Rev. Jin Park, a Korean American pastor, has served in four churches over the past 28 years. Thirteen years ago, he planted a new church in Los Angeles, seeking to build a community that stands apart from what he sees as the typical church model.
Instead of focusing on church growth, Park and his team chose to focus on their neighbors, particularly those who are marginalized and often overlooked by the church. We wanted to be a neighborly church, he explains, not just a commuter church where people drive in for meetings but don't know the community around them.
Park's church was planted in a neighborhood where, at the time, 80–90% of the residents were Spanish-speaking, alongside other Asian and ethnic groups. However, the community soon began to face gentrification. New developers came in, demolishing older buildings and replacing them with newer, taller ones. Many longtime residents were forced to relocate because they could no longer afford the rising housing costs. As a result, the neighborhood changed quite a bit.
The church holds its gatherings in English. Among those who attend, some are from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, and the other half are Asian groups. The Asians often don't live in the neighborhood but were previously disconnected from traditional churches and were seeking something different.
The church's activities extend beyond traditional Sunday worship. Though they do meet on Sundays, not every week is dedicated to a formal service. Much of their ministry happens during the week.
In local public schools, they run after-school programs for kids and host cultural celebrations that began with special education support and expanded to involve the whole school. These school-based activities have been part of the church's ministry almost since its beginning.
At a local homeless shelter, they meet once a month on Sunday, serving and eating Asian food with youth aged 18 to 24, and having a time of fellowship together. This has been ongoing for over ten years.
They also have a special group who are in a two-year program, along with separate women's meetings and men's meetings.
Instead of a fixed order of worship, their gatherings typically involve meals, a shorter sermon, and discussion. Park shares briefly and then opens space for conversation. "I felt the need to have different expressions and ways of being the church," he says.
He points to grassroots church models in England's Anglican tradition and movements like the Parish Collective in Tacoma, Washington, and the Christian Community Development Association, which emphasize a local focus.
Park is concerned about how churches have become self-serving and consumer-driven. He refers to a survey done by the Presbyterian Church in America among young people in the U.S., where the top reason for their disinterest in church was that churches "don't do anything important." From their perspective, churches just hold meetings and do religious activities, irrelevant to society.
Park himself left his first church for similar reasons. He believes many American churches have become like shopping malls, with people choosing churches based on sermons, programs, parking, and personal preferences—rather than focusing on the marginalized or those in need.
Still, he sees hope. His previous church has shifted to a community-focused approach—opening their buildings for summer programs, tutoring local kids, inviting isolated neighbors to meals, offering free car washes, and partnering with local schools. As they loved and served the community without expecting anything in return, neighbors began asking if they could attend church.
One of Park's core convictions is the need for decolonization and deconstruction within the global church. He believes the Westernized version of Christianity has often deviated from what Jesus intended.
Living in Los Angeles, he challenges mainstream definitions of "American." When people hear the word "America," they often think of white people. But for thousands of years, this land was home to Indigenous peoples whose cultures were very different. White settlers invaded and claimed ownership, which Park sees as part of colonialism.
Through his ministry, Park began learning from Indigenous American believers, who encouraged him to indigenize his faith. That's why he attends the recent Christian Forum for Reconciliation in Northeast Asia held in Japan.
"There's a definite need for us to critically reevaluate our understanding of theology," he says. "Western theology often doesn't embrace our own backgrounds and contexts."
To indigenize faith, Park argues, one must start by acknowledging that God created people within cultural contexts. He said that the reason Jesus was born not just as a person but as a Jewish person is that the context matters. Also, Jesus was born under Roman colonial rule, but he never responded with domination. Instead, he always offered an alternative way.
Park critiques the history of Western missions for demonizing indigenous cultures and imposing their theological frameworks. He believes it's wrong to assume that Western missionaries "bring Jesus" to other nations, because the Holy Spirit has always been at work everywhere.
He shares a story of one of his mentors, a British leader who became the general director of Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF). His intention in taking the role was to ensure that the next leader would be Asian. For over 100 years, all OMF general directors had been white men—until recently, when a Taiwanese leader was appointed.
Drawing a parallel with Jesus, Park notes that Christ entrusted leadership to his disciples after only three years of training—despite their flaws—because he believed in what God had placed in them.
"I hope Asian Christians embrace being Asian," Park said. "We can have friendship and partnership with Westerners, but we don't need to rely on them. Every culture has amazing gifts from God."
Park believes that true diversity is rooted in creation. Western theology often starts at Genesis 3—with sin—but Park insists we must begin at Genesis 1, with creation and God's intentional design of diverse peoples.
"Just because the Western church was the dominant culture for over a thousand years doesn't mean it has the final say in theology."
He encourages Chinese Christians to embrace who they are and contribute to God's kingdom in their own way. When missionaries were expelled from China, many feared the church would disappear—but instead, it grew through the leadership of indigenous believers. Some Chinese Christians may not have much doctrinal knowledge, but they obey and live out God's way in their everyday journey.
(Rev. Jin Park is a pseudonym for safety reasons.)
