Key points:
- The Table Korean Cuisine restaurant is a ministry of Bonfire United Methodist Church, a new congregation supported by the Great Plains Conference’s church development ministry.
- The ministry began in the home of the Rev. Changhyun Kim, a United Methodist pastor and certified Korean cuisine chef, where he served multicourse Korean meals to invited guests.
- Now housed at Grace United Methodist Church, both the restaurant and the Bonfire congregation are able to reach people outside the church.
On Friday evenings, Book & Coffee Shop at Grace United Methodist Church in Olathe looks less like a church hall and more like one of Kansas City’s busiest Korean restaurants.
Diners come for gomtang — a traditional Korean beef soup — and other dishes prepared by the Rev. Changhyun Kim, a United Methodist pastor and certified Korean cuisine chef. In recent weeks, over 200 customers have filled the space each night.
However, Kim did not start The Table Korean Cuisine simply to run a restaurant.
“The Table was not started for people already in the church,” Kim said. “We wanted to meet people outside the church.”
The restaurant is a ministry of Bonfire United Methodist Church, a new congregation supported by the Great Plains Conference’s church development ministry. Its vision is summarized in three phrases: “Love God, Love People, Beyond Church Walls.”
The church began with Kim and two other families. While its worshipping congregation remains small, its reach through The Table has grown dramatically. Six paid staff members and three volunteers help operate it.
The Table began more modestly in Kim’s home, where he served multicourse Korean meals to invited guests. It later moved to Grace United Methodist Church and shifted toward gomtang and other dishes Kim believed could offer diners a more authentic taste of Korean food.
Some people warned him it would not work, saying Korean fried chicken, barbecue, bulgogi or bibimbap would sell better than unfamiliar dishes such as gomtang.
Kim and the Bonfire congregation chose differently. Because The Table was intended as a bridge between church and community, they reasoned that people seeking authentic Korean food might also be open to Korean culture and new relationships.
The restaurant’s popularity surged after a local social-media influencer visited and posted about it.
For Hyeyoung Ghim, a search for restaurant hours unexpectedly became a journey into Christian community.
Ghim began visiting The Table after friends recommended the food. When the restaurant closed one week because Kim’s second child was being born, she followed the pastor on Instagram so she could keep track of its schedule.
Instead, she saw an announcement for Bible study.
Ghim, who had been attending a Catholic church, had wanted to study the Bible more deeply and decided to give the group a try.
“I went to the Bible study, met the people there and really liked them,” she said. “It was a place where I felt comfortable opening my heart.”
She eventually began worshipping at Bonfire.
Sunyoung Kim’s path also began around food and friendship. She had no religious background when she moved from Korea to the United States. Isolated as a new immigrant and mother, she met another Korean mother at a playground and was invited to one of The Table’s earliest gatherings.
“I was lonely. I missed Korean food and I was a new mother who wasn’t even eating well,” she recalled. “I was treated to something very precious.”
Through those relationships, she began attending Bonfire and encountering Christianity for the first time.
Longtime Christians say the community has changed them as well.
Chaeyoung Kang, who grew up in the church, helped serve meals during The Table’s early days. She said that serving in such a small community changed her understanding of ministry.
“In a larger church, sometimes I served without really seeing each person deeply,” Kang said. “Here, every single person who comes is new and precious. I began to understand, ‘I am serving for this one person.’”
The Table also directs some of its income back into the Kansas City community. On the final week of each month, Rev. Kim said, its net income is donated to a local nonprofit or community organization.
The connection between food and ministry goes back to Kim’s own call to ministry.
While studying theology in Korea, Kim wrestled with Christ’s words to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” For a time, he took those words almost literally. He left seminary temporarily, learned Korean cooking, earned a culinary certificate and worked with his mother in a food business.
He eventually returned to theological education and later graduated from Saint Paul School of Theology in 2022.
The image of Jesus feeding his disciples after the Resurrection helped give Bonfire its name. Kim was drawn to the scene in John 21 in which the risen Christ meets disciples who had returned to fishing and prepares breakfast beside a charcoal fire.
“I wanted this church to re-create that invitation and love of Jesus by the Sea of Tiberias,” Kim said.
Bonfire found a home at Grace United Methodist after conference leaders helped connect the new congregation with the church.
The Rev. Barry Dundas, Grace’s senior pastor, initially thought Kim needed office space.
“I said, ‘I hear you need some office space,’” Dundas recalled. “He says, ‘I don’t need office space. I could have an office in my home. I need a place to meet.’”
Dundas walked Kim through the building and offered space for worship, meetings and ministry.
What began as hospitality has grown into partnership.
“We really do see it as a partnership,” Dundas said. “It’s not that they’re just tenants.”
Dundas said Bonfire also has expanded Grace’s understanding of its own commitment that “all are welcome.”
“All are welcome doesn’t just mean, ‘All are welcome if you come and be part of what we’re doing,’” he said.
Grace and Bonfire, he said, can maintain their distinct communities while sharing space and ministry. Bonfire also connects with people Grace probably could not reach on its own.
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That emphasis on crossing boundaries was visible during Bonfire’s Sunday worship.
Preaching at the conclusion of a summer series on the fruit of the Spirit, Kim said love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are not simply signs of private spiritual maturity. They become visible in relationships, particularly with people who are different.
“The fruit of the Spirit doesn’t simply make us nicer people,” Kim preached. “It makes us people who, like Jesus, tear down walls.”
Kim pointed to the early Christian conflict in which Jews and Gentiles who had shared one table became separated, saying the Gospel calls Christians to restore relationships across cultural and social divisions.
That message resonates with Sounjong Oh, a Bonfire leader who first attended Grace after moving to the Kansas City area. He noticed a Korean-language sign in the building and decided to attend Bonfire worship.
At first, the tiny congregation surprised him. But he stayed.
“Finding a Korean church where everyone was welcomed and embraced was deeply comforting to me,” Oh said.
The Rev. Hyunjin Cho, superintendent of the Northeast Kansas District, said Bonfire is still in an early stage, but its approach could encourage other congregations looking for creative ways to connect with their communities.
When asked to describe Bonfire in a single sentence, members offered answers reflecting their different journeys.
Kang called it “a community that reignited my faith.”
Ghim described it as “a family that helped me truly come to know God.” For Sunyoung Kim, it is “the place where I came to know God and encountered God.”
Daveed Kim’s answer was simpler.
“For me, Bonfire is a table open to everyone.”
Kim is director of Korean and Asian news at United Methodist Communications. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
