Leadership opportunities beckon to Korean-American church
5/11/1998 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: This story accompanies UMNS #292.
LOS ANGELES (UMNS) - Korean Americans, who have built a thriving new addition to the United Methodist house, must now step out and provide leadership throughout the church, society and world, key speakers said at a missionary gathering.
The sense of mission and opportunity could be felt throughout the Korean-American United Methodist Mission Convocation, held May 4-7. Bishop Hae-Jong Kim and Board of Global Ministries chief staff executive Randolph Nugent led the call for the Korean community to take the reins of leadership in the church at large and in worldwide missions.
"God is challenging us … to move forward," said Bishop Kim, who leads the New York West Area of the United Methodist Church. "That is the call of God for us."
The Korean community must produce solid spiritual leaders who can enter into the mainstream of society and make a difference, Kim said.
The evangelical fervor of the Korean community can be harnessed to bring a lot of good to the United Methodist Church, he said. Noting that the community tends to be ingrown because of language limitations, Kim said the big challenge is for Koreans to go beyond those boundaries and provide leadership in the larger church.
The vision of having a small niche is so limiting, he said. "God's vision for us is much greater than that."
Kim compared the Korean immigrants in America to the Jews during the Babylonian captivity. God, speaking through Jeremiah, told the people to be patient, set down roots and become part of mainstream society, the bishop said during an evening worship service. Likewise, the Korean-Americans must settle down and root themselves in the new soil of the new land, he said.
Get married and have "lots of children," he told his listeners. The Korean-American community must grow in numbers, he said, but the main job is to raise people with integrity, strength and wisdom, who can be spiritual leaders.
"We need to plant a Christ-centered value system into the hearts and minds of our children," he said.
Nugent also called on Korean Americans to participate fully in the denomination, so that eventually, they "would permeate the structure of the United Methodist Church to the core."
He urged the convocation attendees to be active as missionaries around the world. Koreans, who have experienced separation and even war in their own country, have a background that would enable them to reach other people suffering around the world, Nugent said.
"This is a very special moment in which Korean-American United Methodists should take a major role in the worldwide missionary movement," Nugent said. "You have the strength, you have the vision, you have the faith, you have the community. You undergird it, and you have the spirit."
During a worship service, 35 newly commissioned mission pastors were recognized. The Board of Global Ministries created the mission pastor designation recently to help establish new congregations. The designation allows the pastors to bypass some of the normal United Methodist structure and move more quickly in starting new churches in the Korean community, said the Rev. Jong Sung Kim, executive secretary of Asian-Pacific American Ministries with the Board of Global Ministries. The board is providing the pastors with health insurance and other benefits, in addition to a salary supplement, for a three-year period.
Sharon Maeda, deputy general secretary with the Board of Global Ministries, is a third-generation Japanese American. At one point during the convocation, she said that her grandfather was a lay leader in Oregon who never had the opportunity to attend seminary or become a pastor.
For her, the recent commissioning of the mission pastors carried special meaning. "It moved me to tears," she said, "and it was a very significant moment."
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