About Us
HA:N United Methodist Church is a space where we encourage and support a journey of critically examining the traditionally conservative church doctrine which can often feel out of step with our understanding of God.
We believe that doubt and questions are important parts of our spiritual journey of deconstructing and reconstructing our faith.
OUR VISION
The Transformation of the world into the peaceful and just creation God intended for all.
OUR MISSION
To live out the healing and liberating message of Christ, queer the status quo, and confront all forms of injustice and oppression.
What is the meaning behind the name HA:N?
The Korean word Han doesn’t have a direct English translation, but it describes a feeling of sorrow borne through through oppression and perseverance. Our hope is that we can release this HA:N through unity and liberation.
We use a colon in our name as a way to reclaim the way that "Han" was originally spelled in old Korean with a dot as the vowel.
A Bit of Our History
In 2016, a small group of lay people who needed an alternative to the theologically conservative Christianity dominant in the Korean American community, started a house church. They were joined by their friends, both lay and clergy, in their envisioning.
In 2018, with the support of the NY Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, HA:N UMC was planted in NYC, with Rev. Daniel Cho as our inaugural pastor. Our hope was that HA:N would become a beacon of progressive theology in the sea of conservative Christianity.
With the pandemic in 2020, HA:N became a virtual church, and by worshiping through Zoom, our membership has expanded nationally and internationally. Thus, we decided it was imperative to continue our virtual worship.
In 2023, we were proud and thrilled to welcome Pastor Sulkiro Song, a queer Korean American woman, and a biblical scholar, as the second pastor of HA:N. Sulkiro started as a member of HA:N, and eventually accepted the call to serve HA:N as its pastor, where the multiplicity of their identities are fully celebrated.
Our Theology
As a Christian church within the United Methodist denomination, our congregation inevitably looks to Scripture as a sacred text that forms and shapes our faith community. We do not see it as an answer book or a history book. We see it as a spiritual guide and a story of humanity seeking the divine and the way in which the divine is already with us. We believe the text itself is open to interpretation and that we engage the text using our reason, experience, traditions, and the movement of the Holy Spirit.
As Wesleyans we are committed to doing no harm, doing good, and attending to our spiritual practices together as a community of faith. Many of us at HA:N hold differing views on many doctrines. Yet we are one community, bound together not by uniformity of doctrines and beliefs, but by striving to live out together Jesus’ greatest commandment - to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31). Ultimately, we believe that God desires the liberation of the world.
Thus, we are followers of the way of Jesus, committed to the vision of a just and peaceful world as God intended. We are committed to living out the healing and liberating message of Jesus Christ, queering the status quo, and confronting all forms of injustice and oppression.
Join us for worship and fellowship
We hold an interactive Zoom worship each Sunday at 11:00 am EST/EDT. We “un-mute” and have a call and response, we even break bread together via a virtual communion.
If you are a first-time visitor and would like to attend any of our services, please register in order to receive access to our zoom link.
View our upcoming service topic here.
