Joseph Benjamin Tsang was born in Brooklyn and raised mostly out in Queens in one of the most diverse zip codes in America (11373). He traveled north for high school at the Bronx High School of Science; and even lived in a nearby neighborhood briefly after a rough car accident. During this time, Joseph began to attend youth group at OCM. Before that, Joseph attended Chinese Evangelical Church on Center street with his family. He accepted Christ at a Vacation Bible School at CEC and grew as a disciple at OCM.
Rick and Deb Carey, his youth pastors, along with his youth group at OCM made a big impact on Joseph’s spiritual growth. Today, many Chinese churches have former OCM students on their pulpits and in positions of full time ministry: Debby Fung, Rocky Chan, Lawrence Tom to name a few. Those days were a crucible of spiritual planting for future harvest. They spent many weekends, nights and days learning at the apartments of our faithful shepherds.
Rick and Deb encouraged Joseph to attend Wheaton College, a Christian college after attending Brandeis University (ironically, a predominantly Jewish school). There, Joseph sensed the Lord’s hand leading him into ministry with Chinese American youth. During his years of study, he was the youth pastor for four years at The Evangelical Formosan Church of Naperville, a church in the Chicago area. He left the Chicago-land area in 1994 with a BA in New Testament and an MA in Historical Theology.
For 11 years, Joseph has been the youth director at the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland in Rockville. He met his wife Theresa there, and was married in 2003.
His interests include traveling and he has gone to Athens, Gaza, Jerusalem, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Vancouver, Shanghai, Seattle, Beijing, Disneyworld, Dallas and Rome. He hopes to see Vegas, Austin, Toronto and the Canadian Rockies soon.
He is an amateur movie connoisseur preferring indie films. Joseph and Theresa attend many concerts and have followed U2 and Coldplay around on tour. They are often in the front row or darn close and have appeared on Conan, Who’s Wedding Is It Anyway? and a U2 DVD. They also read non-stop, devouring the works of Yancey, E. Peterson, M. Dawn, F. Miller, J. Robinson, J Levitt, CS Lewis and Rowling. A few of Joseph’s articles were published in the book Asian American Youth Ministry edited by DJ Chuang and published by the L2 foundation.
Joseph spent a sabbatical learning to cook some southern food and finding a new home in New York before starting his new job at Vision Church where he’s been pastoring since the fall of 2005