The Meet Hope Podcast

111: From Calling to Community: Pastor James Lee’s Story

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Pastor James Lee shares his inspiring journey of faith, growth, and finding his calling to ministry. Through transformative experiences, he reveals how he became a passionate advocate for community and service within the church.

Hear James talk about:
• James’s early influences in the church
• Wrestling with internal expectations and personal calling
• Discovering the church as a place for community service
• Emphasizing the value of engaging others' gifts in ministry

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Intro:

Welcome to the Meet Hope podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others.

Jeff Bills:

Welcome to Hope our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope. Hey, welcome everybody to the Meet Hope Podcast. I'm Jeff Bills and I'm hosting this episode, and I am here with Pastor James Lee. So, as you probably know, james is going to be lead pastor here at Hope beginning July 1st. Woo-hoo, woo. We are very excited about that here at Hope, and so we're using the podcast format as a way to help you all get to know James a little bit better, as he's preparing to come. And so, james, welcome to Hope.

James Lee:

Good to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jeff Bills:

Wow, and you actually did a podcast with us about a year ago or so.

James Lee:

Yeah, I think we did two episodes. I believe one was on online church, yes, and we then talked about AI. Oh yeah, that was. That's not a thing anymore.

Jeff Bills:

Oh my gosh, I knew zero about AI. You and I were having a conversation preparing for the podcast and so we said, hey, let's just talk about AI, and my ignorance was on display. I don't know much more, but a little bit more. So, as we're getting to know you, as folks are getting to know you, obviously you've got a whole story that people are going to get to know over the years. But we'd love to talk about kind of your spiritual story. It starts with your background. You were raised in the faith and I believe your dad was a pastor, right?

James Lee:

That's right. He retired two years ago. He came from South Korea in the 80s to study theology and I was born here, so I'm Korean American, born and raised here. My dad went through the United Methodist process, was ordained in the New York Conference and that meant growing up in all different churches. So he was appointed to predominantly white rural congregations. He was the only non. We were the only non-white family in maybe a 200 mile radius, and I remember living in a small parsonage where the church was across the street and to our left was cornfields and to our right was cornfields and there were no one lived anywhere near us. Wow, and that's where we lived. So I grew up in the church. I grew up as a pastor's kid. I remember when I was about seven I was attending church and my dad was up in the pulpit. He was preaching and I felt in my heart what I now know was God speaking to me and saying you will do that one day you will be a pastor one day.

James Lee:

Wow, and I shared it with my mom and I imagine she may have been having a rough week because she said oh no, no, no, you don't need to be a pastor. There are so many other ways that you can honor God, so you don't have to be a pastor. That's hysterical and I tossed that, what that? Whatever that was, I just decided to forget about it and uh shove it away.

James Lee:

I grew up in the church. I served as a youth group leader. I was a worship leader in a youth group, but it wasn't up until the sophomore year in high school. Up until that point I lived a very rules-based faith. You know doing all the good things because I'm supposed to trying to be a good example as a pastor's kid, et cetera et cetera.

Jeff Bills:

Yeah, so just to stop there for a moment. So, being a pastor's kid, did you feel that as a part of? Did you feel that as a part of your whole identity, that I've got this role because of my dad's position?

James Lee:

Yeah, absolutely there was a sense of there was a lot of expectations in our particular ministry context, especially that a pastor's kid should behave a certain way, act a certain way. And uh, I think in different stages of my life I responded differently to that. I think some years I was like, yeah, I will rise to the challenge and I will be a goody. Two shoes, and some years I rebelled very hard, uh. So I kind of went back and forth on that Interesting Uh, yeah. So I kind of went back and forth on that.

James Lee:

Yeah, it was sophomore year in high school, in the summer. I went to soccer tryouts in the summer, okay, and came home and had a severe pain in my tailbone, to the point where I couldn't walk. I was limping everywhere, I was crawling everywhere. I was like, oh no, I probably have to go to hospital. But of course, being 15, 16, what was on my mind was I'm supposed to go to Six Flags with my friends tomorrow and I can't go. But I literally couldn't walk, I couldn't stand, I was crawling everywhere and I remember praying the dumbest prayer. I said Lord, if you're real. I said then please heal me so I could go to Six Flags tomorrow.

James Lee:

I know, looking back, this is so dumb, but very 15, very 15. I prayed that prayer with as earnestly as I could and when I was 15, I went to bed. The next morning I wake up, I get up, I go to the bathroom and I start brushing my teeth and I realized I'm standing and I have no pain and I and something about that experience as silly as it was, something about that experience just changed everything for me. I remember at that point, suddenly all the Bible study, bible stories that I learned as a child, all the things I learned about grace became more and more real. Wow, I began to read the Bible on my own and it just was an exhilarating experience. I remember it being such a sweet experience reading scripture from that point on.

James Lee:

Yeah, so that's when I officially gave my life to Jesus. Amazing At Six.

Jeff Bills:

Flags, riding roller coasters with my friends yeah, well it's, you know, when it's coupled with something so exciting as that, what a cool story that is so fast forward a bit. You had this seven-year-old sense of calling that got put on hold. When did that reemerge that? Yeah, I do feel God calling me into full-time ministry.

James Lee:

Yeah, that reemerged at the end of college. So I started college studying at the Ernest Marriott School of Pharmacy at Rutgers in New Brunswick, transitioned to ultimately graduate with a cell bio neuroscience degree. So I was going the pre-med route, I was exploring, probably, a career in medicine in some kind career in medicine in some kind, okay. And uh, when I, as I was approaching graduation, uh, I had actually a completely different idea for myself. So I went in medicine, cause I thought that's a goody two-shoes thing to do, that's the parent pleasing thing to do, yeah, uh.

James Lee:

But I always, uh, I for a long time loved filmmaking and I loved all things video production and I was saying, you know what, maybe I'll go to film school. And I had this whole plan made out to go to film school. And it was about two months before graduating college that God came knocking at my door again, when I was in the midst of prayer to go and apply for seminary, and I wrestled with it. I wrestled with it for I remember wrestling with it for hours because I didn't want to do it and I began to look inward. Why do I not want to do this? Why am I fighting this so hard? Why?

James Lee:

do I not want to do this. Why am I fighting this so hard? And realizing that I had internalized what my mom said all those years ago, and so I made a phone call to Korea. At that point, my parents had moved back to Korea.

Jeff Bills:

Okay.

James Lee:

And and I talked with my parents about it and my dad had a very hard time hiding his excitement that his one of his sons at least, is pursuing a career in ministry and following his footsteps. But he was like you know, he was like okay, so tell me more about this, Right, and I could tell he was excited. But I was like, but give the phone to mom. I need to talk to mom and she asked me uh, what does Julie think? Because I was dating Julie at the time. Um, I was surprised.

Jeff Bills:

my mom asked me that, and so I did ask for those who don't know Julie is your, julie is my now wife?

James Lee:

Yeah, praise the Lord. Um, she was, yeah, so when we're dating, I was a pre-med student.

Intro:

I'll marry you, doctor.

James Lee:

Yeah. So I asked her and I think naively, but she said no, I knew what I was doing. She said I'll go with you is what Julie said. And so I told God I will go to seminary but I won't be a pastor. And so that's how I got my foot in the door to go to seminary. And since then there's so many steps along the way, but God has just been warming my heart, one step at a time, to surrender to the call to be a pastor.

James Lee:

And now I'm very, yeah, just honored that God was so patient with me.

Jeff Bills:

I love that. You know it's so interesting to me the number of pastors I know myself included, pastor Rick included who did not want to go into pastoral ministry and resisted that for varieties of reasons, and you know God is so faithful in using reluctant people. Yeah yeah, so at some point along the way, pastoral ministry became your calling, right? Yes, yes, yeah, what that look like.

James Lee:

I think that was a slow process. So when I started attending seminary the church that I was attending at the time, calvary Korean United Methodist Church in East Brunswick they were looking for a children's ministry pastor and I said, well, I could use the income, the part-time income being a grad student is very expensive.

James Lee:

And so I started there Actually, after four years of that and graduating seminary actually for a while, I said I'm done with ministry and I went all out in my other dream, which was to be a filmmaker, and I started a wedding film company. Okay, and I did wedding films for a few years and I made good money. I was very, very proud of what I had done there. And then I needed health insurance because we were having kids and health insurance as a business owner is very expensive, yeah. And so the conference was hiring for a video producer and I said, well, they're offering health insurance, so let me apply. Sure enough, I got the job.

Jeff Bills:

Now again, just for listeners who may not know, conference is when we talk about the conference, it's the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, so it's all of the United Methodist churches within New Jersey, and so this is the kind of administrative structure, ministry structure of our area Exactly.

James Lee:

So sort of the umbrella network of about 500 to 600 churches throughout New Jersey, and my job at the time was to capture videos and video stories of churches that have been helping with Hurricane Sandy and video stories of churches that have been helping with Hurricane Sandy.

James Lee:

And as I traveled up and down the shore, I saw churches of all shapes and sizes, churches that were very different from mine. What I experienced, and I saw God doing amazing things in and through those churches, and it was during that time that I began to truly believe that the local church is the hope of the world, that when there is brokenness, when there is pain, when there's suffering, what the world needs is not better legislation or better rules, which I mean all those things are important, right, but what the world really needs is the church to be the church. Yes, things are important, right, but what the world really needs is the church to be the church. Yes, and uh, that is. And when god came knocking again, said okay, you had your, you had your fun, it's time to come back. I was ready, I, I was. I was like yes, lord, I'm ready. Um, I'll go where you send me.

Jeff Bills:

so how cool he. He lets you uh live into that dream of video yeah, yeah, yeah, that thing Right.

Jeff Bills:

But the call came back. Yeah, so you and I share this passion for the local church. The way I refer to the local church is it's God's dream community that when the church is functioning the way that God intends the church to function, that there is no better system, there's no better community in the world than the local church, as people care for each other and support each other and encourage each other and challenge each other to live into this faith. When that's happening, it is life-giving and it is such a joy to be a part of. So when you think about the local church so you saw it happening. How do you describe the local church?

James Lee:

Yeah, I love that. I'm going to steal that. Jeff, God's dream community. I just wrote that down.

James Lee:

That's something I will definitely take with me. The church is 1 Corinthians 12. It's the body of Christ. When I think about the church, I see it as a gathering of people who are living for others, are living for others, and so typically, when I do like membership class for churches, I say are you sure you want to take a minute to become a member of this church? Because the moment that you join the church as a member, the church stops being for you, because now you are the church and and you are for others. Right, and the church is for the world, and so I think the church is a gathering of not spiritual, consumers. When the church really lives into its calling, it's a network and coming together of spiritual contributors that are no longer thinking what is it? This is not a membership, it's not a club where you say, hey, what's in it for me? It's right, the church is not for you anymore. You are the church and the church is for the world.

James Lee:

I love the way that Hope Church talks about discipleship. A disciple is someone who is on a journey of being conformed into the image of Christ for the sake of others. Yes, of Christ for the sake of others. Yes, I think that is the key part of the key characteristic of how a church is different from any other organization. I say the church is an organism, right, the body of Christ, that is for the world.

Jeff Bills:

Yeah, so it's not about structures and so forth. They exist in order for us to do the work that we're called to do, exactly so, as pastor and you've been a pastor of two, three other churches- Three other churches, so I was the associate at Calvary Korean. Okay.

James Lee:

And I led a small church in South River called Conklin, and then I was at Wesley, south Plainfield for four and a half years.

Jeff Bills:

So in that role, what do you understand the pastor's role to be in the context of the faith community?

James Lee:

I love that role to be in the context of faith community.

Jeff Bills:

I love that.

James Lee:

So in Ephesians it talks about the leader of the church being someone who equips the saints, and I see the pastor as someone who is not supposed to do all the things but really is to equip the church and to recognize the gifts of all the different, all of God's people, and to elevate it, to bring it out so that, uh, the world can benefit from it and everyone can experience more goodness in the world. So, uh, I often say a pastor is always working themselves out of a job. Yeah, yeah, right. Uh say a pastor is always working themselves out of a job.

Jeff Bills:

Yeah, yeah, right, uh, uh, because our role is to step away and to lift up the people around us, and what a joy I mean that that has been. The great joy of of ministry here is, uh, seeing people what I describe as get in the game, right, that that they discover that they've got some gifts, they've got passions and talents and so forth, and as they start to use those and exercise those and see God work around them, their faith just ignites, you know, and they do things and get involved in things that they never imagined, and the church benefits right, and so, yeah, that's the great joy of the job. It's kind of coaching, right, and cheerleading at the same time. That's it. Yeah, cheerleading at the same time, that's it, yeah.

Jeff Bills:

Well, james, I'm excited about your coming on board. You've been here since last June, and so people have already started to get to know you, and so it's going to be a very natural thing, I think, as you step into this role, and I'm praying for you, praying for Julie, and I can't wait for folks who haven't gotten to know you yet to be able to get to know you and to hear from you and see where God leads this church through you into the future. So, friends, thanks for tuning in to this episode of Meet Hope and we'll look forward to being with you again next week.

Intro:

Thanks for being a part of the Hope Community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meethopeorg or find us on socials at meethopechurch.