Candidate 34 Profile

Section A. Background Information

10. Year of Ordination

11. Denomination of Ordination

12. If not RCA, what classis or supervising body from the ordaining denomination recognizes your ordination?

13. Present denomination

14. Present classis or judicatory

15. If you are not now a member of the Reformed Church in America, can you, in good conscience, agree with the doctrine, discipline and government of the RCA?

16. Do you support the mission and division of the Reformed Church in America?

Yes.

17. Citizen of what country? If not USA, do you have permit to live and work in the USA?

South Korea. I am currently on R1 visa and will need immigration sponsorship.

18. Previous Experience

19. Formal Education

20. Continuing Education

21. Languages (list any languages, other than English, in which you can preach or converse fluently)

Korean (preaching level), Hebrew (conversation level)

Section B. Reflection

1. Describe your strengths, the best of who you are, and what you bring in service to the church.

I believe I can serve the church with the following ability/skill/credentials:

1. Education and experience: Over 5 years of theological education combined with bachelor and master level, as well as over 5 years of ministry experience serving in Presbyterian churches.

2. Unique life experience: I lived in Korea and Israel for many years before coming the U.S. From this, I gained familiarity with multi ethnic and multicultural setting, as well as familiarity with language and culture of the Holy land. I firmly believe these will bring much benefits for the church.

3. Computer skill: I have good understanding and skill of computer gained from studying computer information systems. I also have church administration experience. These will help to further serve the church better in addition to other qualifications.

2. Name two or three mentors who have significantly contributed to your ministry, and explain why these people are important to you.

My parents have served as missionaries in Israel and they currently serve together for the Jewish mission here in New York by reaching out through various means. They pray regularly and daily, and they also do not skip reading and studying the Scripture even one day. I learned a lot from watching them serving and walking with the Lord. While there have been many people in my life thus far from which I learned a lot about faith and Christian life, I would like to emphasize my parents as those that influenced me the most since they were for me both parents and like mentors as well.

3. What caused you to enter ministry, and what are the core values that define your vision for ministry?

I lived in Israel for 7 years, and during that time I was able to learn Hebrew well that allowed me to read and understand the Hebrew Bible. With this I developed a passion to the Bible, and it led me to devote my life into ministry.

My core value of ministry is the restoration of the church to its original form of the early church as found in the book of Acts. This means to restore the basic and original principle of the church that Jesus intended, which emphasizes three things in particular: prayer (Matt 21:13), loving God and neighbors (Mark 12:30-31), and the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20). Through moving toward such a direction, it will be possible as a church to begin living out as what Christ told us to live, and thus naturally impacting others outside the church as well.

4. Explain the strategies or ideas that most excite you for helping a church to become and remain missional.

In order for church to be and continue remain missional, there has to be continued reminder of the value and reason for dedicating in missions. Why we need to do this? Why we need to dedicate and serve for this cause? What does it produce and what is the value of this? Such questions should continue be addressed, reminded, and explained well every time in order to help the church members to continue with missions.

5. Name three of your most passionate hopes for the Church at large, and why they are significant to you.

1. Functioning as the communicator of the word of God: This can be done by the church continuously teaching and preaching the Bible in the right way to those in the world. The Bible is the word of God that is the only message of hope, truth and salvation, and the church should continue to dwell in it and proclaim it until the return of Christ.

2. Functioning as the light of the world: The church can do this by reaching out those who are in need via programs like food pantry, visiting and supporting the homeless and the weak etc. It should not remain as a place for certain group of people, but as a place that is actively reaching out and helping those who are overlooked in the society.

3. Helping people to grow: The church should be the place of growth. It should be the place where people grow with the word of God, not just in terms of adding more Scriptural knowledge but actually to think about life and get closer to God via reflecting personal life on the Scripture.

6. Give an example of how you would theologically address an issue facing your contemporary world. Please be thorough enough to help the reader to understand your thought processes and your life commitments.

As a pastor, I believe that there is a widespread tendency among believers today to think and believe that by praying a prayer or doing certain things they can get a ticket to heaven, and with this they can live the life in anyway they like. I am 100 percent positive that the Bible does NOT say anything like this since it has various verses talking about salvation in different manner. For example, one part of Bible says that you will be saved if you call the name of Jesus. But then in another part it says that not all who say Lord Lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Salvation is indeed the most important issue for everyone in the world, and I think believers should have a clear understanding and correct belief on the issue of salvation so that they can reach out to others and tell them what the Bible really say about the issue.

7. What theologians, pastors, authors or other leaders have had the greatest influence upon your life and thought? (List up to 4 and explain.)

I would like to mention two pastors that influenced my life and thought. These are pastor David Wilkerson and pastor Paul Washer. Although I never had any chance meeting any of them in person, I believe I was moved and learned a lot by listening to their sermons and their teachings. Especially, I liked the Youth sermon which Paul washer preached many years ago. I came across with this sermon years ago, and since then I still regard this as one of the most powerful and effective sermons I ever heard that every time I listen to this it reminds me of what is truly important in our faith journey, that is purity and truthfulness.

8. How do you hope someone influenced by your ministry would describe what s/he considers to be most important?

I hope that those people who were influenced under my leadership would describe of me as being faithful servant of the Lord who is humble and though may have some defects still try hard to live up to the standard as the follower of Christ and as an exemplary shepherd, without any or much hypocrisy.

9. Name at least one challenge for a pastor who accepts a Call to lead a church whose culture is other than his/her own.

There can be many challenges a pastor with different culture may experience, but one particular challenge would be relationship with the church members. Difference of culture can lead to unintentional conflict through certain actions or even gestures that could be difficult to get accepted as I have been experiencing myself. I think this will have to be overcome by effort and the pastor simply will have to get used to the difference of culture and do what he can to build up a better relationship with the members.

10. Describe your vision and hopes for the Church over the next 5-10 years.

Many churches today are experiencing decrease due to several factors such as the pandemic and growing secularism. While the future perspective of church does not seem to be much bright based on current situation, I believe the vision and hope for survival and growth of church is based on how well the church can maintain the quality of biblical faith for the next 5 to 10 years. Instead of focusing external things like numerical growth and developing new programs, church must focus on internal matters such as digging into the word of God to better understand it and obeying by living by it. When the spiritual quality of church grows and establishes, meaning when the church becomes a good vessel before the Lord, everything else will follow.

11. If there is anything else you would like to add about yourself that you think would help a search team to better understand and consider you as their next pastor, please elaborate here.

I do aware that I do not have either associate or senior pastor experience. This is simply because I did not have any opportunity to serve in such positions yet, NOT because I am not qualified or unable to function in such positions. I do have experiences serving for children, youth, and young adults though, and I am willing to put effort and prayer to make things work if there comes an opportunity. I will be happy to provide anything and meet with anyone to discuss and work together with the process if you are willing to give me a chance.