Dallas-area Korean churches energized by outreach opportunities

DALLAS—Korean churches in the Dallas area jumped at the chance to engage in multihousing outreach this summer, and Sam Song couldn’t be happier about it.

Korean churches worked with Dallas Baptist Association and Child Evangelism Fellowship to sponsor children’s activities at low-income apartment complexes in Dallas. The activities were coordinated with summer feeding programs.

Some Korean churches needed to be challenged to look beyond the four walls of their church buildings, said Song, president of the nonprofit organization Koreans for Community Development. But involvement in the multihousing ministry helped participating churches “realize that they need to really be the salt and light of the world,” Song continued.

Small-membership churches that lack the staff or funding to make community missions a priority find community outreach particularly hard, he observed.

“Because of a lack of resources, they have not been able to send the kids overseas on mission trips like the big churches can,” Song said. “So, we really want to help small churches connect with the community.”

He contacted Jana Jackson, Dallas Baptist Association’s community ministry director, for ideas about where to get involved.

Lihanna, age 4, takes her time while trying to select a “goose” to run from during a game of “Duck, Duck, Goose.” Volunteers led a kids’ clubs in conjunction with summer feeding programs. (PHOTOS/Lauren Hollon)

“Every summer through the years, we have encouraged our churches to be involved in serving in apartments, working with kids and families, doing Bible clubs,” Jackson said.

“Our newer emphasis this summer was working in collaboration with the Texas Hunger Initiative and Central Dallas Ministries to encourage more churches to be involved in summer feeding programs.”

Song saw a perfect opportunity for his churches to plug into an existing outreach.

It couldn’t get much easier—the apartment sites already were chosen, and Central Dallas Ministries provided meals. The activity programs were easy to run, took five or six volunteers at each site and required no previous experience. Dallas Baptist Association provided curriculum through a partnership with Child Evangelism Fellowship. Volunteers just had to show up and have fun with the children.

“We can provide on-the-spot training for churches that want to do programming. We try to make it very simple and flexible for the church, to give them the tools they need to equip them and just send them out immediately,” Jackson said.

Providing food and offering the gospel through activities are not done simultaneously, because summer food programs are federally funded. But the events are held on the same days.

Children are more likely to come to the feeding program if there are activities afterward to stick around for, and vice versa, Jackson noted.

“Something like 80 percent of people in multihousing don’t go to church,” she said. “In order to reach families for Christ, we have to take church to them.”

Pastor Paul Kim of Bridge-Building Community Church attended the training and apartment programming along with his wife and son. His church is small, he said, but several people are interested in getting involved in apartment ministry.

One obstacle is the language barrier, Kim said. “Sometimes we have a hard time sharing the gospel.”

Kim said he loves opportunities for evangelism and hopes his church can participate next year after more training.

“Child Evangelism Fellowship will be providing the ongoing training at our nonprofit office, so they can continue to be trained and go out there,” Song said.

The Korean churches’ volunteers’ hearts and eyes were opened to the new ministry possibilities, Song said.

“Now these small churches are so excited, because they haven’t done this before and now, for the very first time, they have been able to go into local communities,” Song said. “Now the churches want to go into low-income apartment complexes on a regular basis, so it was a very meaningful event for us.”