A word from our Pastor

Greetings! I hope you will take a little time to get to know this amazing congregation, one that demonstrates time and again that we are a "high risk, low anxiety" church. Our members hail from over 25 countries and from every continent, and every group is a minority at Church of All Nations. I can’t imagine a more dynamic, liberating and challenging place in which to do ministry. We are serious about discipleship here in order to learn to live with joy and abandon in Jesus Christ.

We are entering a season of maturity in our congregational life. We continue to push ahead with a commitment to communal discernment, to speaking prophetic truth in love, to taking new risks in the ministry of reconciliation, and to communicating the good news of God’s love as a living parable of reconciliation.

Recently, our board of deacons reflected on our life together, and came up with these 10 descriptions about who we are as a congregation (yes, a Top 10 list):

1. We cultivate a non-anxious relationship between the people and the church.
2. We are committed to intimate fellowship as family.
3. We are a church with a big heart, and seek flexibility in non-essential matters.
4. We are a discerning community rather than one that relies only on rules, regulations and formulas, even if that makes us look odd, eccentric or inconsistent.
5. We seek to be vessels of God’s illumination by embracing unconventional approaches.
6. We are comfortable with paradox as a central way by which Jesus taught.
7. We are prophetic and critical, and not attached to any ideology.
8. Our critical faith does not, however, lead us to cynical detachment, but to passionate engagement with God and with one another in fresh ways.
9. We are not afraid to grow and change theologically, for all theology is provisional.
10. We are not afraid of personalized authority, but are continuously disclosing, discussing, and renegotiating the nature of that authority.

As pastor of this beautiful, lovely and fearless body of Christ, I could not be more proud. Over the years we have become even more trusting and vulnerable in our practice of testimony, living into the promise of becoming a truly healing Christian community. We roll up our sleeves, serving countless meals, cleaning and improving the building, even constructing a concrete parking lot and the length of a two-story wall with our bare hands! We celebrate each other’s cultures, languages, nationalities, accomplishments and breakthroughs, and grieve together through pain, loss, tragedy and injustice, no matter who among us goes through such hardships. As it says in 1 Corinthians 12, those who seem to be weaker we see as indispensible, and those who seem less honorable we clothe with greater honor, for the logic/Logos of the kingdom is not of this world. For us, what it means to be the church is this: When one member suffers, we all suffer together; if one member is honored, we all rejoice together!

Founded in 2004, we are still in our youth as a congregation. We have much yet to learn and grow into. But I do believe in my heart that God is pleased with us, even delights in us. Let us remember the words of our Lord: "Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:4); and "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son... Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk....I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them" (Hosea 11:1-4).

I don’t sense God’s pleasure because of any merit as a congregation, but because we choose to trust God every day. Faithfulness to God is a fragile thing when we look at human nature and human history. We are just as prone to relying on our own wits, efforts and resources as did ancient Israel and the contemporary church, so we must be ever dependent on the Holy Spirit, and ever vigilant as the bridesmaids in the parable of the coming bridegroom, Jesus our Lord.

Please know that you are most welcome to visit, for there’s no way to describe our church in words - we simply must be experienced.

My wife Soon Pac and I are amazed everyday that we are part of such a redemptive and powerful community of faith. Praise be to God!

Jin S. Kim, Senior Pastor