News and Views

 

By Melissa Lauber

For some church leaders, success is about size, increasing metrics and preaching amid all the spiritual bells and whistles to a mega-congregation. But even though she is new to the ministry, Pastor YouJung Jung, of the Prospect/Marvin Chapel Charge in Mt. Airy, has already learned that successful ministry is more about love and opening oneself to the heart of God.

 When members of her church make relish, Jung sheds tears as she rolls up her sleeves and chops the onions. When one of her 93-year-old parishioners wanted to pick gooseberries, she climbed the ladder.

 “We sing together, we play together and have a nice meal together. I preach, I exhort and I teach them, and I also try to be their family. We are family for one another,” Jung said.

 Members of the church find she strikes precise boundaries between being leader, teacher, pastor and friend.

 “Last Sunday during the service, the worship leader mispronounced the pastor's name,” said Mark Arrington, the Staff-Parish Relations Committee chair. “When Pastor YouJung came up front, in a fun and humorous way, took the time to help us correctly say her name. You - as in You-all and Jung - as in Jungle. She has a way of connecting the new and unfamiliar to our existing and understood ways in a way we can understand it. She challenges us with her messages by asking what we can and should do.

 “Pastor YouJung also leaves room in her schedule for interruptions, Arrington said. “She is great at asking questions and listening. Without her, many needs are never heard or spoken. She makes time for the needs.”

 The life of a pastor is something Jung didn’t expect to pursue. Her father was a pastor in Korea, where she grew up. There were times when his church couldn’t afford to pay him a substantial salary and she was sent to live with her grandparents.

 “I grew up in a pastor’s family and watched every struggle, and every joy. I watched everything,” she said. Around middle school, she began to sense the stirrings of a call to ministry but resisted.

 She came to the United States to study English and international business and intended to return to Korea to get a good-paying job, but God’s call persisted. Her mother and Sunday School teacher also both noted God’s call on her life. But she became more firmly convinced that the pulpit was not for her.

 “I was praying about my path, and I started to cry,” she said. “Like John Wesley, who experienced his heart strangely warmed, I experienced that God melted and softened my hardened heart. It was an act of God's love healing my hurt and anger that I had hidden inside.”

 “I said yes to God with true joy,” Jung remembers. “I said, yes, I’ll be your servant. It was a mysterious experience for me. I never thought my heart would change like that.”

 She attended Wesley Seminary in Washington, D.C. and entered the ministry candidacy process. In June she’ll be ordained as a provisional Elder in The United Methodist Church.

 With her new clergy status, the Cabinet was making appointments and was uncertain about how to proceed with Jung. Prospect UMC has fewer than 20 in worship each Sunday and Marvin has only a little more than 20 worshippers. The congregations requested a part- time pastor. But after only a few conversations, members chose to increase their stewardship efforts so that Jung could continue as their full-time pastor.

“When our churches financially had to go to a part-time pastor it came at a cost,” Arrington said. “Our part-time pastor had to work another job and could not be expected to do all the pastoral care, attend fund raisers, and to reach out to the community. Several members expressed the need to return to a full-time pastor.”

While the smaller worshipping communities face financial challenges larger churches might not experience, size does not hinder mission, Jung said. Marvin UMC operates a thrift store, and the congregations are very aware of how they can help their neighbors. “We are a small church, but the work we’re doing is really big here.”

 On one occasion, Pleasant View Nursing home asked them to collect much-needed supplies in the middle of the week. By Sunday, the two churches had collected all that was needed and more. “We gave to them with a fullness,” Jung said. “We work very hard to be God’s instrument in mission.”

 In fact, their willingness to work as partners with God is one of the things that makes the two congregations, and many other small churches, so special, Jung said. “Like Jesus fed 5,000 people with two fishes and five loaves, we do our part bring two fishes and five loaves, and God does God’s part feeding a multitude of souls with two fishes and five loaves. I am sure that God can -- God does -- use small churches in significant ways to expand the kingdom of God here in the midst of our community, nations, and the world.

 In small churches, because there are fewer people available to work, “most members get an opportunity to serve the church and the community as a leader. Everyone gets a chance to be equipped as a leader and strengthen their leadership skills as a laity,” Jung said.

 The fact that Jung is serving in a cross-cultural appointment creates challenges and opportunities for the congregations. During the worship, which is broadcast on Facebook, bluegrass music reflects the liturgical style. It’s a far cry from her Korean heritage. And, sometimes, Jung is not always confident of her mastery of English. But the bonds, she and the people create with one another transcend most differences and everyone is growing in their capacity to learn from one another.

 “Over the last 20 years we have received three cross-cultural or racial clergy appointments,” said Arrington. “We have been richly blessed by all the pastors. Living in a quite rural community, it’s hard to fully understand the problems and conflicts that are happening outside of our area. The issues of social justice and the church’s role in removing cultural barriers seem so far away. Each pastor has brought their life experiences and helped us understand how God has called his people to live together in unity.

 Church members, and their pastor, continue to grow in faith and vitality. From the pulpit, and in her ministry, Jung stresses the theology of Methodism’s founder, John Wesley, in which “love like crazy is available to everyone,” Jung said. As a response, she, and her church “continue to say yes to God.”