My grandfather (Rev. Kim Il-Nam, 85) passed away last year on November 27. My parents and I were lucky enough to be able to travel to his funeral during the protests that had shut down the international airports in Thailand. Both my father and I are first-borns, which is important in the Korean culture. My wife and the kids stayed back because of the expenses, and also because the airports were closed and it would’ve been disastrous to try to get off the ground with kids. I still really wanted to take my whole family, but I was advised that even if I succeeded in doing so my supporters would consider it a waste of “God’s money”.

One mourner described his principles in life and ministry with “truth and sacrifice!” His preferred way to lead was by example. Another one declared, “More than my master, father, next to Jesus!” My grandfather had taken him into his home after he was released from prison. At that time, my grandfather had a wife and five kids, and a two-room house. So his whole family slept in the one bedroom, while this ex-convict took the living room. He is now a retired pastor. His salary in Um-Da Church was an unbelievable 42,000 won ($30) per year, even for rural Korea at that time! He is an example of someone who really relied on God for resources.

He had planted the church in the middle of nowhere, and the rural parishioners eventually moved around the church to found Um-Da village. Most of the families basically ate what they planted; it wasn’t an easy lifestyle, but he left his mark in rural church planting. After 16 years he was moved by his presbytery to a troubled church in the nearby city of Mogpo, which had something like 11 pastors in 12 years. I think he went against a lot of principles I was taught in my seminary in Deerfield, IL.

He retired there after 34 years, pastoring it to be the biggest church in the city—until the full gospel church moved in! He often shared how he experienced God’s amazing grace while ministering in the middle of dirt in Um-Da, with $30/year, before the bigger church in Mogpo offered a sufficient salary for him and his family to live on. The older children received scholarships for secondary and college education, while they were able to pay for the tuition for the younger children; he is survived by six sons and two daughters, nineteen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, but no dogs. I hope that I will always consider God to be richer than any other institution on earth.

As he retired at the age of sixty-five, he proposed one of his assistant pastors to succeed him, but the board thought he wasn’t ‘good enough’. My dad was committed to Thailand, and so the board called his son-in-law from Germany to pastor the church. The charismatic pastor ended up splitting the church, and my grandfather suffered the problem of succession in ways many pastors emeritus in Korea go through these days. He maintained his joy and heart of thanksgiving despite unpleasant events beyond his control hurt his legacy as a church leader.

He still continued making the most of every opportunity and served until the evening he fell asleep. He founded a nursing home, shared the gospel with friends and strangers, even public figures, including having breakfast with an acquaintance every Sunday morning for over a year until he came to church and began growing in the faith. Two national senators and the mayor of Mogpo were among the public figures that encouraged us with their visits during the funeral week. Another interesting visitor was the daughter of the first Korean dentist! I can’t wait till I retire and do nothing; we’ll see…

He never stopped learning. I remember teaching him how to drive when he was vacationing in Chicago at the age of seventy. I thought he was ready and took him for the driving test at the local DMV; they failed him because he started and stopped too fast—so what’s wrong with that? He later got his license in the more challenging “DMV” in Korea, and drove until this year. His tenacity or perseverance is one of the most amazing traits that people talk often about.

He was known for being stable and providing stability for his church, presbytery and the denomination where he also served as the moderator; he stayed in the same presbytery to which he was born all his life; his pastor had suffered torture for his faith during the Japanese colonization. He was recently honored to lead the procession in the denomination assembly where his denomination was merging with another one that had split during his active ministry days. The recently combined denomination honored him by sponsoring the funeral service, while the presbytery sponsored the burial service; and his older friend who had been in the ‘other’ denomination for decades gave the benediction in the funeral. I don’t like church splits.

He is counted as one of the ten pastors who led the Korean Presbyterian church since before the Korean War. We think about 1800 people from around the country came to show their respect throughout the wake and funeral services. He was buried next to his parents and his first wife in the Um-Da church cemetery on December 1. I want to be cremated and have my wife carry my ashes around in her purse.

I have learned a lot from his example as a pastor. He invested in people, all kinds of people. Twelve pastors came out of a random weekly bible study, where he had taught that producing and discipline one church leader is more strategic than planting and maintaining one church. My father and I first heard this story when one of them, now a retired pastor, shared about his inspiration for ministry in a eulogy during the funeral.

There you have it: a key insight into the dangers of neglecting individual people for sake of institutional growth. Among all the church noise I have to endure as a vocational Christian I try hard to keep this point clear, and resist the temptation to compromise the welfare of an individual for sake of my institutional promotion; choosing to spend an hour discipling one person will not be much for me to report about, but it may be time more worth spent than trying to raise funds for a hundred trafficked orphans with aids, who are also color blind! And homosexual! Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Wanna read Korean? Check out this article about my grandfather, and the eulogy at the funeral.