Growing Roots and Growth (2001-2010) - St Timothy Presbyterian Church

(To view Korean subtitles on the video, click the “CC” button and select “한국어”.) This video is part of our 25th Anniversary: Community of the Word series. For more on the Community of the Word, please click here.

Transcript

Growth of the Korean-Speaking Ministry

What was the growth pattern of the KSM during this decade?

That time was kind of a growth spurt. Since we moved here, a lot of people around this area started coming to church. So before, they came from all over the place, when we were in downtown and the west end. But now we are in the Etobicoke area. A lot of people from Etobicoke started coming. So in a month, like 30 – 40 people started coming. Right from the beginning, our people said if we could get 200 people, we would be very satisfied. It’s not like we wanted to become a big church, but with at least 200 people we can do a lot of mission work and also it’s like a family. So that was ideal. We actually went over 200, with some attendance to 300. Somehow just with a new building, the church grew. For the English congregation, there were really not many people who came from the Etobicoke area. They came from North York, Richmond Hill and all different places. So the ESM congregation is more from different areas. So those individuals chose this church intentionally and came. But, the KSM congregation came from the neighborhood. People just started coming. So that was a little bit different. Also our English congregation is very different from other English congregations. Maybe 70 – 80% of the ESM congregation does not have parents here in the first generation – they came on their own. So our ESM is not really the children of the first generation, they are their own autonomous body. But they still want to have a relationship with a first-generation Korean speaking congregation. That’s amazing, even though they are not necessarily their parents. So, that’s a composition of our church. Even now 70 to 80% don’t have their parents here. And then sometimes the second generation comes first and then they bring their parents. So that pattern I see sometimes as well.

How did they integrate into the life of the community?

How the newcomers were integrated into our community? I think it was relatively easy. At that time, part of the growth was after Korean speaking service. After service we all went to somebody’s house. At four o’clock or so, we were there, and they always provided kind of soup, simple food. So we ate and then we sang praises and had a Bible study every Sunday. So when new people came, it was easy for them to get adjusted because we would go right into fellowship. So that was really good at that time. So right after service, people would just hang around a little bit and then we all went to their house and had a Bible study. That was really a key factor that brought new people into the community.

Growth of the English-Speaking Ministry

What was going on in the ESM during this time?

The ESM congregation. At that time, these two ideas grew in my mind. One is rabbinic spirituality, and the other is monastic spirituality. Rabbinic spirituality is very much teaching, very strong, academically sound, deep, profound, but also, life wise, very applicable; real and practical. That kind of strong teaching element. That is a rabbinic spirituality. Monastic spirituality is more like solitary, meditation, prayer, – that kind of spirituality. So I was even thinking of, I told people, why don’t we create a prayer garden here? Maybe put some rocks and such, so as soon as people come to this church, they feel like this is a kind of holy place where God is. This is still my vision for the future. If we can get the money, that whole area, as they come in, they come into a different place where they can stay away from the world and just sit quietly and meditate, pray – that kind of place.

So those two are very strong and in the congregation, that biggest thing is leadership. At that time, I wanted to build a session, I wanted to elect some elders, but nobody wants to do it. That’s so different from KSM, everybody wants to be an elder, but in ESM, nobody wanted to do it. It’s not just that we appoint some people to be elders, but they have to be ready to take on. But it’s in a way it’s a good thing that nobody wanted to do it because it meant that they took eldership very seriously. In other words, they didn’t just take it lightly. They knew what eldership was all about. So they felt that, that they are not ready to take eldership. So, you know, year after year, I constantly encouraged them to be elders and nobody did it. Then one year, I finally said, “yeah, it’s time to have elders.” So, we had an election and John and James became elders. They were the first elders and they had a lot of questions. So I had to meet them separately. And then they explained to them, and they became elders. Then after a while, I wanted to have some female elders too. So we got some female elders in the KSM too. It was always my dream and vision to have women elders. And we got two women elders. And one woman elder was actually the first woman elder in the history of the HanCa Presbytery. So, that’s good. So, in the ESM congregation, we wanted to build the leadership group. It’s amazing how much they’ve changed since they became elders. The way they look at the church changed, their level of ownership for the church changed. And after that a lot of elders came out and then the whole church changed quite a bit. And also, all in the ministry at this church, God sent other people – it wasn’t just me any more. There were some other people like Rev Chung, and we worked together, Rev Son and Rev Jane came along. At one point we had four ordained ministers. Our church is not that big, we don’t have a lot of financial resources. But, my attitude was whoever wanted to serve Christ, they should serve Christ and the churches should provide funding for that.

In the past, I was always worried about the ESM congregation. What is it going to be like in the future. Then somehow, Simon, you approached me with this TBS idea (Tuesday Bible Study) and you wanted to have Bible study at that time. You didn’t go to church. And a lot of people didn’t go to church and you only wanted to have Bible study. I thought it was really interesting that people who don’t go to church wanted to have a Bible study. Even people who come to church don’t want to have a Bible study ! So sure, that’s how TBS began. But you don’t know how much TBS blessed this congregation. I never told the TBS group to come to church, I just did the Bible study. My purpose was not to bring them to the church, my purpose was just to teach them really what the Bible has to say to them. And then they really got excited about TBS and TBS grew. Their understanding of church grew, their understanding of God and understanding of Jesus grew tremendously. And they started coming to church and they changed the whole atmosphere of the English speaking congregation at this church. But before this, a long time ago, Dr. Cha really mobilized a lot of young second generation. Then through TBS our church became much more diverse and different. And then as the spirit worked, as God called Paul. You know, Peter was the foundation for the church, but called Paul to do mission for the second generation.

Then you, Simon, approached me and wanted to go into seminary and became a minister. I was so shocked and I was so happy because my prayer was answered for the future of the second generation ministry. How God works and how the spirit works throughout the church is incredible. Rev Chung and I worked really hard to build the Korean speaking congregation. Now you have come along and have built up the second generation. Now I feel very strong because these ministers did a lot of good work for the church, like bringing in a lot of Korean speaking young people to our church. In our congregation, there are some people who speak Korean but join the English speaking Congregation because of age, rather than Korean speaking congregation. So, Rev Son did a lot of ministry for the Korean speaking young people. So that is something that we need to work on a little bit more, and we see the dynamics of how we can all work together. To help both the Korean speaking and English speaking congregation.

What were some challenges you faced while doing ESM?

For about two or three years, I stayed away from the English speaking congregation. Connie was by herself with the English speaking congregation, but at that time we struggled quite a bit and the membership went down quite a bit. So, those, two – three years, the Korean speaking congregation actually grew every week – that’s when it became close to 200 members at that time. Yeah. So there was a kind of difficult time for the English speaking congregation. So I wanted to give them the opportunity to do ministry on their own. But somehow it didn’t work out very well. So there were a lot of concerns. And also there were a lot of people who left the church too during that time. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a difficult time.

How did you regroup or rebound from the difficult time?

I mean, there was a search committee and the search committee asked me to come back to the ESM congregation. So even though I was a minister already called by this church, I told them, okay, then have a congregation meeting. And then we put a proposal that I will still do preaching and teaching and that Rev Chung will do a lot of administrative stuff for the ESM congregation. So we put that forward and then had a congregational vote. So the congregation accepted that proposal. So that’s how I came back to English speaking congregation at that time.

Growing Roots

How did you work with leaders?

There was a new energy, a lot of creative, new energy there. So, at that time we called the board of managers BOM, and we worked with the BOM. And also, I think during that time, Paul Kang, who was part of our ministry, did a wonderful job. He really built up college group very strongly. So, we started building the church up in that way. I think maybe during that time too, we went to Kazakhstan and Talgard? We went there and we did a mission. There was no church there so we just did street evangelism and then brought people. And then we got the mission, appointed one minister there and then we supported first full support and year after 75% and 50%. Then the church was established in Kazakhstan. So almost every year we went there. And the second generation and then first gen second generation, people like Shinae and Josh, and then all these guys in their lives. First time they did street missions, evangelism, and they were so shocked that people responded so well. So then we built a church, Light of the World it was called. Yeah. And so that was the Kazakhstan mission. That was a mission of both KSM and ESM together.

How was the church living out its mission of standing with the weak and vulnerable?

How did the statement of standing with the weak and vulnerable come about? Yeah, when I left TKPC, I was always interested in the immigrant situation, marginal people. But, as I said before, there was not really a theology for the immigrants, there was no immigration theology. But, we were a marginal existence. So I was very interested in this marginal existence. So I looked at, black theology, women theology, feminist theology and liberation theology because they are basically theologies for marginal people. So I wanted to understand this immigrant situation because these are marginalized people. So it has been always there right from the beginning, the stand with the weak and vulnerable. Church is for the Marginal existence – that’s what Jesus did. Jesus did not work with the people in the center. Jesus worked with the people in the periphery in a marginal existence. People in the center, they don’t want to change. They want to keep the status quo because they get all the privilege, but people are people on the margin, they want to change because they are not receiving benefits. So they are wanting to bring about change. So Jesus worked with the people on the margin who have a desire to change because Jesus came to change the world. And so the church should always stand with the weak and vulnerable because they are the ones who need help, first of all, God’s help and also they are the ones who have desire to bring about change.

How did this aspect of the mission statement come about?

I think that that was kind of a year of growth, right? Yeah. A decade of growth. So we did lots of mission work: South Africa, Kenya, native mission. So we did lots of mission work during that time. Yeah. And I also did a lot of missions by myself. I didn’t take the group – the groups I took were South Africa in the beginning, and Kazakhstan. But after that, I did missions on my own. I started teaching theological students and ministers in Malawi, South Africa and Madagascar. So these areas, different areas. I started teaching pastors. I went to teach at theological seminaries and also ministers groups. And so I did those kinds of missions by myself, at that time.

What was the Teesdale ministry?

I mean, Teasdale church is quite far. I mean, if we had a choice, we would have chosen something closer to this area, but we couldn’t find any. And then we found Teasdale. I mean, we go to South Africa but Teasdale Scarborough? What was the big deal? So we started and I wanted to really build a church there. I wanted to use this hermeneutics tool. So first we just handed out food every Thursday. And, after a while, I kind of talked with the leaders there. I asked them: Do you want to have a Bible study ? I mean, I called it life study. Do you want to start that? They were like “oh yeah! We like it!” So we gathered together after handing out all the food every Thursday, and then we gathered together and it was certainly a Bible study and it worked! I asked questions about the scripture and life and they got so excited about [it]. And so every week, people started coming, more and more people started coming. Some other ethnic groups came, even some Muslims came and they brought their own food, cultural food, because they were so excited. So, we did Bible study with Muslims and Christians and all kinds of people. It was so exciting. So I said: okay, now that we have a Bible study, do you want to start a church? Church, worship? They said: Okay. Sure. Why not? And so on Sunday we started having worship service and Thursday, we handed out food and but we didn’t do a Bible study anymore. So Sunday we started, the worship service and then we had opening service and our a lot of St. Timothy people came. We bought hymn books and Bibles and, so we started having worship. So I went there for about two years, almost every week after our service. but it was tiring, really, But it was an exciting kind of tiring. So after our service, we went there and had service. So like Korean service and English service.

I mean, yeah, I didn’t talk about that worship time, how for first-generation, really gave priority to the secondary generation. So we gave the second generation, the Golden worship time, I think 10 30 or 11 was the golden time. It was because we wanted to build a second generation congregation. Then, the Korean service, even though we had a building, we had the worst time, at one. So the Korean speaking people were thinking, we have our own building, and we still have worship in the afternoon? But, you know, I explained to them that English service was a priority, let us give them the better time. But English service at that time, right now it’s a little bit different, but at that time we started at 11, but people would come at 11:15, 11:30. I mean at 11 o’clock, there were only one or two people sitting. But we had worship at that time for many years. Then one day I said: you guys, you come very late ,11:15, 11:30. So do you want to have afternoon service and give the Korean service the morning time? They said, okay. So we changed the worship time. So Korean service had morning time and English service had afternoon time. But we didn’t want to be too late so we decided on 12 o’clock or something like that. So we had service but after a while there was some people complaining. You know, 12 o’clock is right at nap time for our kids. So there were a growing complaints, right. So I said, okay, let me talk to the KSM. So I talked to the Korean speaking session: There is an issue. Can we switch it back? And then Korean speaking session said: Sure. Yeah. If it is a good for the English speaking congregation, then that’s good. So they said, okay. But we wanted to find out with the people. So you guys want to have a morning service now and you have the opportunity to do so. And a lot of young people said we can’t get up 10 o’clock. So, they just wanted to have an afternoon service.

So I mean, I’m just telling you about this to show how much the Korean speaking congregation tried to accommodate the needs of the second generation. So the Korean speaking service and English speaking service, and I went to Teasdale and did the service. And after that Rev. Chung did quite a bit for Teasdale. And after other pastors also began taking over. So I did about two years until I built the church. But at that time I wanted to really reach out to other areas too. So, uh, we are looking at churches, but it was hard, yeah.

Reflecting Back on a Decade of Growth

When you look back at this decade, what are some thoughts that would capture this decade for you in your mind?

Did those experiences shape you?

I realized what I’m trying to do here is exactly the same there. I realized that theology has to be very much life theology. It’s about life. It’s not about sophisticated ideas, but in the scripture, there is a secret that helps people. Doesn’t matter what their life circumstances may be, their life circumstances are very different from North American lifestyle, but still the message rang true for them. So I realized that this kind of hermeneutics, this kind of Bible studies is applicable for everyone. So I was very happy to see that it can be applicable to any life situation. It is just a methodology of how to interpret your life through the scripture. It’s not really one remedy for one certain context, but it is the way you read the scripture, the way you interpret the scripture, you just help people to reflect their own situations.

What was this awareness? Was this a sharp focus for you during this decade?

Yeah, because I wanted to first try with the first generation and second generation – and it worked. I wanted to try that with a different culture, like South Africa, Madagascar in Malawi, and it worked! They responded with great enthusiasm. And a lot of people said, I never saw that in the scripture. It was already always there, but they never saw that. They never asked questions about that.

Community of the Word: 25 Years of St. Timothy Presbyterian Church

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