When Ordinary People Step Up

Editor’s note: The following feature story originally appeared in the summer 2021 issue of Southwestern News.

“We need ordinary people to step up.”

These words, spoken ever so softly and calmly during a sermon from Matthew 10 delivered in the summer of 2021, could characterize the driving motivation of Charles Lee (’98), and his ministry at Acts Fellowship Church in Austin, Texas. Serving for more than 20 years as pastor, he has seen it play out time and time again.

“One of things that I love about our church is that we have a lot of ordinary people. Now, don’t take me wrong, I think all of you are exceptional in various ways,” he says with a smile addressed to a largely college-aged group of more than 100 gathered in a borrowed church building on West Koening Lane. “But we’re just average people stepping up to be available to an extraordinary God who desires to do extraordinary things in and through us for His glory.”

The flock gathered at Acts Fellowship Church is anything but ordinary, and yet, it’s this posture of humility modeled by Lee that permeates the lives and hearts of his congregation. Seated in appropriately socially distant sections of the sanctuary during the past year, the primary demographic of Acts Fellowship is comprised of students from the University of Texas. They are future philanthropists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, international entrepreneurs, and ministers of the Good News of Jesus Christ. More than two decades ago, Lee would have sat in their midst and it is one of the things that makes him uniquely prepared to pastor this church.

While he was completing a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Texas, God called Lee to Gospel ministry. “It was unmistakable,” he recalls. “God used my prayer time, my grandmother, my circumstances, and especially my time in the Word to convict my heart of the call.”

The Lee family immigrated to the United States from South Korea when Lee was 8 years old and he grew up in Waco, Texas. His parents, though “uneducated” were very “wise” and wanted to provide better opportunities for their two sons. Lee and his brother were the first in their family to graduate from high school and college, and though times were often lean, and money was tight, he recalls, “God met all our needs.”

One of the many ways God met the needs of his family in their early years in Texas was through their church in Waco, Bellmead Baptist Church. Lee fondly remembers the time he spent in the Royal Ambassadors ministry and how the pastor and his family welcomed the Lee family with open arms. Pastor Raymond Dunkin (’60) and his wife, Gerry, played a significant role in Lee’s spiritual development as he graduated from high school and then moved to the University of Texas.

After he completed his undergraduate degree, Lee began an internship at the Korean Baptist Church of Austin (KBCA) and, shortly thereafter, enrolled in courses at Southwestern Seminary in the fall of 1994. Over a period of the next several years, while he pursued an M.Div. on the Fort Worth campus, Lee commuted every weekend to Austin, to be actively engaged in ministry there.

“I sensed God’s call to serve in Austin, and since God did not give me a different assignment, I figured I [should] remain faithful to His initial leading,” Lee said. Despite physically moving out of the city for a season, his heart remained focused on the greater Austin area. His time at Southwestern Seminary clarified a call to ministry and served as an occasion to grow and mature under the guidance of godly professors.

“My fondest memory is attending chapel services in Truett Auditorium,” Lee remembers. “I can count the number of times I missed on my fingers. I feel that’s where I was mentored.” He recalls the investment classroom professors like Roy Fish, Thomas Lea, and Ted Cabal made in him and it is a model he carries into the mentorship relationships he seeks out as a pastor.

One such mentorship occurred shortly after Lee and his wife, Carol (’99), returned to Austin in 1999. A young college student at the university, affectionately known to his peers as the “Freshman Refugee,” came to the ministry Lee was leading. This “Freshman Refugee” had arrived in Austin for his first year of college without a housing assignment and without the means to pay for his education, so he lived a pseudo-vagrant lifestyle on the goodwill and graces of fellow classmates. Sleeping on friends’ couches and “bumming food” off of them, one of these friends invited him to church where he met Lee.

“He is so self-giving and selfless as a shepherd,” says Donald H. Kim, the former “Freshman Refugee.” Kim now serves as assistant professor of Bible at Texas Baptist College. Remembering times when Lee would meet with him for discipleship early in the morning, Kim said, “He models faithfulness and humility unlike any other and I think that’s what makes him such a powerful man of impact.”

The humble spirit and gracious heart of his mentor has made a lasting impact on Kim as he now seeks to model the same spirit in his teaching and relationships with students at Texas Baptist College.

“What he embodies is what I want every pastor and my students to embody. That in itself is a gift from the Lord … for me to have had a sight of that. He is a gift.”

The congregation now known as Acts Fellowship Church originally started as a primarily English-speaking department within the Korean Baptist Church of Austin (KBCA), and the church was planted in 2004 with the blessing of their mother church. In 2005, Acts Fellowship was commissioned by KBCA with a vision to reach the greater Austin area with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The unique ministry position of reaching predominantly second-generation Asian Americans studying at the University of Texas has provided the church an opportunity to reach the world from Austin.

The name “Acts Fellowship” originated in an acronym for ACTS: Active Christians Together in Service. As time passed, less of a focus was placed on the acronym and more attention pointed toward the things that characterized the early church in Acts 2:42-27. Keeping this picture in mind, the vision of Acts Fellowship Church is to glorify God through the three “Greats”: the Great Commandment, Great Commission, and Great Community. These principles have served as a navigational tool for the direction of the church even during the uncertain days of the COVID-19 global pandemic that disrupted the weekly structure and routine of every church in America.

With annual mission trips to Cambodia, the Navajo Nation, and a camp for special needs children suspended due to COVID-19, Lee points out one of the ways God has given them an opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission: through their online worship services. “Our virtual services are being viewed by others who are not a part of our church family. This is a surprising way we are reaching out.”

Additionally, Acts Fellowship participates in the Great Commission by giving through the Cooperative Program of the SBC and as Lee serves on the executive committee of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC).

Many of the visitors who sought out the church service online have become a part of small groups, some meeting virtually when that is the safest option and some in-person when local restrictions regarding gatherings were lifted, which allowed them to become a part of the great community at Acts Fellowship. “They have faithfully stayed connected and helped one another as needs arose. Our church family realized more than ever how important community is in our Christian lives,” says Lee.

Fostering community within the body has always been a chief part of Lee’s ministry and an emphasis in his pastoral care. His own availability to his flock is a high priority: “I believe that my greatest responsibility as a pastor is to lead and feed the sheep that God brings to our church. This means that I must be available to them,” he said.

“If I cannot be available to them, then the church has gotten too big. I, then, train and equip them to be kingdom-focused, Gospel-driven, Holy Spirit-empowered, Christ-centered, biblically rooted, eternally rooted, living to the glory of God.”

Ever mindful of seeking out those who are called to ministry in his congregation, Lee sees the reward of ministry in getting to serve the Lord and “join God in making His disciples that will make other disciples.”

Lee takes to heart the admonition Paul made to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (CSB).

When Lee is approached by a member of the church who has felt a call to ministry, he immediately does three things: he puts that person on his watchlist, begins to pray specifically for them, and provides opportunities for service in the church. Since Acts Fellowship was planted in 2004, Lee has seen 34 members from the church pursue theological education in seminary. Nineteen of those have attended his alma mater, Southwestern Seminary, as they prepare to live their calling.

One of the members of Acts Fellowship who is currently an online student at Southwestern

Seminary pursuing a Master of Divinity degree is David S. Kim. He also serves as a college ministry intern at the church. Kim observed a model of multiplication lived out in his pastor. “Pastor Charles’ desire to see disciples being made is contagious. I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned from him is the importance of wanting to see the upcoming generation of believers thrive and grow.”

As Acts Fellowship Church looks toward building their own facility over the course of the next two years, Lee is most excited about what God will do through Acts Fellowship Church if they are faithful. 

“Because our God is great, I expect great things—not necessarily from the eyes of the world but from God’s eternal perspective. My goal is to remain faithful, and I pray that God will use our church to touch lives and to impact eternity for God’s glory.”

It all begins with ordinary people being willing to step up.

Adam Covington is the senior editor for Southwestern News.