Silver Spring, Maryland, United States …. [Wendi Rogers/ANN]
Lights, camera, God? Welcome to Paul Kim’s world. Meet the former youth pastor who made the radical decision to switch gears and go back to school to study film and television.
“This is what I was born to do. This is what I’m good at,” Kim says.
He realized that even though he wasn’t following the traditional path of a pastor, he could still minister and reach people as a Seventh-day Adventist filmmaker. It’s where “I really found my spiritual gifts,” he says, explaining that he wanted to combine his theological and pastoring background with this newfound love “for God’s glory.”
Leaving full-time pastoral ministry, he says, “was the hardest decision I ever made in my life.” It was not looked upon well. “It was like, ‘Oh, you’ve lost your salvation.’ In a lot of ways I wrestled with that.”
It was also the loneliest decision he’s ever made, Kim says. There are only a handful of Adventist filmmakers. “In some ways we’re on our own,” he says. “Within the church it’s tough because often what you’re trying to do is misunderstood. That’s mostly because there’s not many of us out there.”
He adds, “When you’re a pastor there is a huge network of support [such as] meetings, conferences, camp meetings. If you’re a filmmaker and trying to use it for the Lord, that’s a rare thing. In the past there hasn’t been a support group that brings these individuals together, primarily because we never existed in the past, or the few that did had to find support elsewhere.”
Kim struggled with this for a year and a half while studying filmmaking before coming to a conclusion: he and just a few others were pioneers.
He realized it was “going to be a lonely experience,” but was able to accept it. “For those of us in the front, we’re just trying to create a path for those around us, not just to follow in our footsteps, but to learn and go farther than we [will].”
Without a large support base, Kim says, he has to rely “so much more on God and be so much more in tune with my spirituality and study of the Bible.”
Kim sees the media as a pseudo-parent and, having been raised with the media serving such a prominent role in society, he calls himself a “media baby. I can understand this way of communicating because I was raised on it,” the 27-year-old says.
“More than any teacher, preacher or politician, the masses are listening to the musicians, designers and filmmakers. After all, they have the greater audience, and are more in tune with the times than any other group of people. And if Christianity cries for anything, it’s relevance,” says the California native.
This is what drives Kim: “One of the things I’m really passionate about is portraying authentic Christianity.” Kim talks about his time as a youth pastor. He saw many church members trying to convey a perfect life without talking about their struggles while they were happening.
But this “is what people need to see,” he says.
“For me to realize that other people struggle with the same things I struggle with helped my Christianity; it helped my spiritual walk. So now what I do with people I mentor and younger people … I’m very honest about who I am, what I struggle with. Because when I then overcome through the grace of God, their faith is built because they kind of share my experience.”
This authenticity is what Kim aims for in his filmmaking. His documentary, “Unto the Ends,” shows the real struggles of a “hospital”
in Chad. One sees the human element when the doctor and nurse there are faced with conditions and diseases the doctor himself admitted he’s “never seen before.” This helps people relate to the doctor, Kim says, because he’s authentic. “I want people to see his humanity. I want people to see how difficult it is, but through that I think it really glorifies God because it’s showing that it’s God, not this man” that is making this a better place.
Kim has participated in the annual SONscreen film festival, which began in 2001 and is sponsored by the Adventist Church in North America.
“Unto the Ends” won Best in Show at the 2004 SONscreen festival.
SONscreen has “helped in a lot of ways and primarily has brought [Adventist] filmmakers together. When you bring people together, all of a sudden you have people who understand you, think like you, and understand your passions. You have some support,” Kim says.
“Film is simply, in my mind, the strongest means, or the greatest medium, through which any person or group of persons can communicate.
If film is the most powerful … form of communication, then this is the most powerful and most important way in which we can communicate Christ, and more so Christ’s principles,” he says.
“When I think about that it sends shivers up and down my spine because that’s a huge responsibility.”
