Pastor TJ Kim has been leading Salem Community since 2004. His dream is to nurture a faith community that allows and empowers its people to fully enjoy the abundance of God’s grace. Christian life begins with restoring wholeness to a broken life through God’s grace. Once restored and nurtured to live a life like “a tree planted by the water” (Jeremiah 17:8), Christian community, then, should be able to share the abundance of God’s grace with the rest of the world, “enlarging the boundaries of God’s love.”As part of this dream, he has pushed for faith-nurturing Bible study programs and been on five short-term mission/vision trips to Mexico, Russia and North Korea in the past five years. In the future, he would like to see a family counseling center to be established to help struggling families. He would also like to see a senior-citizen’s apartment and a group home for mentally and physically challenged minority people built near the church, so the church can minister to them directly. Ultimately, he would like to see the church’s oversea mission work expanded to North Korea and build a church there someday.
Another dream of Pastor TJ is to build a faith community that provides new opportunities to the underprivileged. Being enlightened by Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” Pastor TJ wants to build a church that helps those people, especially children, who otherwise would not have the opportunities necessary for them to grow to have a meaningful and fruitful life. To this end he has been working hard to start and continue the summer program and the weekend Korean school for children and also to build an educational building adjacent to the present church building. In the future, he would like to establish a scholarship foundation and an afterschool program as well.
When he is not consumed by these dreams, he enjoys playing guitar, Korean drum, singing, fishing, and recently walking his family dog Bruno. But more than anything he finds joy in being with his wife, Wendi and their four children, JD, Jocelynn, Jemi and Joshua. Currently, he is leading both Korean and English congregation at Salem Church.
Rev. Theddeus J. (TJ) Kim
1988 Graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana, BA in Philosophy
1992 Graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, M.Div.
1994 Ordained (Deacon), The United Methodist Church
1994 Director of Korean American Campus Ministry, Chicago, Illinois