The Church is about Jesus First, and how the Gospel makes us a true community

By Rachel Lee, Christianity Daily.

Pastor Paul Kim is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church located in San Diego, Calif. (Photo : Christianity Daily)

Pastor Paul Kim is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, located in San Diego, CA. Though Redeemer is a multi-ethnic, multi-generational church with over 1,000 regular members, Kim himself comes from the Korean immigrant church background.

“I grew up in the Korean church, and I was a part of the Korean church world,” Kim said, adding that his parents also are devout Christians, and that his father “reads the entire Bible once per month.” Kim served at Korean Central Presbyterian Church in San Francisco during his college years and as an intern pastor for two years while in seminary. Kim also served at Cerritos Presbyterian Church for a few years with his wife.

Kim is one of the few notable Korean American pastors who serve as the senior pastor of a multi-ethnic church, along with Pastor Eugene Cho, who leads Quest Church in Seattle. Many may view Kim’s or Cho’s ministry as a “successful” one, as the number of Korean American pastors leading multi-ethnic congregations are few in number, and especially since both of their congregations are relatively large. Kim’s church, in particular, has ties with Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, which is led by Pastor Timothy Keller, an internationally known preacher and author.

However, Kim says that his motivation for transitioning into and leading a multi-ethnic congregation was not out of a thought that a multi-ethnic context was somehow more ideal, more effective, or more appropriate than that of a Korean American or Korean immigrant church context. On the contrary, Kim simply believed that this was the calling and the vision that God had given him specifically.

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