Summer 2026
Jubilee 20th Anniversary Sunday Service Testimony, by Victor C.
Editor’s Note: Jubilee Seoul is a multi-generational, multi-ethnic, interdenominational church in Seoul, South Korea. They celebrated their 20th anniversary on June 21st, 2026.
God is good — all the time!
Jubilee is the year of the Lord's favor, and the year the Lord showed favor on my life was 2007, just before Jubilee's very first anniversary.
My introduction to Jubilee Church was like a firehose. I arrived in Korea on a Monday. Went to morning prayer on Tuesday. Met Pastor Dave on Wednesday, went to Wednesday night service. I believe I may have even played the cello that Friday or Saturday (pic 1) and even before I had the chance to attend a Sunday service, I already knew: I was home.
Hello, my name is Victor Chun, and Pastor Dave asked me to share about the role Jubilee Church has played in my life. I am currently working as a Leadership Development Consultant and I have the honor and privilege of working alongside incredible leaders such as executives, pastors, missionaries all around the world. I help these leaders understand who they are in the Lord and guide them toward realizing their full potential. And one metaphor I love to use in my trainings is the idea of a basecamp. (pic 2)
If you want to summit a mountain, you need a safe place to return to. A place where you can be equipped, refreshed, and reacclimated so that you can make the climb. That is what Jubilee was for me.
When I first came to Jubilee that Tuesday morning 19 years ago, I had only received Jesus as my Lord and Savior two years prior, in Japan, where I had a life-changing encounter with God. He had called me to missions, and so I came to Korea because I had heard that Korea was a mission-sending nation. And that's when I was introduced to Jubilee.
Now, when you start a climb, you start at the lowest possible place. Some might even call it a pit. And that is exactly where my climb began, as a P.I.T. "Pastor In Training." I'll go ahead and assume you all don't use that acronym anymore, for obvious reasons but that's what we were called. And Pastor Sangmin and I were the very first PITs. (pics 3 and 4)
When PD first asked me to consider becoming a PIT and helping lead the missions department, I was honored, but I also had real hesitation. Did PD not hear my story? Did he not know that I was only two years into my walk with Christ and had never once been on a mission trip? What could I possibly do to help Jubilee become a hub for missions with my lack of experience?
But as I prayed, I sensed that the Lord was opening this door for me. And yes, it was a pit. Literally. I started at the bottom, not knowing anything. But Pastor Dave gave us tremendous freedom, support, and grace to launch some incredible initiatives. During my three years as a PIT, we started a homeless ministry, partnered with an orphanage ministry, established an anti-trafficking prayer ministry, supported local rural churches, hosted a North Korean missions conference, and made international impact. God alone knows the eternal fruit that was planted in those years and is still growing today.
Jubilee truly was a place where I could try things, grow, fail, learn, fail again, and keep growing as a leader. And I am deeply grateful for my time as a PIT.
As that season came to a close, I was ready to be sent out. The church blessed and supported me to go receive formal training in missions and leadership for a year. When I returned to Korea, I started working as a professor at Sookdae University and that year brought my greatest achievement at Jubilee. I married a girl from Philly! (had to represent!) I met Sharon that year, and the following year, Pastor Dave presided over our wedding. And as you can see, I took God's call to be fruitful and multiply very literally.
I continued to serve at Jubilee as a lay leader and stayed involved, but Pastor Dave noticed something. I wasn't fully thriving. He invited me into more official leadership roles at the church, but I didn't feel called in that direction. And then he asked me a question that changed the entire trajectory of my life.
He said: "If money were no object, and you could do anything, what would you want to do?"
After a brief moment of reflection, I said, "I want to do missions."
And with that, my family of three, including our newborn daughter, was sent out as Jubilee Missionaries, based in Kansas City and launched into the world. With the support of Jubilee Church and our partners, we were able to preach the gospel to many, plant churches, and help gather and mobilize some of the largest mission organizations in the world toward finishing the Great Commission in our lifetime. (pics 8 and 9)
When our time in full-time missions came to an end, our relationship with Jubilee was by no means over. You see, in a basecamp, you go through the fire together, the testing, the challenges, but also the breakthroughs. And you create relationships that last a lifetime. (pause) Here is a picture from my birthday just last week (pic 10) and some of you may recognize a few faces. Roughly a third of the people in that room were connected to Jubilee at some point in their lives.
Now, everything I just shared did not happen in isolation. None of it was possible without a Sherpa.
A Sherpa is actually a people group from Nepal. In fact, Pastor Dave and I have a mutual friend named Narbu Sherpa and he is from that people group. Sherpas are known the world over for being so naturally acclimated to the climate and altitude of the Himalayas that they serve as the finest guides for those attempting to summit Everest. They are the very embodiment of a servant leader. (pic 11)
A few years ago, the founders of the leadership organization I work with conducted research on elite Himalayan Sherpas. During one of those interviews, they asked what they thought was a simple question, expecting a record-breaking number in return. They asked:
"How many times have you personally summited Mount Everest?"
To their surprise, the Sherpa looked at them, genuinely confused, and replied that he didn't know the number.
When they pressed him on why he wouldn't keep track of such a monumental, world-class achievement, the Sherpa explained a fundamental truth about how his people view the mountain. He said:
"We don't count how many times we stand on top. We only count the number of people we have successfully helped reach the summit."
A Sherpa leader is not in it for their own count or their own glory. It is about helping others fulfill their God-given destiny. I believe this is part of what Jesus meant when He told His disciples: "Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you." This is the way. And this is the experience I had at Jubilee.
We may never fully know the extent of the impact this local body of Christ has had across the nations. And perhaps that is exactly as it should be. But what I do know, and want to testify to today, is that Jubilee was and continues to be my basecamp. A place where I was trained, filled, equipped, and sent to the nations.
Pastor Dave, I want to thank you for being a Sherpa to me and a Sherpa to so many. I know today is about Jubilee Church, but without your leadership, this Jubilee would not be what it was and is today (pic 12)
May Jubilee continue to be a place where lives are transformed, where people are empowered, where the Holy Spirit dwells, where Jesus is worshiped, and where the Father's heart is imparted. May you continue to make a profound impact in Seoul, in South Korea, and to the nations, all to the glory of the Sherpa of all Sherpas: Jesus Christ.
Thank you.