(By Rachel Lee, Christianity Daily). “God has called you to his kingdom work. May you be encouraged. Stay the course. Don’t give up. Be tenacious.”
Such were the words of encouragement given by Eugene Cho, lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, to a group of more than 50 Korean American pastors gathered at the National Korean American Pastors’ Conference (NKAPC), which took place from May 15 to 18 at New Life Fellowship in Bothell, WA.
Encouraging pastors to persevere and stay faithful in their respective ministries was one of the main aims for this year’s conference, according to David Larry Kim, the lead pastor of Harvest (the English ministry of Korean Presbyterian Church of Orlando) and one of the organizers of the annual conference.
This is the second year that the NKAPC has been organized primarily by second generation Korean American pastors, and last year’s conference had mostly focused on the topic of ministering in the Korean immigrant church context.
“For this year’s conference, we wanted to broaden the focus to pastoral ministry in general. We wanted to help pastors across the spectrum: for younger pastors to not only be equipped with sound theology and ministry skills—which seminaries emphasize—but to understand the heart of a pastor and the heart of ministry as well,” said Kim.
“We also want to help those who are already in ministry to be able to stay in the game for the long run by helping them to see potential pitfalls along the way and to foster relationships that would provide support and encouragement,” he added.