public. That’s easy. That’s an easy transition. But we can fake it at least until we make it. But we haven’t been wise as serpents. And I think what Jesus is saying there, to sort of understand the text is basically saying like, “Hey, the way you engage with the world, the non-Christian world, be wise about it.”

Vinh Doan:

Just like you would be wise about anything else. We know as you build a house, you’ve got to think about costs and how you build, the materials. When you move to a new city to get a new job, there’s wisdom pieces that you need in order to move forward. Well, we need those wisdom pieces as we approach the world and with our voices, with our gentleness and humbleness and all that. And yeah, I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s fear or we just need to sit down and continue to be wise about how we approach.

Vinh Doan:

And the funny thing is, Daniel, you and I can agree in this, a hundred percent. How many young adults have you spoken to who are so wise for their age, and can articulate things so beautifully and humbly and gently? Just the platform may be not there, but maybe we think we need to do it on such a big scale that we think it’s not enough. But maybe it is a humble approach of doing it one by one. Just having a coffee with that one person, that neighbor and let God do the working from that.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah.

Vinh Doan:

Right?

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Okay. So let’s end on a happy note. What is giving you hope these days? As you look at young adults, like the resiliency of them for example, what is giving you hope for young adults going forward as you think about Christianity and the young adults that we’re ministering to?

Vinh Doan:

Yeah. I think, and this is just me speaking on behalf of what I know and what happens here at our church. The greatest thing for our young adults is first of all, they want community with Christ, but also with each other. There’s a desperate need for the church to come back. And they’re okay… Maybe when the church was at it’s height two years ago, before COVID, you know what I mean? When we were doing all these things, we had all these crazy plans of what we could do and how we could… And those were great dreams for us to have, and now we’ve had to reset. A lot of our young adults are still hopeful of the church. And now this is a chance for them to be more honest and more transparent.

Vinh Doan:

They’ve seen leadership be unsure and that’s sort of reassured them. “Okay, our leaders don’t know everything.” And it’s been hard and it’s been difficult and they’ve seen a bit of brokenness, and so almost a sense of relief in that for our young adults. But I think they want our leaders to continually stand on the truth. And I think that gives me great hope. A lot of our young adults here don’t want to shy away in a sense of they want to battle culture. They do. They’ve realized where culture is taking culture, and they see a lot of dead ends.

Vinh Doan:

So now they want the church to sort of speak about these issues and speak to these issues, but not through personalities or celebrities. “Hey man, give us the truth. Tell us.” Even though the Bible doesn’t speak about everything, but it does speak to everything. That’s what they want. They want that. They desperately want that. And they want our leaders and our pastors to speak with the word. That’s a great joy to me. Because the hard thing for preachers like you and I, Daniel, is that preachers can stand up there. And again, at moments when you prep, but also when you deliver that message, there’s moments humanly speaking, you feel alone. Yes, there’s a spiritual issue of God being in the midst of all that and doing the work that only the holy spirit can do.

Vinh Doan:

But when you know your congregation is a hundred percent behind you, humanly speaking, that gives you encouragement and you feel the weight of all that. And people cheering you on saying, “Yeah!” You know what I mean? “Daniel, speak on behalf of us into the culture as we fight and we battle it together.” So that to me gives me a great sense of joy, that I think as a community they want the word, they want the truth, but they also want each other. And above all those things, they know Christ is in the midst of all those things. That’s a joy. That could be a great potential reset or re-visioning of the church as we move forward.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I think you’re right. I think the thing I’ve learned through this is the need for community is so, so, so big. Vinh, I mean, hey, we could keep going for so long but I appreciate you. I appreciate your ministry, and us being able to chat over the years, and even us being able to chat today and we look forward to being able to do it soon. So thanks for being a part of this.

Vinh Doan:

Yeah, thanks Daniel. Yeah, it was great to be here. So appreciate this time, even to listen to me ramble on.

Daniel Markin:

That’s great. And if people have a question for you, how would they get in contact with you?

Vinh Doan:

Yeah, you can email me personally at v, the letter V. Doan, my last name, D O A N @northview.org. So email me there and then yeah, love to continue talking, conversing about any issue.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Awesome man. Well, thanks again Vinh, and we look forward to talking to you soon.

Vinh Doan:

Okay. Thanks everyone.