Meet Walter Lee - KALI Regional Leader of Korean Capital Presbytery
By Walter Lee and Moses Y. Lee
This is the third in a series of interviews with KALI’s regional leaders. At KALI, we want to promote the growth of healthy, gospel-centered pastors to help them flourish in their respective ministry settings. As part of that mission, we want to highlight several seasoned, Korean American teaching elders from our denomination who have been running the race faithfully in their pursuit of loving Jesus as ministers of the gospel. See Will Chang’s interview here and Billy Park’s interview here.
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Where are you from?
I was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to Chicago when I was two years old. I’ve lived in Maryland for the past fifteen years, but I’ll always consider myself Chicagoan.
How and when did you know you were called into ministry?
I rededicated my life to Christ when I was around seventeen or eighteen years old. It was also around that point when I had an internal desire (not necessarily a calling) to pursue ministry. At the time, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. Because Christ had shown me so much grace, there was nothing else I wanted to do. Then about a year after my rededication, multiple people I loved and respected encouraged me to pursue ministry.
Tell us about a difficult season of ministry and how the Lord pulled you through.
The most recent, biggest challenge occurred a couple of years ago. Several years after planting my church, I went through a lot of self-doubt and loneliness as a solo pastor. I wondered if I was really cut out for this. But the Lord really helped me get through this season by using my friendship with Pastor Owen Lee. As a friend, he just really listened. He didn’t really give me advice. He shared with me some of his personal experiences. Just having someone who I can be honest with and be open up to meant so much. God really used that friendship to help me get through a difficult time. I learned a lot about the necessity of fellowship and the value of doing ministry with other brothers together through it.
Who are some preachers, authors, or artists that have had an impact on you or your ministry?
This question really brings me way back. I read Keith Green’s autobiography and his worship music had a profound impact on me in the 1980s. He inspired me to lead worship.
As for authors, C.S. Lewis has had a strong impact on me from the beginning. I used to read Mere Christianity like once a year. John Piper was also very influential in my early years followed by John Calvin and Martin Luther later on. I actually haven’t listened to a lot of Tim Keller sermons. Not because I don’t like them. I just never got around to them, but I really enjoy his books.
My first English-speaking pastor, Robert Goette, who planted a second-generation Korean American church in Chicago, modeled what it meant to follow Christ and to sacrificially love others. The church was made up of high school and college students, perhaps the first Korean American majority church in the area. He had a big heart for church planting and his influence in Chicago was huge. His parents were missionaries to Korea and he lived in Korea for a while. When he came back to the States, he planted a church in his late-twenties and early-thirties to reach second-generation Korean Americans. He passed away five or six years ago.
What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a pastor?
I really enjoy spending time with my fellow brothers in presbytery. I’m constantly learning the importance of fellowship in presbytery and how it sharpens you. Sometimes you’re not expecting to learn but you glean ideas and you find inspiration from stories. Other people’s experiences rub off on you. For me, just spending more time with my presbytery brothers has been invaluable.
What’s one thing you didn't learn in seminary that you wish you had learned?
I wish I had learned how to manage my time better as a pastor. There are so many responsibilities and urgent needs that you have as a pastor and you just don’t have any bearings. You have so much freedom, which is both a blessing and a curse. If you’re not a specialized pastor overseeing just one ministry, you have to be disciplined to allocate your time wisely. I remember in my first couple years of ministry, I was always questioning myself, “What do I do? How do I use my time wisely?” I wish this was something I had learned. Maybe I should’ve shadowed a pastor and his typical week. That might’ve been helpful for me to set my priorities straight.
What are some leadership challenges you’ve faced in your ministry?
I was very blessed in every ministry I was a part of. I had very supportive lay leaders so I’m very thankful for that. If there’s a leadership challenge that comes to mind, it’s the battle against myself in my own mind, my own self-expectations. They’re idols about not being good enough or my expectations for what defines a good leader instead of trusting in Christ. I tend to be very self-critical and have very high self-expectations. But in the end it’s just pride. Over the course of many years, I’ve come to recognize more and more that these idols needed to be stripped away. There are lessons I’m still learning and those are the biggest challenges for me.
What’s one thing you wish you did more of as a young pastor?
Looking back, I wish I had spent a little more time learning from older pastors. I think I would have even benefited learning from and spending time with other peers and pastors who aren’t necessarily older or more seasoned. I was too insecure and proud when I was a younger pastor, perhaps too insecure because I was comparing myself with others so it was hard being around other pastors. On top of that, I pride myself in being self-sufficient. I went out there and told myself, “I don’t need other people and I can teach myself.” I was very prideful. Looking back, that really did limit my growth. I could’ve learned a lot more if I was more secure and humble and learned from people around me. I wish I had more of that posture when I was younger.
If you could tell a Korean American seminarian or young pastor one word of advice, what would it be?
I know I just shared that I wished I had been around more peers and learned from older pastors. I know that any advice I give to young pastors may not really mean much. I know it’s not pointless, but sometimes you just need to learn it yourself if you’re wrestling with pride. It’s so easy to go to the younger generation and tell them what to do.
Yet, when I look at young pastors now, I think they’re so much better trained and better equipped and so much more ahead than when I was their age or when my peers were their age. Sure, there are a lot of resources out there, but I think they just have a lot of potential.
If I could say one thing, it would be simply to love Christ and make it all about him. I would say the sooner we learn this, the sooner ministry becomes joyful. I knew this even as a young pastor, but I didn’t know this the way I do now. In a lot of ways, ministry was about me and what I was doing. But somewhere down the line, I started to shift to truly making it about Christ and ministry became more joyful. Just fall in love with Christ again and again and make ministry all about him.
Walter Lee serves as pastor at Harvest Presbyterian Church. He received his BA from Moody Bible Institute and MDiv from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He planted Harvest in 2011 and before that served as the senior pastor of EM at Bethel Korean Presbyterian Church in MD from 2005-2011. He was ordained in 1999. He is married to Susan and have they been blessed with three kids: Kristen, Sean and Iain.
Moses Y. Lee will be planting Rosebrook Presbyterian Church in North Bethesda, Maryland this fall. He’s a contributing author to the forthcoming, Hear Us, Emmanuel: Another Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church (White Blackbird, 2020) and is co-editing a book on Asian American Presbyterianism. You can follow him on Twitter.