When asked about what he advice he would give to other English ministry pastors, Pastor Paul Kim from LA Sarang Community Church (LASRCC) had two things to say: Learn the culture of and develop relationships with the 1st generation; and when it gets hard, don’t just leave.
Pastor Paul came to LA Sarang Community Church three and a half years ago. He actually came not to become the EM pastor, but to just learn how to be a minister. He took ministry training under the head pastor of LASRCC, Pastor Kisup Kim for two and a half years.
“When I started the ministry training, the head pastor said three things to me that he didn’t like about many EM pastors. ‘1) They think of ministry as a profession; 2) They don’t try to understand the 1st generation; 3) They know a lot of Bible but they don’t know God. When you get this ministry training under me, I can guarantee you that you’ll have an experience that you can’t get anywhere else.’ He said that to me looking straight into my eyes.”
After hearing that from Pastor Kim, Pastor Paul said he started serving in LASRCC with the mindset to learn. Almost every day, Pastor Paul would be at church starting from 5 AM for dawn prayer, and come home at 11 PM after doing training and administration work at the church office.
“Of course, there are times that I got frustrated during work, but I’m glad that I went through all the hard work along with all of the other pastors. It’s because of this experience that I came to really understand the KM pastors on a deeper level – their families, their struggles, their situations. I know all of the hard work they do and the sacrifices they make even despite those situations. And when I came to understand them better in this way, I also came to respect them a lot more as well.”
Pastor Paul continued to share about how much Pastor Kim invested in him. Even as Pastor Paul became the EM pastor after the former EM pastor had suddenly left, Pastor Kim continuously challenged him to try new things and expand his territory. One day Pastor Kim suddenly asked him to prepare sermons in Korean. Although it was difficult at first as a 2nd generation Korean American, Pastor Paul now preaches several times a year in Korean during dawn prayers and most recently during the Good Friday service at church.
“I realized because of that my Korean’s so much better now,” he explained.
Not only does Pastor Kim challenge Pastor Paul to expand his skills and try new things, but he also encourages Pastor Paul when he is going through hardship.
“He always reminded me to look at the bigger picture, of God’s sovereignty in everything. So now even when things get rough, I can recognize the seasons and see the bigger picture. I know that it’ll pass.”
Pastor Paul also explained that his relationship with the KM pastor is also important in the way that the KM and EM ministries interact.
“It’s all about relationships,” he explained. “Especially the relationships of the leaders. The KM pastor and I have a mutual relationship of respect, and that says something to the members of our ministries. If I talk negatively about the Korean ministry and the KM pastor while I’m preaching, it would definitely affect the members of EM to think negatively of them as well. So the relationships of the leaders is definitely important.”
He shared that they are thinking of steps to take in order to bridge the gap that KM and EM members may have in their relationship, starting from a church picnic they had recently in which the two ministries were able to mingle, play games, and have fellowship together.
Having gone through the experiences that he has with the head pastor, the KM pastor, and all of the other pastors serving as a staff in the church, Pastor Paul encouraged other EM pastors to simply build relationships with the other pastors at church.
“There’s a cultural barrier and a language barrier between KM and EM, but you just have to make an effort to try to understand where they’re coming from. It’s the same concept as going on missions to a foreign country – you can’t expect them to respect you if you don’t respect them and their culture. You have to build relationships, learn their language, and understand the culture.”
“… But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
1 Corinthians 12:24-26
This is one in a series of interviews with southern California pastors who either serve in English ministry (EM) or have a heart for the intergenerational relationship between Korean ministry (KM) and EM. As the generation of the Korean church is shifting from the first to the second generation, what are the obstacles that are hindering the English ministry from flourishing? How can EM and KM pastors work together to build up the second-generation church? These are among the many questions that these pastors grapple with, and that Christianity Daily is hoping to wrestle together with through these interviews.
