Gil Pyo Lee, the new pastor at the Contoocook United Methodist Church, has a jovial manner. He likes to laugh and subtly insert humor into his sermons. He’s always smiling.
Lee is Korean and spent the last six-and-a-half years as a pastor in Singapore before coming to Contoocook in June. It is his first time leading an American congregation, and he jokes that he feels bad for members because he is not yet perfectly fluent in English.
But language is not an issue for Lee, who is studying English at NHTI, or the congregation. He speaks carefully and his meaning is clear, and the message he delivers has drawn more attendance on Sundays than the church has seen in recent years.
“When I think about the reason they chose me as a pastor, it is not because of language,” Lee says. “There’s other American pastors. So (the church is) looking for something else besides language. … It’s a real matter of spiritual communication.”
The church operates on an itinerant system and welcomes a new pastor every four years or so. Lee came to New Hampshire with his wife and two children, both of whom enrolled at Hopkinton Middle-High School this year. It is the first time the church has had a family in its parsonage since the early 1990s.
When Lee was selected as a candidate for the opening by the church’s district superintendent, he traveled for some 30 hours to ensure that his one-hour interview with the church’s pastor-parish relations committee was in-person.
The church’s leadership was obviously impressed.
“It showed his dedication and showed he wanted to embrace this church and make that effort,” said Jackie Stock, a member of the committee.
Nationally, church attendance has dropped over the last several years and many places of worship have closed their doors. Some of that pressure has been felt in Contoocook as a few years ago the church, facing financial challenges, went down to a part-time pastor.
Lee is not worried about the numbers. He does not focus on how many people are in the pews, although they have been filling up more in recent months.
“The numbers and management of the church are not my concern,” he said. “My concern is helping people grow spiritually. I help them get closer to God, and if God wants this church to move on, definitely he will do that.”