Korean population increasing; Alabama Baptists finding new ministries

With Hyundai Motor Company (HMC) bringing more Koreans to Alabama in anticipation of production starting in 2005 at a new auto assembly plant in Montgomery, Alabama Baptists are stepping up their efforts to minister to them.
   
Richard Alford, associate in the office of associational and cooperative missions for the Alabama State Board of Missions (SBOM), said a LASER project is slated for Oct. 14–18 in the Montgomery area to explore the spiritual needs among the state’s growing Korean population with the potential of starting a new Korean church.
   
Meanwhile, area churches are already ministering to Koreans through existing programs such as English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.
   
The LASER project is a cooperative endeavor between Autauga Baptist Association; Montgomery Baptist Association; First Baptist Church, Montgomery; First Baptist Church, Prattville; and the SBOM. During that time, Gihang Shin, church planting director for the Puget Sound Baptist Association in Seattle, Wash., will be in the area as consultant to help identify the Korean population, potential Christian leaders among them and test their responsiveness to the gospel.
   
The LASER project culminates in a time of worship and Bible study with interested Koreans, called the N-Gathering, where the possibility of a church start is explored. “It can be rather an exciting time when it gels,” Alford said.
   
About 75 Korean families have already re-located to Montgomery, according to Jeanne Charbonneau, family support coordinator for Hyundai, including some 112 children who have enrolled in local schools. While the new plant and its suppliers will depend on mostly local hires, Hyundai executives are being imported from Korea.
   
Most suppliers, the majority of which are located in surrounding cities, also will bring in Korean executives, according to Charbonneau.
   
Alford said the LASER project is an effective tool with a “good track record.” Some 50 percent of LASER endeavors result in the creation of a new unit of work. He said Asians in general are the second fastest-growing ethnic population in the state.
   
Opportunity for ministry by Alabama Baptists to Koreans exists in two directions, according to Alford. “One is the opportunity to include the population in our normal Southern Baptist churches,” he said. The other is to start an ethnic congregation. “We want to present the opportunity for a person to know Christ and to be discipled in Christ in the way that is most comfortable to them.” For most people, that is their “heart language,” according to Alford.
   
Yet helping Koreans speak English is already proving to be a critical means of ministry to them. Jane Ferguson, minister of community ministries at First Baptist, Montgomery, said more than half of the church’s Thursday morning English as a Second Language class is made up of Korean women. The church also hosts the Montgomery Baptist Association’s Conversational English School on the rest of the days of the week. Last year the school, which has been in existence for 20 years and is multicultural, enrolled 220. Demand has been so great this year that enrollment has been closed, Ferguson said.
   
East Memorial Baptist Church’s English conversation class was founded explicitly to minister to Koreans new to Prattville, according to Kathleen Pittman, who leads the class. “I love the ministry in that we really are helping them to assimilate themselves here.”
   
Twelve Korean women have been attending the class since another church member, Suok Swafford, identified the need and opportunity for ministry.
   
Swafford, who is Korean, came to the United States 13 years ago and couldn’t speak English. She said she became aware of their language needs — and their spiritual ones — and wanted to help. “I felt like I had to do something to help them speak English — and try salvation.”