Unity in Christ UMC, led by Rev. Minho Cho, has started something beautiful: a program called YES (Youth Engaging Seniors), where they create intentional time for young people and seniors to interact with each other on a regular basis. The program was born out of Unity in Christ’s faithful wrestling with their identity and purpose as a Korean immigrant church made up of diverse generations. As they thought carefully about the isolation Korean immigrant families face, they realized that both the elderly and the young people encounter unique challenges.
Elderly Korean Americans in senior care centers often feel isolated due to language and cultural barriers, which make it hard to fully engage in the community life of the center. At the same time, young Korean Americans struggle with the emotional labor of bridging the cultural gap between their home lives and their experiences at school.
This burden of bridging the gap between cultures can create mental health challenges for both Korean American seniors and youth that often go unnoticed and untreated. Additionally, Rev. Cho and the leaders of Unity in Christ UMC felt concern about the growing trend of younger Korean Americans leaving the church, which they refer to as the “silent exodus.”
Rev. Cho and the leaders of Unity in Christ UMC felt the Holy Spirit leading them to address these challenges. Inspired by programs in Sweden and the United Kingdom where young people and seniors live together in intentional intergenerational housing, improving the mental health of both groups, leaders from Unity in Christ, thought about how they might implement something similar at the local church level. Youth pastor, Jihae Lee, and teachers Grace Chung and Jae No led the call to action. Hae-Rhi Lee wrote g a grant proposal to obtain initial funding from Discipleship Ministries. Unity in Christ subsequently received a Racial Ethnic Local Church Concern Grant (RELCC) from Discipleship Ministries of the UMC which moved the YES project from idea to reality.
Each month, eight to fifteen young people visit senior centers and interact with twenty to thirty seniors. Young people from Unity in
Christ UMC lead seniors in conversation, games, singing, and gentle exercise. The connections formed through these encounters provide a sense of purpose and meaning for everyone involved.
This program is creating an impact within the life of the congregation and the community. Unity in Christ’s recent parenting seminar attracted more attendees than expected, including local education officials. Other Korean United Methodist churches have reached out to learn more about the program and how they might replicate it in their own contexts.
Rev. Cho shared, “Our goal is to raise awareness about the mental and social challenges affecting Korean American seniors and youth in the wider community, practicing radical hospitality and creating an authentic faith community that connects all generations.” For Unity in Christ UMC, the work is just beginning. They want to create more connections that inspire both Korean American seniors and youth to ongoing spiritual growth. They dream of inspiring and equipping more congregations to join them on this journey so that other ethnic churches might have the tools they need to address similar concerns in their communities.
This new project began with noticing. The leaders of Unity in Christ carefully observed the concerns that the Korean American community they are called to serve faces, and then noted what was working well in another place. The Holy Spirit moved and their careful attention to both the challenges and the hopeful innovations empowered the leaders to create something new. May the same Holy Spirit that sparked Unity in Christ’s holy attention inspire our own. May we notice the challenges that the communities we are called to serve face, see what works well in other places, and then bring those insights together to create something fresh and timely in the world.