What is it like to pastor a multiethnic church? What are some of the challenges, and how can you prepare?
To gain some insight, we interviewed two Korean American pastors who are now lead pastors at large multiethnic churches. Jay Y. Kim serves as lead pastor at WestGate Church in Northern California, and he is the author of Analog Church and Analog Christian. On the other side of the country, Mitchel Lee is the Lead Pastor of Grace Community Church and author of “Even If.” Leading the discussion was Steve Chang, SOLA Network Council Chairman.
You can listen to the entire interview via our Podcast or below on our YouTube Channel.
We have also provided a transcript of an excerpt from the interview. Please note that this transcript has been edited lightly but may still contain spelling and grammatical errors.
Steve Chang: So let me ask Jay and then Mitch. Jay, did you know that you were called to lead in a non-Korean, non-Asian American setting? Did you actively pursue it? Or if you look back in hindsight, it just kind of happened?
Jay Y. Kim: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve thought about it in that way. Again, I’ve been in majority culture settings for the entirety of my vocational ministry life. I’m 43, and I became the youth pastor at the first church when I was 24. So it’s been almost literally half my life, nearing sort of literally half my life.
So in some ways it’s not all I’ve ever known, but it’s most of what I’ve known of ministry. I’ve certainly served in ministry far longer and majority culture settings then in the Korean American church.
I honestly I think it’s God’s providence, his calling for sure. But in terms of me and my humanity, I think I just stumbled into it. There wasn’t any sort of intentionality on the front end. Like “I want to really get out of the Korean American church and go to a majority culture church,” there wasn’t that.
I do remember the first year and a half to two years of being the youth pastor at this majority Caucasian church. I was working really hard because we’re Korean American and “I’ll just work my way through it.” But I remember feeling very awkward, very lonely. I just remember feeling like the relational connections and dynamics [were different].
I had a formula in my head of how it would work: the way families would engage youth ministry and youth ministry events, the way they would prioritize things. Certainly, the academic bar was really high, but then the sort of spiritual bar in Korean American churches, they would definitely carve out space for that.
And it was just so different being in a majority culture church, I felt like I had to fight for time for and attention. I felt like church was a sort of a garnish to the main course of their life, whereas in immigrant churches, I think, at least in my experience, it was like, no, no, the church is the epicenter of your life. And everything else is a sidebar sort of thing.
So yeah, it was a steep learning curve. But now I feel like, if I were to go back to an immigrant church, I would have the same sort of, you know, tension, the acclamation. So yeah, I think I just sort of stumbled into it. But but I’m grateful, really grateful for it.
Steve Chang: I’m gonna go back to what you said. But, Mitch, what about you? Did you know or did you pursue it? Or did it just happen by God’s providence?
Mitchel Lee: I think I knew I was called to pastor multiethnic church on September 11, 2016 when they installed me in there. I was like, “Oh, man, I guess I’m really called to do this thing.”
I’ll say this. I do have my scars from serving as a youth pastor in a Korean American church. I do have my scars, I do have my bruises from it. But where my heart was at, it was never like, “I’m done with the Korean American church, I’m going someplace else.” I never ran from the Korean American church to something else. It just sort of stumbled that way. (Hannah stopped here)
I mean the place where I landed the internship that really seated this whole thing, I found out about that internship while serving in Korea, by God’s providence, running into somebody who was from Chicago and all that sort of stuff. So I can look back and see the Lord’s deliberate, you know, hands and places and each way. I did find, you know, similar to Jay’s experience, you know, engaging with in the, the white culture, there were just so many, I saw opportunities for discipleship. So I kind of saw it a different way in that the church wasn’t as my role as a youth pastor wasn’t as crucial to the discipleship of the next generation, because there wasn’t a cultural language barrier that these white families had, that Korean immigrant families had. It wasn’t a missiological context, as much as it was, I had to read, read and undo. So my ecclesiology oh, maybe I’m not as key and crucial to the discipleship permission. raishin.
So those were some of the kind of unlearning that I had to do in that, in that time. I think, though, the biggest unlearning was I had a minority complex landing at this white church. I was, you know, it was almost like a minor league pitcher being called up to the to the major leagues in my mind. So I’m like, oh, man, is the way that I’ve learned to do ministry plan, ministry retreats, ministry moments, even teaching, volunteer equipping and engagement building relationships, is that stuff’s gonna cut it here. There was this kind of real place of self doubt, almost akin to if I use the baseball illustration, is my curveball gonna work here? Is my fastball going to be fast enough? There was a period of really trying to discover things that I thought were normal. That’s how we did ministry in the Korean American church. Would it work here? And the whole reason I was asking that question was, again the minority complex of making that so to speak, jump.
Steve Chang: So Mitchel, as you’re making the adjustments, but as you’re learning as you’re figuring out, okay, as a minority, will my pitch work here? What were some of the adjustments that you had to make? So you realize, hey, my curveball doesn’t work. But my knuckleball boy, but it really hits home here. Yeah. What were some of the adjustments you have to make? Do you think, as a senior pastor, not as a youth pastor now?
Mitchel Lee: Oh, as a senior pastor now, well, you know, the, in the Korean American context, and many of the even let’s just talk English ministries. The pastor is usually on the older scale, like is older than the congregants used. Usually, I think a lot of that’s changed probably in the last 10 years or so. So there’s something that went on power distance that you can work on based on your age gap. Well, now here, I’m the lead pastor, and most of my executive team is older than me. So now, how do I lead? In that? Where I don’t I can’t do it by my necessarily expert, expert experience. Age, the confusion like you just respect older, that’s not there, the power distance is flatter. How am I going to operate with in there? How am I going to work through my people? Those are some adjustments. Even my desire for relationships are what Jay referred to earlier as table fellowship, sharing meals together, learning to say, this is what I want and negotiating like, my expectation versus trying to read what people are used to. So people are coming from a much more individualistic, no, we all pay for our own dishes at a meal sort of thing. And I’m coming from more of a collectivist. No, no, no, this is what we do we have a meeting, we go out to eat afterwards. Am I allowed to ask that? Am I allowed to impose that? Am I allowed to expect that? A lot of that sort of self gauging and discerning and then coming into my own and saying, Wait, as the lead guy, I do have the power here, you know, this is something that’s really important to me. And I think we should do it. And so that’s, that would be one example.
Steve Chang: How about you, Jay, going back to your experience that’s, etc. As a youth pastor, and I love what you’re saying in that at a Korean church, they relied on you more to be the almost like a surrogate parent. But in a Caucasian church, they don’t need that anymore. And you’re partnering more with the parents to disciple the students? And now as the senior pastor. Yeah, what are some adjustments you had to make in a, in a more multicultural setting? Yeah,
Jay Y. Kim: I mean, I resonate so much with so much of what Mitch said. So I would just affirm a ton of that. So just kind of piggybacking off of some of that, you know, there’s so much to say here, but I guess, if there’s a through line with some of that sort of navigating that tension between, you know, the culture in which I grew up, the culture that is still embedded within me, you know, the reality is, I am still a Korean American, you know, and I still, there are some things that are almost in my DNA that have not left and won’t leave. The other thing too actually that’s really interesting. On our staff, there is an increasing number. And this wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t like I said, you know, I gotta hire more Asian Americans. And it’s not just Asian Americans who look like me, there’s just an increasing level of diversity on our staff. There’s an increasing number of immigrants or the children of immigrants who are on our staff. So I can see at a staff level for us, some shifts happening, more toward the table, you know.
Mitch and I were on another call, actually, a week or two ago, and we were talking a little bit about belonging and the way we’ve sort of mapped on the way we think about belonging in our church. And, and Mitch is doing similar work at Grace. And for us, a lot of it actually is informed in the beautiful sort of simplicity of, of table fellowship. How do we engage a culture, especially here in Silicon Valley, similar, where where Mitch is as well, where people think about the church, simply as the majority of our people tend to think about church as a goods and services entity that they can go to as needed, you know, it makes them feel good, they sort of give their time maybe some of them give their resources and they get in return a particular thing, you know, maybe some practical life help or good feeling or some inspiration for the week or whatever. And we’re trying to map onto that sensitively and gently. Not not necessarily everything from my sort of immigrant background, but extracting some of the good, you know, again, search around the table. You know, what does it mean for the church not to be a goods and services exchange, but to be family, you know, which is really hard can get out at least sometimes, but also families, you know, show up, like, no matter what we show up and, and try to do life together.
So I still I think I’m still early, you know, in terms of the lead pastor role. Mitch is more experienced than me, I’m just over a year into this role. So I think I’m still getting my bearings. The last year, a lot of it has, it’s interesting, we’re having this conversation. I have had to acknowledge and reckon with my own insecurities, and my own sort of baggage in ways in the last year that I sort of, I think, ignored for the previous 16 years of serving in majority culture churches, because as both of you know, better than I do, when you step into this particular role, there is a sort of unique wait a sort of always on buzzing constancy of you know, like, is this am I am I being as faithful as I can to the Lord? Which which, you know, sin, crouches at the door, right, crouches at the opening, I feel like that’s a lot of what it is to my own insecurity the enemy, you know, the devil sort of crouching at the door, looking for any opening, you know, as I wrestle with these thoughts, to pounce with insecurity and like, oh, yeah, of course, like you’re too Korean to do this. You’re too You’re too much of an immigrant to get this done. You know, don’t you don’t have the sort of, I have all sorts of other things in here spliced in there as well. I didn’t grow up with my my father, I grew up with a single mother didn’t know my dad. So there’s all sorts of things like that. How can you adequately Shepherd people when you don’t really know how to, you know, be fathered and to Father, you know, all those sorts of things.
But I think one of the things that I found so helpful, that has actually been countered to my experience in my Korean American church at least, is I’ve also learned from the majority culture context in good and bad ways, that vulnerability, at least in my context, vulnerability, authenticity, is, is one of the pathways toward healing. You know, and I didn’t really have that growing up, there was a whole lot of posturing. And like Mitch was saying a lot of like, we listen to this person, because he’s old or whatever. And, and I’m not bashing that at all. I do think there is immense wisdom in leaning on the wisdom of sages who have experienced so I’m not critiquing that at all, but sometimes that can go off the rails a little bit and get unhealthy. So, you know, my congregation, I think, has gifted me in many ways. I’m in the same situation. Most of our executive team, they’re older than me. They were my bosses when I first started working here and now you know, so that reversal, I’ve had to reckon a lot. I still wrestle with a lot like I used to I was very comfortable following this man. Now he’s following me. Sometimes I find myself in my Koreaness acquiescing too much, you know, saying, like, Well, what do you think? And then I have to catch myself like, no, no, I am my elders. And Christ expects me to lead you know, in team for sure. So there’s Yeah, I’m rambling because I’m, I think I’m still disentangling a lot of this stuff.
Steve Chang: All right. Excellent. Both of you guys. Appreciate it so much. It you you are leading as children of immigrants as minorities, those who are bicultural. And, and you’re, you’re bringing in things that are like the table fellowships. That is actually more necessary, more needed in the majority culture church, at the same time learning from the older folks who treat you in a different way than if you were in the Korean church. I know we’re almost out of time. But both of you, either of you, are there things that you have brought into your church, from your heritage, from your background from the Korean church, etc. that may be intentionally or unintentionally?
Mitchel Lee: A couple of practical concepts and practices I think, I would say, you know, concepts, the concepts of “jung” and belonging to each other kindred newness and using that concept, as well as finding other parallels to that concept from some of our other non majority cultures who are at the church. So our churches, probably just less than half white and the remaining 55% Every there everything else. And so the concepts of “jung” a boon to these idea of togetherness, belonging, let’s not just be commuters, let’s, let’s all be uncomfortable in this multi ethnic environment. The idea of “noon-chi” I remember having to talk with my creative arts director, have you ever heard of “noon-chi”? Like what’s “noon-chi” nand talking to him about that the ability to read the room. Because he was so in himself, he couldn’t see his of the effect that he was having as a leader.
And so bringing that maybe not even the word sometimes, but just bringing that sense in, it’s good form, because there’s a shadow side to it to bringing it in it’s good sense to how do we read the room better? And how do I show my son, my top leaders how to read the room better? Something that I’m always doing? Practices? It is funny, you know, we we started the sort of early morning prayer movement a few years ago. And we know what I learned Steve, is that man, the Nigerians, the Nigerians know how to do early morning prayer, my friend. And, and it was a beautiful synthesis of coming together, of how to do it. So you know, the, to put it loosely, it’s like, oh, you know, we did about six. And my mom’s like, Well, why aren’t you doing it at 530? You’re not spiritual enough. And then one of my Nigerian elders is like, Hey, we got to go at 430 here. So there, there was kind of just simple practices, the idea of praying out loud in One Voice of “dong-sung-gi-do”, right, being able to express our emotions together.
And the funny thing, again, is that it’s not just a Korean thing, but the non majority cultures find something to latch on to. So I’m not I’m not being inauthentic and saying, Hey, let’s pray like the Nigerians do. I can say, let’s pray like this is or what what have we prayed in my Korean church background? And then Nigerians would say, yes, that’s what we did too, you know, our Hispanic friends saying, yes, that’s what we did too. So it’s kind of a flywheel. The Korean American experience allows us to introduce other practices, and really serve a whole span of them. So you know, those are just some of the thoughts off top of my head of things we’re able to bring in. I’m sure there’s more a lot of unknown things as well. But those are the more cognitive ones.
Steve Chang: You know, thank you so much that so what you’re bringing in, though, is actually like, Hey, I’m bringing this from the Korean church to the majority culture. And the majority culture, people thought, Well, no, this is normal. This is normal Christianity and what the Koreans are doing. And oftentimes, it’s all what the Koreans are doing. And that’s from you know, that, you know, whatever their fulcrum, yeah, and etc, etc. But what you’re saying is no, no, a lot of other cultures do this. Is that just how we express ourselves? Beautiful. What about you, Jay?
Jay Y. Kim: Yeah, you know, for us, we’ve really moved toward the language we sort of throw out there a lot is, you know, we’re a fairly large church for the area, there’s a lot of people. So we’ve moved toward trying to intentionally do the inefficient, inconvenient thing. So what that means for us is, table, you know, I keep repeating myself.
So just a couple of examples. One, it’s a large church again, there’s a lot of people but Jenny and I both being Asian American, and she’s Chinese American, I’m Korean American, both just very personally, valuing the inefficiency of having people in our home and sharing space together and sharing meal. You know, our church just didn’t have that, because it was too big, right? That was the that was the sort of excuse.
So every, every few months now, anybody who goes through our membership process and becomes a member of our church, they get an invitation to our house. And we don’t live in a big house, we’ve got a three bedroom house, you know, and when this when the weather’s great, we can sit in our backyard, but when it’s raining, it’s been raining quite a bit here, we have to shove everybody into our living room, and it’s really tight. And it’s pretty inconvenient. There’ll be 30 People just shoved into this living room with snacks and drinks. And we always have a start time. But this is sort of from my upbringing. I remember growing up, like we almost never had end times listed, like in my years, just like it starts at 6:30. And that’s Mom and Dad, you’re gonna pick them up whenever they text you or where, you know, it was before text when they page you or whatever.
So we do that, you know, and, and then our staff has sort of latched on to that. And a lot of them are creating more and more sort of social spaces. And it’s really inefficient. Like, it’s it’s pretty difficult to scale, you know, and there’s a part of me that’s like, well, there’s like, you know, 1000s of people here, how do we do that for everybody? And what I realized was, we were just doing nothing because we were paralyzed by the inability to not do it for everybody. And for me, just you know, growing up, as I think about my Korean American church experience, I don’t think that was ever the question. I remember the ajummas on Sunday mornings, like not going to church and just cooking, you know, like radish soup or whatever I remember the waft of smell, you know what I mean? And like all the banchan and stuff and then they would feed like hundreds of us, I don’t know how they did it, you know, they would have like, jun, and all this stuff, right, all this food, and then we would just eat and linger and stay.
So we’ve been trying to do that once a month for the whole church, we do something called Linger Longer. So after the second service, we and we just get cheap food, like people will grill hot dogs, or we’ll do like nachos or whatever. And we just say like, hang out, there’s no end time. Just stay for as long as you want to, kind of thing and all of that our people don’t know it necessarily. But all of that is just me sort of in my nostalgia, thinking about what was so formative for me and trying to bring that into our community. And it’s been really, really beautiful to see. Because I think the table what I realized the table is not an immigrant thing. It’s a human longing. Everybody has that longing. We just need to disrupt the sort of mad rush for efficiency enough and help people taste and see you know how good it is.
Steve Chang: That’s beautiful. Sounds like someone should write a book analog church or something like that.
Mitchel Lee: The analog table, Beyond DoorDash. There’s your subtitle, Beyond DoorDash.
Steve Chang: Last question, a lot of younger Asian American leaders, they romanticize in some way, the multicultural church, and they want to belong there. They want to be a part they, you know, they have wounds from the immigrant Church, the inefficiencies, etc. Even in Third Culture, churches, Asian American churches, they think, well, we’ve only made it to the JV. But really, what Mitch and Jay are doing, they’re the Varsity. What would you say to some of those men and women as they’re thinking about their future? And there’s a sense of kind of dissatisfaction, a constant knowing sometimes, because they’re not in a more multicultural setting, what would what would you say to people like that? I’ll start with Mitch and then Jay.
Mitchel Lee: Yeah, I mean, I would say, first of all, don’t discount that, you know, pay attention to the if there’s a restlessness, there’s a discontent, there’s a dissatisfaction, pay attention to that. I would say, though, being, leading a multi ethnic church, even just being a part of a multi ethnic church, it is not for the faint of heart. Do not underestimate how uncomfortable it is. One of the things we say around here is that, well, gosh, you know, if you’re really into multi ethnic church, everyone’s going to be uncomfortable at some point. And you do not underestimate that you sacrifice comfort, you sacrifice some practices, you actually ask, I mean, you sacrifice bits of your philosophy of ministry to be redone. unlearned, in our day and age, especially with the racial tensions that surround our culture, the church, mean, pastoring, a multi ethnic church is so challenging and difficult, because it’s going to push on all your insecurities, it’s going to expose all your desires to be liked and affirmed, especially as an Asian American.
I thought honestly, before, like, right before George Floyd, I thought, Oh, I gotta pass I can speak to black and white. I can be this bridge builder. Man, you say one thing wrong. The white say of you’re just super woke, you say one thing wrong, that people of color say you’re just assimilated. This idea of being a perpetual foreigner as an Asian American, maybe that’s another whole nother interview. But that stuff is real. And there’s a cost to pay in it.
My encouragement is if you’ve got that restlessness or that discontent, you know, inch internships, residencies in a church that you’re not familiar with is a great place to start. It doesn’t even have to be a multi ethnic church. It could be a mono ethnic church outside your Asian American context. Black Church, white church, Hispanic church. Try a year there. See how you fare. You can even start even personal if you don’t have multi ethnic friendships right now. I mean, real multi ethnic friendships, not just oh, yeah, I see so and so at the pastor’s gathering. We’re chumps. I’m talking like real multi ethnic friendships. There’s a diagnostic if you’ve got no multi ethnic friendships.
Leading a multi ethnic church is not going to suddenly make you multi ethnic, in your leadership philosophy. So those are some places to start. You can look at some internships, or even I mean, honestly, here’s here’s a silly it sounds silly. I I remember season where I was like, you know, I don’t know, many South Asian pastors. And I’m so curious about the South Asian Indian experience. So I began to pray that God would allow me to meet a South Asian pasture. And crazy story. I’m at a Starbucks. So there’s this guy reading this book. And it’s a book I’d read, and I’m like, Hey, did you you enjoy that book? And he’s like, yeah, and then we start talking. And he’s this Indian guy. And he’s pastoring a Taiwanese English ministry, like down the street from my house. And that was 10 years ago. And we’ve started this friendship. We’ve never served in the same church together. But deep friendship, deep friendship, through valleys and pain and all that sort of stuff. You can pray for that kind of a friendship. And the Lord will answer that the Lord will answer that, if it’s really a calling from him. He’ll provide you everything you need. That will be my encouragement, Steve, to those who are seeking.
Steve Chang: Beautiful, beautiful. Good words. Jay?
Jay Y. Kim: Yeah, I mean, that was so well said, I would just say listen to what Mitch just said and do that. You know, I guess one sort of pastoral thought I would add is, and I’m paraphrasing him here, I think it was Dallas Willard, who said something like, God has yet to bless a person, other than in the place that they are.
So this whole sort of ever it that the, the illusion of the grass being greener elsewhere will never go away. It’s just real. So you think, Oh, my gosh, if I could just get to whatever. Well, when you get there, we all know this, when you get there, there will be some other out there that you’re like, Oh, well, I think if I could just get to that. So I think you know, coming to grips with the fact that that’s a that’s a whisper that’s going to be constant. And then realizing God only blesses people exactly where they are. And open to that at all times, wherever you are. I think is just critical to living as a whole, you know, joyful at peace human being.
Mitchel Lee: That’s right. I’ll add the grass is always greener over the septic field. That’s what we say. So you know, be careful for what you wish for.