If you had told then-seminary student Owen Lee that he would one day be the senior pastor of a majority Korean American church, he would have been incredulous. The Asian American church had too many flaws. His ideal would be to pastor a multiethnic church — that was the big leagues.
But now, Lee is the joyful senior pastor of a Korean American church in the greater metro D.C. area. During his pastoral journey, God revealed that he had been downplaying and even hating his culture and ethnicity, when it was actually his cultural background that God had given him to steward and use.
Throughout our conversation, you will see Lee (who is also a member of the SOLA Council) as a man who is now comfortable in both his identity in Christ and as a second-generation Asian American.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Hannah Chao: What kind of church did you want to pastor when you first came out of seminary?
Owen Lee: About 15-20 years ago, there was a big push for churches in America to become more diverse — churches shouldn’t be made up of just one ethnicity, but they should be multiethnic. As a result, multiethnic churches led by white pastors with majority-white congregations proliferated.
Because of this context and my seminary education, which consisted of mostly white professors and white theologians, I bought into this model of the American church. Concurrently, I came to believe that ministry in a Korean American church was akin to “junior varsity” while ministry in a white-majority church was “varsity.” I had come to value the presence of white people in church more than I valued my own or other Asian Americans’ presence.
Even as a Korean American pastor, I had been convinced that having a majority-white church with a minority percentage of other ethnicities mixed in was the definition of success. I told myself that when this happened, I would know that I had “made it” in ministry. But it turns out that many multiethnic churches are, in fact, culturally white in both style and philosophy, and the minorities at these churches must leave their ethnic cultures at the door in order to survive in these spaces.
Hannah Chao: How did you feel about the Korean and Korean American Church?
Owen Lee: If a sense of self-hate drove me to admire the white church, then that same self-hate drove me to despise the Korean American church. I grew up in a Korean American church, served as a college pastor at a Korean American church during seminary, and then served as the English Ministry (EM) pastor at a Korean American church after graduating from seminary.
But I wasn’t happy with being an EM pastor in the Korean American Church. I saw everything in the Korean American church as being compromised, inconsistent, and even corrupt. I thought that the white, European way of doing church was more biblical. In other words, I believed that “white was right.” When there was a problem in my Korean American church, I would imagine that my white professors at their white churches knew all the answers, or even better, that they probably didn’t even struggle with these types of problems in their churches.
Furthermore, I felt like my experience, and in fact, my existence as a minority was a liability. I knew that I knowledge gaps because I was a minority and grew up in the Korean American church. I felt my status as a minority and constantly felt like an outsider.
So I would try to downplay, dismiss, and even suppress my Asian Americanness. I would try to be as white as I could so that I could assimilate and make white people feel as comfortable as possible. Their comfort around me and at our church was always the unspoken, but functional, top priority. The combination of these factors meant that I had resentment towards my status as a minority and envy toward white people. I envied how white people could “always be themselves”, while I felt like I could never just “be myself.”
Hannah Chao: How did these feelings play out in your own pastoral ministry?
Owen Lee: I planted a church with the intention of it being a multiethnic church. There were some good motivations for wanting to plant a church like that, but I admit there were sinful, fleshly motivations as well. I needed to prove to myself — prove that I could play “varsity,” prove that I could pastor and lead a church with white people in it.
These sinful and selfish needs manifested through my actions and the preferential treatment I showed to people. For example, when a new white person came to visit our church, I was overly excited to see them. If the person was white, Reformed, and intelligent, then I was elated and spent an excessive amount of time and energy over that person, making sure that the person felt welcomed at our church.
But when a new Asian person came, I unwittingly thought to myself, “Eh, it’s just another Asian person. No big deal.” I was guilty of applying the sin of partiality (James 2:1-7) to race and ethnicity, preferring white people over people of color (POC).
I do not believe that I was doing this consciously. I was doing it because I had internalized white supremacy — the idea that the white church was superior, and that having white people in the church were the marks of a “healthy” church — even a “superior” church.
Hannah Chao: What changed your view about the white church versus POC church? Was it something in ministry?
Owen Lee: I came face-to-face with my worldview and internalized racism as I transitioned out of my church plant and began applying to different churches. I had an impressive pastoral resume, so I sent it to many senior pastor openings, maybe a little naively.
To my deep disappointment, I didn’t get one callback from majority-white churches. That forced me to deal with issues that I had tried to ignore or didn’t think applied to me. Why didn’t those churches even consider me? Not even a phone interview?
Eventually, I was contacted by a multiethnic church, which was planted by a white pastor. But the church was bi-racial; half white and half Chinese Canadians. When I went to do my interviews, the elders (who were Chinese-Canadians) loved me. They were so encouraged that they would finally have their chance to have an Asian-American lead pastor.
But then the head of the search committee (who was a white man) and which was separate from the session (elders), told me, in essence, “We love you, and we really think you’re great. But we just can’t see you as a lead pastor. But would you be open to the assistant or associate role?”
I replied, “Really? That’s funny. I was applying to the lead pastor role. I believe that God has gifted and called me to be a lead pastor.” But he made it clear that he didn’t see me as lead pastor material, at least in his eyes.
That experience was disheartening, infuriating, and offensive. That’s when I asked myself, “Why do I need to impress white people? What’s so deep inside me that needs the validation, the approval, or the recognition of white people? What’s going on in my own heart? Why do I think white churches are superior to Korean American churches? Why is it that when a white professor says something, it seems more legitimate and more weighty than when a minority professor says it?”
Hannah Chao: How did the Gospel speak into your changing views of your ethnicity?
Owen Lee: Asking myself these questions took me on a Gospel journey when it came to my racial identity. I began to go back to the basic doctrines of creation and the idea of the Imago Dei. I looked back to how my past has shaped me and how God made and redeemed me.
When I was younger, I used to idealize and idolize my Koreanness. But then as I grew up in America, I learned to do all this code-switching to assimilate into the majority culture. But when I did that, I realized I was never free to be myself. I was always seeking to please people rather than please the God who made me the way I am.
The Gospel freed me to embrace my racial identity. My race isn’t something to be idolized, nor is it something to be denied, suppressed, or embarrassed about. In other words, my spiritual identity in Christ is my most foundational and most important identity. But that doesn’t mean that my ethnic and cultural identities are not important, valuable, or worthy of celebration. God created me as a Korean American, and God is the one who ordained my cultural experience. It was, and is, all for his glory, for my good, and assets for ministry. It’s not something I needed to resent; it’s something I can embrace and rejoice over.
Through reading, learning, and praying, I came to a place where I was more and more comfortable in my own skin. That freed me from the need to code-switch and the need to be someone that I wasn’t. When I came to embrace and celebrate my racial identity, I believe God unlocked leadership potential in me that I didn’t know that He had given me.
I no longer felt like what I had to say was somehow inherently inferior to what white people thought or said. My experience is just as legitimate as their experience. It brought about a more unapologetic boldness to my leadership. In the past, I was preaching to my white seminary professors in my head. But now, I wasn’t preaching to see their nods in my mind’s eye anymore. I was preaching about Jesus because I already have His smile and nod of approval. And I didn’t have to be “white Owen”; I could just be “Owen” — the way that God had created me.
Hannah Chao: How has this transformed view of yourself as a Korean American changed how you pastor and lead a church?
Owen Lee: Our church is majority Korean American. And if you’re not Korean or Asian American, it might feel awkward for you. But instead of accommodating our services to our white visitors to mitigate their awkwardness, we believe this to be a discipleship opportunity for them. In essence, this is what I say, “You have the privilege of experiencing what we as minorities experience on a day-to-day basis in white American culture. It’s okay for you to feel out of place for one day of the week. It might help make you more sympathetic to the minority experience in America. Just because you may feel awkward or out of place does not mean that you are not loved or welcomed. We love and welcome you here, but it will probably not be comfortable or easy for you. But that’s okay.”
In countless membership interviews, I would hear Korean Americans say, “Pastor Owen, I love Christ Central. And, for the first time, I feel like I’m also at home.”
For the first time, second-generation, English-speaking Korean-American Christians get to be in a place where they get to be a part of the majority culture. Their whole lives they have been minorities in someone else’s majority culture — either as minorities in white America or as minorities in majority first-generation, Korean-speaking churches.
At our church, for the first time, they get to be a part of the majority culture. The senior pastor, the assistant pastors, the elders, and all the other leaders look like them and speak English as their first language. The people in positions of power and leadership look like them. The other people in the room look like them. And for the first time, they can imagine what could be and ask, “Maybe I can serve as a leader or officer here. Maybe I can raise my kids here. Maybe I can lay down my roots here.”
Hannah Chao: How should Asian American Christians interact with the greater church?
Owen Lee: White people often make us feel guilty when Asian Americans meet up together, often accusing us of adhering to some form of ethnocentrism. I thought the same way until I realized that white people get to do this every day! They’re always hanging out with each other because they’re the majority.
Minority groups also need their own spaces. It doesn’t mean we’re going to permanently stay inside our own bubbles and never come out. Rather, it means we still need a place where we can feel at home, and once we have that security, we can interact with others in other spaces.
I do feel like there’s been progress on the view and need for the Asian American church and Christian spaces. Churches in Los Angeles, for example, are a little further along in finding their community and voice.
But we can’t just wait for an invitation to have a seat at the white table. And we can’t be content to simply be offered a seat at the table. As a guest, you don’t have the power to set the menu or determine who else is at the table. As a guest, you follow the lead of your host.
This is why we need to start building and hosting our own tables, where we get to determine what’s on the menu and who’s on the guest list. We need to lead and invite others to follow us as well.
We need to do both. It’s not an either/or. We can’t have a perpetual guest mentality and be forever grateful when we’re invited. We also need to build our own tables, and, in doing so, show the entire church of Christ the beauty of our own menu, our own food, and our own customs. Only then will we display the full beauty of the full body of Christ.