by Grace Wu
Chris Lim first set foot in Lighthouse just nine months ago. Most would not be able to tell how new of a member he is by seeing his service in LBC. He is a part of the choir, the weekly running ministry, Care Ministry, and was recently selected to be a part of the Czech 2008 missions team.
The transition into LBC was not a difficult one for Chris. Many things helped him get adjusted: knowing Rob Lockwood and Jenny Chang from a previous small group, seeing what he saw as the genuineness of people in a church body, and having a small group leader who called in every week just to check in with him. Knowing that it was important to settle down and to be able to grow at a church, Chris did not think that his swift transition into the life of the church body was a hasty decision.
He got his first taste of a major LBC ministry project when he got the idea to put together four scrapbooks for the LBC elders in February. The idea came after his first members meeting in January, which was a somber experience for him. He saw the emotional fatigue of the leadership, perhaps from much criticism and discouragement.
However, instead of being disheartened by the experience, he decided to turn it into an opportunity to encourage and support LBC’s leadership at a much-needed time. “For leaders, criticism is always hard when you’re trying to do what’s right and you’re trying to fear God. Since words are powerful, they can be used to criticize and they can be used to build up,” Chris said.
It was then that the scrapby book idea blossomed into a church-wide effort in which the family ministry, single adults’ ministry, and collegians were able to all participate. Not only was coordinating a church-wide effort to encourage the elders a difficult task, but keeping it a secret was an even harder task. Even when the idea was brought before the rest of the elders as a way to encourage Pastor John, the rest of the elders thought it was exclusively for Pastor John. Ultimately, the scrapbooks turned out to be a surprise for the elders and their wives.
Chris is originally from New Jersey and spent his earlier years on the East Coast. He attended Boston University for his undergraduate education and majored in economics with a minor in business. After taking a year off, he went back to BU for graduate school. After several years of working on the East Coast, he decided to go West, mainly because his best friend from graduate school was from San Diego and he would visit out here on occasion to enjoy the sunny weather.
“I came to San Diego on my own volition. I got tired of heading back to the cold East Coast,” Chris said.
Chris, who now works as a financial planner in Mission Valley, was raised by faithful Christian parents.
“One of things I really appreciate about my parents—they’re Chinese but my parents didn’t bring us up in a very Chinese kind of household. It was more of a Christian household. They loved us equally but treated us differently in terms of our strengths,” Chris said. After Chris moved to San Diego from living on the East Coast, his parents followed him out West to live in Carlsbad. Even though his parents are now retired, they still consistently go on missions
in China.
The missions mindset of his parents certainly had some influence in Chris’ life as well. His college years were filled with missions trips to Poland, China, Korea, Daytona Beach, and Williamsport in Pennsylvania. Even though Chris has been out of college for over ten years now, his passion to serve the Lord did not leave him when he left the college scene. Instead, the same fervor to fulfill the Great Commission is still clearly present, whether in serving in LBC domestically or internationally on missions.