Printouts of articles detailing the statistics and demographics on the Rowland Heights community are taped along the office walls of Pastor Phil Kim, the current lead pastor of The Home Church. It's some of the research he's done on the community as he considered how his church could best engage the people in it, he said. Kim, who has long been an English ministry pastor at a Korean immigrant church, is now aiming to reach the local community's diverse demographic of people through the ministry.
The Home Church is currently the English ministry of Beautiful Church, a Korean immigrant church located in Rowland Heights, CA. And in February, The Home Church will officially launch as a multi-ethnic church of its own.
Since Kim returned to Beautiful Church in January of 2014 after spending two years and a half in South Korea, the EM has been on track to becoming fully independent, gradually becoming more and more financially stable, and re-branding the ministry in May of that year. And when The Home Church is officially launched in February, Latino American pastor Mitchell Perez will come on board the pastoral staff, along with a team of about a dozen congregants who had been with Perez when he had previously planted a church.
The prospects of launching a multi-ethnic church, particularly with a Latino American pastor, is exciting to Kim because of what he's learned about the Rowland Heights community, he said. The majority of the city's population is Asian American (60 percent), but the next largest ethnic group is Latino American.
"We want to be a church that allows anyone to feel welcome," Kim said. "Our vision is to be a church for the community." Specifically, he added, the ministry's vision is "to be a gospel-centered community, changing the city with the love of Christ, for the glory of God."
Kim, who attended Beautiful Church as a student in high school and spent the majority of his ministry career there as a youth pastor and in other positions, said that his initial idea to start exploring ministry in a multi-ethnic context didn't come about until he actually went to South Korea for a short ministry stint. During his time in Korea, Kim served as one of the pastors for the English ministry at Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest church not only in South Korea but in the world.
Pastor Phil Kim is the current lead pastor of The Home Church in Rowland Heights, CA.
After having spent the majority of his life in the Korean immigrant church context with other Korean Americans, Kim had a new experience at Yoido, worshiping with people from all over the world.
"The EM at Yoido represented 35 different countries. People from Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, the U.S., the U.K., were all worshiping together," Kim recalled. "I remember almost every Sunday, worshiping and thinking, "Man, this is a glimpse of heaven.'"
"That's when I feel like God started giving me a heart to church plant," Kim said, and not only that, but to push himself to go outside of a "like-minded, same-culture" context, as he put it.
This triggered him to further research multi-ethnic ministry and church planting. And when Kim realized he might be returning to Beautiful Church, he furthered his research specifically on the Rowland Heights community and forwarded some of his ideas to Reverend Seung Hee Ko, the senior pastor of Beautiful Church.
Though initially, Kim felt unsure of how Ko felt about the idea, he said that Ko actually encouraged him to pursue independence once he did return to Beautiful Church, and is now fully supportive.
"I always admired about Pastor Ko for his willingness to take risks," Kim said. "He may not understand everything we want to do. But he's willing to try something outside of his comfort zone."
The Korean and English ministries plan to share an "inter-dependent' relationship, as Kim described it. Though he and Ko are still having talks about specifically what that would look like, Kim said he envisions the two ministries working together to minister to children and youth in the education department. He doesn't expect this next chapter to be easy, but Kim said he wants to preserve the relationship with Beautiful Church despite the potential obstacles the two ministries may face. He also expressed to Perez the desire to maintain a relationship with the Korean ministry.
"I was telling Mitchell about this "” I am so thankful and appreciative of the first generation for all that they have done," he explained.
"If you're just your own independent entity, everything is more rapid. But one thing I feel like God is putting on my heart is that we can't just say "Forget it,' [to the Korean immigrant church]. We owe it to the previous generation for all that they've done. And there are certain things that the Korean church does that other churches can't."
"We want to stay connected," continued Kim. "And as problems or issues come, we want to work through those things together."
Since Kim and the ministry leaders started casting the vision for The Home Church, the ministry has been taking initiative in various ways to connect with and serve the community, such as by joining the Rowland Unified School District's Family Resource Center in giving new school supplies and backpacks in their annual "Fresh Start' event, and giving Christmas gifts to the elderly at a senior home and spending time with them.
As they meet with new people within the surrounding community through efforts like this, they're hoping that The Home Church could be an inviting and welcoming place for anyone that they meet who might be interested in visiting.
"This is what Christ has called all Christians to do," explained Kim. "God is calling us not to just live a life of comfort, but to work through differences, and through the gospel, to learn to come together."
