VINTON–Jae Song, a native of Seoul, South Korea, has been appointed to serve as one of the pastors at Thrasher Memorial United Methodist Church in Vinton. His first Sunday at the church was June 30. Pastor B. Failes is the Senior Pastor at Thrasher and has served the congregation there since 2011. The two will share all pastoral duties.
Song comes to Vinton along with his wife Star and their daughter Amy after graduating from Emory’s Candler Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia in May.
Pastor Jae Song has been appointed to serve as one of the ministers of Thrasher Memorial United Methodist Church in Vinton. Song recently graduated from Candler Theological Seminary in Atlanta and is originally from Seoul, South Korea. (Shown left to right, Jan Failes, Pastor B. Failes, Amy Song, Pastor Jae Song, and Star Song.
Candler School of Theology is one of 13 seminaries of the United Methodist Church. Candler is part of Emory University, an institution ranked among the top 20 national universities by U.S. World and News Report. Failes also graduated from Candler.
Song is replacing Pastor David Vaughan who has been appointed to a position at Evangelical United Methodist in Elkton, Virginia, after four years in Vinton.
In the United Methodist denomination, local churches do not hire their own pastors; United Methodist bishops appoint pastors to serve in local churches and other ministry settings. In that way, according the UMC website http://www.umc.org/, “a local church never has to go without a pastor and a pastor never goes without a setting for ministry.”
The UMC says that the primary goal of the appointment system is to “match the gifts and graces of a particular pastor to the ministry needs of a particular congregation at a particular time.”
Each individual UMC congregation is part of a larger network known as an annual conference under the leadership of a bishop, who is responsible for assigning pastors. Usually, when everyone agrees that a current pastor’s “gifts and graces” are a good match for the specific needs of a ministry setting, the pastor is assigned to remain for another year.
This system dates back to American frontier days when circuit riding preachers traveled on horseback from town to town. At that time, bishops matched preachers to circuits four times a year. Nowadays bishops typically fix appointments once a year.
Sometimes, however, a particular pastor is needed elsewhere or a local church requires someone with a new set of skills. In that case, the pastor will move and the church will receive someone new. Appointments are formally made at the regular session of annual conference and they take effect on a designated Sunday, usually in early summer.
Song came to the United States in July 2010 to study theology after completing his undergraduate degree at Seoul National University. His wife majored in pipe organ and piano in college. They married in June of that year, just before coming to this country. Their daughter is 20 months old and they are expecting another child in November.
Pastor Jae Song (on left) came to the United States in 2010 to attend Candler Theological Seminary. He will share duties with Pastor B. Failes, who also graduated from Candler, and who came to Thrasher in 2011.
Song comes to Vinton with an impressive background. In 2013, he received the Ruth Sewell Flowers Award, which is presented to the senior Master of Divinity student who has shown the greatest improvement in ministerial qualifications during the three years spent at Candler.
In 2012, he received the James and Alice Slay Award, which is presented to the second-year Master of Divinity student who exhibits outstanding academic performance and promise for pastoral ministry.
During his years at Emory Song led the International Student Association and the Candler Society for Multiracial Congregations. He served as a minister of missions and outreach at a local church. He also completed an internship at Emory Hospital-Midtown, and served as a pastoral summer intern in the Bahamas.
He was chosen this spring by a group of professors to preach at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in March, an honor given to only two students each semester. That sermon, “One Talent,” can be accessed by visiting the Thrasher Memorial website at www.thrasherumc.org and clicking on Worship/Sermons Online.
This is Song’s first time living in a small community as Seoul has a population of ten million and Atlanta a population of over 400,000.
He was raised in a middle-class Methodist home in South Korea, where the population is divided fairly evenly between Buddhism and Christianity. He became critical of the church as a young man and originally intended to become a journalist.
However in 2004, at age 24, at the urging of his parents, he attended a church service which eventually led him to discover God’s calling for his life in the ministry.
Song looks forward to living in Vinton where there are four seasons, as there were in South Korea, which is located at about the same latitude as the Roanoke Valley.
He says he likes the way Thrasher is very involved in the community and community service, which is different than his experiences in urban settings.
He also notes differences in the South Korean and American cultures. There is hugging in America, not so much in Korea. Bowing is more traditional than shaking hands, although generally bowing indicates respect for one’s elders and teachers and peers do not bow to one another.
Song is licensed, but not ordained as a minister. He is now a “provisional elder” and will spend the next three to four years in the process that leads to ordination.
Song and his wife have family in South Korea. They returned home in the winter; his parents came to the United States to attend his graduation from Candler. His younger sister studied in the United States to become a teacher but returned to South Korea to live.
As for their first weeks in Vinton, they are trying to find time to unpack while Song settles into his ministry at Thrasher.
Pastor Jae and Amy celebrate his graduation in May 2013.