Where can the lonely look to find connection? In Made to Belong, David Kim discusses five practices for cultivating community in a disconnected world. In this interview, SOLA Network’s editorial curator Aaron Lee interviews author David Kim, and they discuss:
- Made to Belong and how David’s best friend broke up with him
- The false connection cycle as related to Asian Americans
- Why and how David’s experiences with loneliness as a Korean American immigrant are up front in his book
- Poorly modeled small groups and how we can build up better ones in an immigrant and intergenerational context
- Why isolation is a seasonal gift and practical tips for finding community for parents of young children
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Aaron Lee: Hi everyone. This is Aaron for SOLA Network. And today we are talking with David Kim. David is the author of Made to Belong: Five Practices for Cultivating Community in a Disconnected World. David, I was wondering if you could introduce yourself, you’re also a pastor, and share the story about how your best friend broke up with you.
David Kim: Yeah, thanks for inviting me. Again, my name is David and I’m a pastor of discipleship and formation at Westgate church here in Silicon Valley. And I was actually born in South Korea, I came to the States when I was 10 years old. And little did I know that everything would just change right before my eyes, I had new community friends, church, neighborhood school.
And I think as a child, I didn’t have the tools in which to navigate my pain of loneliness. And I had a good friend who, who became my best friend, Paul, and he really leaned into our friendship and care for me and show me what America is all about. And I don’t think I knew how to be a good friend to him. And we went through our middle school in high school together.
And on my way to college, he wrote me this letter, and I thought I was gonna read it and say, Hey, David, thanks for being such a wonderful friend, I love you, and I’m gonna miss you. And I opened and he said, Hey, David, I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. You’re a terrible friend.
And that really caught me off guard. And I think that began a journey of self reflection to see am I a good friend? And am I doing this right. And I still remember that letter.
Aaron Lee: So that was a story from your past, obviously, you’ve learned a lot since then. And you’re able to write a book about it, this experience of loneliness, you were able to kind of talk about it in terms of a false connection cycle, I was wondering if you could share that with our audience, just really quickly give an overview of it. But then also try to relate it to an Asian American context if you’re able to do that.
David Kim: So the false connection that I write in my book is that we first kind of isolate from our community, which leads to loneliness. And then we end up pursuing false connections that promise belonging and satisfaction, and I’ll talk about that. And then lastly, we feel anxious and lonely from the lack of real intimacy, and belonging from those false connections and for many of us, and when I was growing up, I didn’t know they were false connections at the time, I was involved in everything in anything from gaming, online gaming, Starcraft and Counter Strike to poker and gambling to pornography, and food and eating, and all of those things.
Again, I didn’t know at that time, but I was just soothing, of my pain of loneliness. And they had these invitation or the promises of, of, of satisfaction and belonging. And more and more I explored into them. What I realized is that if promised me and they gave me actually emptiness, and more despair.
And I think I’m not the only one in that journey. Many of us have used these tools to kind of cope with our pain. But instead of giving us deep, meaning, it actually backfires on us, and we become more and more frustrated if we’re honest.
Aaron Lee: So this loneliness like I mean, for you, you’ve talked about how you went to different things, right? Games, online poker, and those those examples stood out to me. What do you think your Korean identity had anything to do with this? Because in your book, you’re very upfront and open about your Korean identity.
Two questions, I guess from that, the first one being, what made you feel like oh, you want to talk about this in your book, that identity because you didn’t have to write you could have just started writing and not have your cultural ethnic background play into it at all. Um, but you decided to put that what I believe is almost like upfront in the book. So yeah, why why did you choose to do that? And then, was it hard for you to think through, like, how that affected how you experienced loneliness and things like that?
David Kim: Okay, lots in there. So I would say first and foremost,I believe that Korean Americans and Asian American story has a unique purpose in not only our own individual lies, but for the gospel in God’s kingdom, meaning that our think our experiences really can be a incredible win. sermon resource for the larger, broader evangelical Christianity.
Growing up, I read many of the authors who are great, but just many white American authors thinking and I went to seminary, and that’s kind of how it was shaped and informed my theology, and I’m grateful for that. But I believe that there are unique perspectives and wisdom and insight that Asian Americans can bring to the conversations about theology and Christian faith. Particularly I believe about community.
The reason for that is for us, we immigrated here, and we weren’t given community, we had to build and forge community. And so for us, you know, we think about the Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s not just the physical needs, and then shelter and all that and then get into belonging for us. Belonging actually comes first, we find our community and through our community, we get all the right information and resources around our own neighborhood and our cities. And so I think, actually, we have much to offer about how to build meaningful community. I’m not saying we do it right all the time, and we have our own brokenness. And I can share about that in a bit.
So I wanted to make that clear that I’m writing from in Korean American, Asian American Christian perspective, number one. And I would say kind of going back to that false connection cycle. I think for us, where it gets really tricky is that a lot of our belonging now this is the negative side of the kind of the Korean American or, or Asian American Christian faith is that it can become transactional meaning, if you achieve or if you get great good grades, we will now accept you in our own family, or to that score to that church community. And so, so much of our belonging and community is dependent on how well we do. And I think that really shapes how we build and forge relationships, for the worse. And so all of that I wanted to kind of share and bring it to our conversation.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, and I, I’m with you, 100%. I love that you were so upfront with your identity in this. And it definitely caused me to think about how my own upbringing kind of contributed to any feelings of loneliness, or you can that getting into that cycle wasn’t hard for you to write about those things with your identity. You know, like, did you really have to think it through? Was it something that you’ve already been thinking through? You know, or Yeah, how did how did this play out? And when you’re actually doing the writing?
David Kim: Yeah, I guess what I realized is that now I’ve been a pastor for over 20 years. And that loneliness for me wasn’t just a Korean American immigrant experience. As I, I served again, for the most part in a Korean American church context. And now I’m in a multi ethnic church. But wherever that may be, everybody is struggling and dealing and facing loneliness and wanting deeper community. And so yes, it was difficult for me to process and journey.
But I realized that as I’m trying to pastor, our folks, especially our post-pandemic world, I realized that this is a similar pain that many of us have. And especially in Silicon Valley people, they say, people don’t come here for relationships, they come for work, right, they come to make something of themselves. And so I think, because we all share the similar pain, I think, historically, it was something that I really wanted to write, and excavate into kind of the deeper pains of my soul. So ended up being a good painful few years.
Aaron Lee: That’s something else that you brought up in your book too, the whole Silicon Valley, and aspect of it. Tell me about that. Tell me tell me more about that. I know you already started talking about it. But why is it that that you think that strong, strong feelings of loneliness over there?
David Kim: Yeah, I think, man, so much to talk about. But I think first, we live in a incredibly busy culture. I mean, everyone can kind of relate to that. But especially in Silicon Valley, the traffic and the 60, 70, 80 hours of work in our tech world and to grind. And to make it to the kind of the next level is really a big pressure here and for any of the startups that you’re working and you don’t know if it’s going to be a successful startup, so you have to put in significant amount of energy behind it. So business, busyness could be a factor.
I also think we live in a transient city. So hyper mobile city means that you’ll be here for a few years and you’ll leave and so not many folks are all in here to stay kind of a mantra. They’re kind of just dipping their toes and they’re not really committing too much. And I also think we live in a non committal culture. And we have many options. And so we’re kind of, yeah, we’re not really committing to one church, we’re kind of exploring like four or five churches and whatever that suits my own personality and flavor. And so just with all of those challenges, yeah, I think there is a invitation for us to build deeper community. And I think it’s really important. And if we’re not careful, we will continue to drift away into isolation and self sufficiency.
Aaron Lee: I hate to say it, right. But it sounds like due to your cultural background, and due to your placement in Silicon Valley, you are the perfect person to write about this and to have to experience it and do it.
David Kim: So yeah, because I’m a terrible person. (laughing) Yeah. And and No, it’s true. And, and so these are mainly just my own personal growth edges. And I realized, Oh, my goodness, if I don’t really do this, this is going to really impact my discipleship to Jesus in a significant way.
So that was really the centerpiece that my formational pathway. Yes, I love theology. Yes. I love Bible study. Yes, I have seminary degree. But at the end of the day, if I don’t build community, and accountability, I am left alone. And I begin to believe the lie that I can live this world alone.
Aaron Lee: Yeah. I mean, even though it was the book is very personal to you, though, I did find many aspects of it relatable, specifically, an area where you talk about small groups, and and you talked about how you’ve seen poorly modeled small groups, and I definitely have seen that in my church contexts. I want to ask you if you can talk about what would be healthy, healthy, small groups, so you can talk about both unhealthy and what would be healthy? And then I do want to ask you, specifically, if you can tap into that Korean side of you, and then say, how can we? Yeah, like, you know, the pitfalls that come with the culture. Right. So so how can we totally combat those things? Yeah.
David Kim: Yeah, so that’s kind of the my main emphasis of the book, I really wrote my book for small groups and small group leaders who are building and forging communities and pastors who care deeply about moving from a shallow community to deep, transformative community. And I had small group leaders in mind.
So as I share about small groups, I am critiquing the very thing that I love. And I oversee small groups and my church. And so please hear me when I say I love small groups, but they are often just a non thoughtful machine that we’ve just created to shelf people in these, these smaller groups so that they stay at our church if we’re really being honest.
But the goal of small group is formation into Christ’s likeness, through deep care and love and support. And so what I realized is that we need to learn how to build community. We don’t we know that it’s important to us, but no one has really taught us how to forge community.
So I talk about in my book five practices to forging community: priority chemistry, vulnerability, empathy, and accountability. And they are built in order. And but I don’t I mean, definitely, I could talk my entire, like, few hours on this in this podcast. But what I will say is this, in these five practices to forge deep, meaningful community.
Now I’m going to talk about specifically the Korean American or the Asian American context. Yeah, the one that I think we fall apart is vulnerability. I think when you’re trying to build small groups, and if your leader or if your pastor is not vulnerable is not honest, because of their position, or their power or their title. And I’ve seen this over and over again. And I’ve seen this in my own life. Right? I will tell people to be honest, but I can’t be honest, because of my own shame, my pride, my title, my position may be potential gossip at per spaghett, or judgment, or whatever that may be that may come in my way.
And so what we end up doing is in our small groups, we regurgitate content, which isn’t bad. But if we talk about content from afar, but we never talk about how the content or teachings of Jesus is really deeply impacting and challenging. Some of the things that we are wrestling honestly unable to verbalize that for our, our people that we’re doing life with. And because we’re not vulnerable and we are filled with shame, and pride, I think our communities tend to just have shallow conversations? If we’re honest, yeah.
Aaron Lee: Well, how can we how can we fight that? How can we go against that tendency to put up, you know, those walls? How would you get advice on how to fight that tendency?
David Kim: Man, again, I talk about it more in my book, but, and I get that some of you come from church hurt, right, and you’ve been vulnerable, and but you’ve been met with gossip and abuse and betrayal. And I get that and, and, and, and I’m mindful of that conversation. At the same time, I think vulnerability is how you create safe spaces.
And vulnerabilities got to always start with your leadership, it’s got to start with your lead pastor, it’s got to start with your pastors, it’s got to start with your small group leaders, we cannot lead somewhere that we haven’t been. And we cannot say this is a safe place unless you have modeled that safe place for others. And safety comes through confession and vulnerability. Because we can relate not to all of your successes, where we can relate to a lot of our brokenness, because we are all broken by sin in need of Jesus in our in our, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so I would say vulnerabilities can be modeled by our leaders. And that’s really how I think real community is formed.
Aaron Lee: I love it, I love it. That’s something that I want to apply after reading that in your book, and after hearing it from you personally, that’s, that’s really impactful. I want to keep this, I want to keep this on a personal level, you’ve talked about in your book, isolation, being a seasonal gift, okay. And so, so maybe moments of isolation in somebody’s life? Well, for me, it’s been difficult to maybe find, you know, consistent community because I have young kids. Now, my question for you is, is that a season of isolation? And how can I? How can I get out of that? Yeah, I’m sure asking for practical help here for my own personal life.
David Kim: Yeah. So yeah, I have two girls as well. And so I can relate, I think for young parents, again, you guys are battling all sorts of fronts. And, and as a young parent myself, I have so much empathy on that front. Here’s what I would say, as I’m also pastoring. A ton of young parents here at Westgate church.
Number one is that while we do understand your lack of sleep, and your inability to like carve out time to come to small groups, I was saying, number one is that when you are forging and building your own family, and you’re going through the chaos of raising kids, that’s actually when you need the support of your community all the more. So I would say even though I get the sleepless nights, I think kind of finding a space for community matters, because you do need the support of your people even more than ever you’ve ever had in your life. So that’s number one.
And number two, practically, how does that work is you could do it multiple ways. So number one is I need my men’s group on Tuesday, and my wife has her small group on Thursday. And so we rotate. So on Tuesday, she watches a kid and I go, and I do my small group, and then we and then I watch on Thursdays. And so that’s a way in which we tag team.
Another way I’ve seen is a friend of mine, they have a young family is a small group. And so what they do is they all meet together on one week. And then the second week, all the men meet and the third week all the women meet. And then the fourth week all of them meet together. So whatever the rhythms may be, that makes it a little bit easier. Again, understanding all the complexities of raising little kids, I think you can find some tweaks and tools to make it still make sense for your family rhythm. And I think it’s really important to build that because you need the support even more in this season. Yeah, now that’s some really great practical help.
Aaron Lee: David, I appreciate that. We’re running low on time. And so I want to ask you one more question. This one maybe, maybe if you could just give, give us some hope, some hope for what community looks like I know you wrote about this in your book. You talked about your small group. Yeah, maybe can you just give some hope and for people who are like, you know, is it is it really worth it, you know, to to pursue this this community that you’re talking about, you know, Can you can you give any hope what what it would look like how it would change somebody’s life?
David Kim: So we all know this as Christians and as followers of Jesus that God made us in community for community and community is truly God’s gift to us and I get it. Sometimes they’re a pain. Sometimes we have conflict and we navigate through all sorts of things. But at the end of the day, the kind of grace that is offered and embodied and the love and support and care and the prayers that we receive, oh, how desperately we need that in our lives.
And as we build this, these communities, one of the most beautiful gifts of the community, I believe, is again, that’s why it’s a final and the fifth practice accountability when I have into a journey with me for a long time, and they have seen my history, my patterns, and habits and to come alongside and say, Hey, we’re not committing and just leaving, but we are committed to you and you, we are committed to your family. And in that we’ve seen and we’ve noticed some patterns in your life that we want to talk about. And we believe that if you’re able to address it, this would deepen your discipleship to Jesus.
Oh, boy. When I hear that, as painful, as it may be, how sharpening it is how formative it is, to have friends who care deeply about me to even go through the awkward conversations, to call out what God might be inviting me into. And to have those friends and to build those friends, at the end of the day, I believe will be such a great joy to your own discipleship to Jesus and such a gift, that you’re not alone in this world, trying to figure out how to become a better follower of Jesus, that you have people who are coming alongside to help you become all that God is already trying to do in your life. What a gift that is.
And so I would say wherever you may be, take one more step in contacting that person or that church or that small group, and to show up and prioritize. That’s why it’s the first practice for me. And wherever you may be, just want to say, take one more step. And that’s where you can begin. And God will do beautiful things through your commitment.
Aaron Lee: Absolutely. David, thank you so much for your time. I’m glad we got to spend some time chatting about this stuff. Super important. And I was blessed by your book. Thank you so much.
David Kim: Thank you so much for having me.