An abiding passion to live as disciples of Jesus has attracted a church full of college students, graduate students and people with advanced degrees to Antioch Baptist Church, which is located in the academic community of Greater Boston.
The congregation in Cambridge, located near Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is setting an example for other Baptist Churches of New England campus fellowships through its commitment to lifelong learning and to replicating itself across the globe.
Paul and Rebekah Kim founded Berkland Baptist Church in Berkeley, California, in 1981, and a decade later planted Antioch Baptist Church in Boston. Over the years, they planted more than two dozen more churches around the world — a network that exists “to obey Jesus’ Great Commandment to love God and love one another (Matt 22:37–39) and to fulfill his Great Commission to bring his message to the ends of the earth (Matt 28:19–20).”
Vision
Since the Kims retired in 2011, Antioch Baptist Church has been led by the disciples they had trained including pastor David Um and his wife, Angela. The particular vision of ministry practiced at the church, “Koinonia Cross relationships,” is based on the dissertation Rebekah Kim wrote in 2018 for a doctor of ministry from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Since then the church has attracted 200 people including 150 adults — more than 50 of whom (about 1 in 4) hold PhD, MD, DMin, or other doctoral degrees. Seven of the doctoral recipients hold seminary degrees, according to David Um, who earned a DMin in 2022 from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he currently serves as a member of the board of trustees.
Um was born in Seoul, South Korea, to non-Christian parents who relocated the family to New York City when he was four years old. His parents encouraged the children to attend a Korean church for purely cultural reasons. Growing up, he said, “I heard the gospel, but I didn’t know that I was a sinner. It was just ‘head knowledge.’ Jesus was not my Lord, and I did not obey Him.” He was “sprinkle-baptized” at a Presbyterian church and “literally could not understand what they were saying in Korean; it was all meaningless [to me].”
It was not until he was an MIT undergrad, Um added, that “I had to face my true sinfulness. And that’s when I realized I needed God’s forgiveness through the cross of Jesus.” After graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, he experienced a call to pastoral ministry after being discipled for many years by Paul Kim. He then completed a master of divinity from Gordon-Conwell in 2011.
Network
Um’s testimony is a familiar one to the more than 70 pastoral staff serving in the network of churches. After attending the historic Park Street Church in downtown Boston, but not finding a spiritual direction in life, Um met the Kims the same year they moved from California to start Antioch Baptist as a church plant of their college-based congregation on the border of Berkeley and Oakland, California. Until March 2011, Antioch Baptist was known as Berkland Baptist Church-Boston.
The network of churches that the Kims started as a university outreach in northern California now includes Philadelphia Mission Baptist Church; Worthy Life Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland; Koinonia Community Baptist Church in Long Beach and Riverside, CA; and Frontier Baptist Church in Fairbanks, AK; as well as congregations in Seoul, Goesan, and Daegu in South Korea; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; and Yerevan, Armenia.
When asked about how serving so many church “participants” with advanced degrees impacts “the shape of the church’s ministry,” Um replied, “I feel it’s the other way around. The reason why we have so many people with advanced degrees is because of the ministry. Students came to know the Lord as students and many wanted to stay and grow within the church. One way to do that was to keep studying.”
A different way
Antioch Baptist, he said, “began as a seed planted in college ministry. Then all the rest of the church (and there are other parts) ultimately sprang from that” focal point. The children’s ministry, or “JOYLand” as it is called, is populated, for the most part, by the children of university students who met at church, got married, became leaders, and now raise their families within the various ministries. The congregation also has senior adults, many of whom are parents or grandparents of the students. “Everything,” Um noted, “revolves around our ministry at the universities.”
Real estate comes with a big price tag in Cambridge, which according to a 2022 report, “stayed at the top of the list of most expensive office submarkets by sale price for the second year in a row,” surpassing even Silicon Valley and Times Square. That explains why, from its inception, Antioch Baptist has been blessed by the conviction not to own a church building.
Instead of investing in commercial real estate, they believe in investing in evangelism and overseas mission work. The College and Youth Department’s worship service is held at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Cambridge, a six-minute walk from the Harvard Square T stop. Worship for post-graduate and international students, seniors and children is held at Redeemer Fellowship Church in Watertown (another BCNE church).
Since they are scattered for worship and Bible study meetings, Um said, “We don’t really have a neighborhood, except the college campuses,” and they have an ever-changing constituency since there is a natural turnover of students who complete their studies and seek employment or additional degrees elsewhere.
“It’s a different way to do evangelism and to build a church. All I can say is: everything I know comes from Dr. Paul and Dr. Rebekah.”
Until the Kims demonstrated the family of God by welcoming Um into their home as a college student, he had never visited a pastor’s house.
Continuing work
Paul Kim received a DMin from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (now Gateway Baptist Theological Seminary). He is now the pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church and he continues to be active in organizational leadership. A veteran of the U.S. Army, since 2020 he has been serving as the national chaplain for the Korean War Veterans Association.
An avid walker, he prayer walks every day around Harvard, MIT, and historical sites in the region; Kim is approaching his goal of walking 5,000 miles.
Rebekah Kim is a longtime chaplain at Harvard. She teaches Bible studies and leads seminars in Hebrew and Greek languages.
In 2022 the Berkland Baptist Church network, including Antioch Baptist, received a conviction from God to give a $1 million gift to the Baptist Churches of New England, a donation that represents the single largest gift ever received by the BCNE. The funds are being used for church planting and revitalization and, of course, for collegiate ministry.
Terry Dorsett, executive director of the Baptist Churches of New England, expressed deep appreciation for Paul and Rebekah Kim, for their “gospel faithfulness” and especially for the “incredible gift to help expand God’s kingdom in New England.”
Dorsett received a DMin, with a focus on ministry administration, from Gateway Baptist Theological Seminary in 2009. He also praised the Ums and the church members for their ongoing commitment to university ministry and global church planting. “I’ve never seen a church as committed as Antioch Baptist is to lifelong education and discipleship.”
When asked to describe the church’s style of relational evangelism, Um stated, “In a world where relationships are broken and families are fragmented, the family of God provides a true home. As we cultivate relationships in Christ, the church is where we experience God’s concrete tangible love and [where] we participate in continuing God’s story of redemption of precious souls.”
“All of us are interconnected by the command of God through the Word of God to love one another. I don’t want to use the word ‘community,’” Um noted. “The church is ‘family’ because we have one father in heaven and the blood of Jesus is running through us.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Dan Nicholas and originally published by Baptist Churches of New England.
