Elliot Ku

March 2, 2022. It was a rainy afternoon. I had finished teaching a church history class at Christ College earlier that day and I was driving home. My drives are usually accompanied by a favourite playlist on Spotify or a podcast. But this time was different. I was on the phone with Dr. Kevin Choi who was also on the road to a medical conference. I remember the rain because we sort of had to yell at each other on speaker phone to cut through the background noise.

Kev and I were introduced to each other by Alfred – a member from GracePoint but also Kevin’s long time friend. Kev spoke to me in his capacity as an elder of The Well Church, and he was hoping to connect with me to discuss the possibility sending some ministry trainees to guest preach at the church. I like sending our ministry trainees to preach elsewhere because it’s really good for their development as preachers (such as learning how to contextualise a sermon to different groups of people while also learning more about what God is doing in churches across Sydney) and it hopefully (!) helps the churches that they’re ministering in.

However, I felt like the conversation with Kev was different. He was asking for pulpit supply. But it seemed like there was more, especially as he shared about the church’s history.

The Church’s History

The Well Church started as New Philadelphia Church (Sydney) in 2013. They were a campus of New Philly (as its affectionately called) in South Korea and were planted with a deep desire to reach and influence the city. This was a massive endeavour. Missionaries from overseas came to help set the ministry up and there was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm as the church gathered for worship at Redfern Townhall.

All of this changed in 2018 when the senior ministers of New Philly in Korea were dismissed on charges of spiritual abuse. Consequently, the pastors of the Sydney campus appointed a team of 6 elders to help to sustain the ministry as it was no longer connected to Korea, and the Sydney campus pastors resigned soon after.

I have condensed months and years of trauma into one paragraph. But those who’ve experienced spiritual abuse understand the deep sense of pain, violation, mistrust, and anger that words fail to capture. You start to question everything; including yourself. And unlike a physical bruise, the wounds of spiritual abuse are invisible and the prognosis is less obvious. How is it that the very people you’re meant to trust – pastors and elders – become the people who take advantage of you? Years of deep reflection and communion with the Lord, rich friendship and connection, and therapy will make a significant difference. But healing isn’t always guaranteed, and some scars become part of who we are.

So after all this happened, the church became independent without a name, and weekly preaching on Sundays were delivered by a mixture of itinerant speakers and the student pastor of the congregation, David Chong.

In January 2019, the elders of the church began a potential church merger. An agreement was made that the two congregations would meet together for a year, after which a decision would be made about whether to proceed with the merge. However, what transpired over the course of that year was again a pattern of spiritual abuse by the pastor of the other church, which ultimately resulted in a separation of ways.

The situation with the other church is complex. I don’t know the pastor or the associated leaders. And as with most cases of spiritual abuse, the veracity of charges and claims are often connected to the integrity of the person speaking. There are very rarely written evidences, recordings, receipts, or blood on the floor. Even to this day, there is little closure to what happened in 2019. But the “relational debris field” clearly indicates leadership failure of some sort. The church of Jesus Christ ought to be a place of refuge and restoration. It is a tragedy when it falls short of that.

Consequently, in 2020, the church (again, still unnamed) gathered in Redfern Town Hall for worship. But COVID was now a force of resistance, and worship was then moved online for longer than anyone would have hoped for. In late September 2020, the members of the church called David Chong (who was up to that point the student pastor helping the church to navigate all these changes) as their full time pastor.

The congregation then relaunched in May 2021 as The Well Church.

How Our Paths Crossed

As Kev shared this, I felt a deep sense of sadness that the church had to go through such turbulent times. And as Kev narrated their journey through the piercing echoes of the rain, I kept thinking to myself “okay, is this when the church ends?”

But it hasn’t. Against human failure and odds, God has worked in and through the church and her leaders to sustain the ministry.

So I said to Kevin “brother, thank you for sharing all that. Of course I’d be willing to send student pastors to preach at The Well. You’d be doing us a favour by giving them a chance to hone their craft. But what’s your long term plan as a church? Where do you see yourselves in the future?”

Kev responded by saying that their sincere hope is to establish themselves and become part of a recognised denomination for support, accountability, and partnership in Gospel mission. That sounded really wise to me. Then I asked “have you thought about which denomination?” And he said “the Presbyterian Church”.

I arrived home. Parked my car. Rolled the garage door down. And it was now quiet. I turned off the engine of my car and brought my phone to my ear and I asked “why?”

Now you need to understand, I love our denomination. It is wonderful in so many ways and seeks to be faithful to Scripture as it relates to doctrine and governance. But rarely do you hear of congregations wanting to join our denomination. The ordination standards are rigorous, we’re not cool and flashy, and it certainly runs against the grain of what’s happening in broader evangelicalism (that is, denominational churches leaving their denominations to be independent). To which Kev replied “because we are Reformed in our understanding of Scripture and we believe in the Presbyterian form of governance”.

At this point, Kev was about to arrive at his medical conference. We agreed that this conversation was too big and important to be condensed into a phone call, and so we planned to have a gathering with all the other elders of The Well to discuss this further.

What Happened After

Okay, are you still following?

If Mar 2, 2022 sounds familiar to you, then it’s because Anastasia was born 10 days after that. We were meant to meet soon after her birth but as you might be aware, we were struck with a series of medical complications that pushed the meeting further and further away. Kev kept following up; ensuring that we were doing okay. And we finally decided on May 2, 2022 to meet again. Something about the second day of the month, huh?

That was a sweet meeting. We sat together in my living room, Anastasia was sleeping on my chest, and we discussed the church’s history and its potential future. I was able to hear their hearts and desires, and in that meeting, I desired in my heart to do whatever I could (as limited as I was) to help them join the denomination. What happened after was series of conversations, meetings, and meals to explore what this could look like.

In God’s kindness, on the 7th June, 2023, the Presbytery of Western Sydney declared The Well Church as a congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. All of this happened in roughly 12 months. To my understanding, this is one of the quickest applications. And God’s hand was just all over it from the very beginning.

To be sure, it wasn’t an easy process. New Philly was a charismatic church and had gone through a progressive journey of becoming Reformed in their doctrine while remaining expressive in worship. So the Presbytery had questions surrounding the church’s understanding of the gifts of the Spirit, and the leaders of The Well wrote a detailed theological paper which confirmed their position. But the Lord was clearly at work even throughout seemingly bureaucratic processes.

I was called to be the Interim Moderator of the church, with the aim of holding that position until Pastor David completed his ordination requirements. However, a few months later, David resigned from his role as pastor with the aim of caring for his own soul and his family. At this point, I need to express my deep admiration for David. From the very beginning, David has thrown himself completely into the service of the Lord at the church, and has helped to steer the ship through some of the church’s most turbulent period. The other elders and leaders were also remarkable. It was a “all hands on deck” endeavour, but it’s hardly surprising that the church shrunk over the course of those years. They were hard years. Not only was the church alone in this process, but they had also just survived 2 bouts of spiritual abuse. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that all of this took a massive toll on David and his family. But in military terms, this was an honourable discharge. And as I step into my new role, I’m deeply conscious that I am building on his hard work and legacy.

After David resigned, I led the elders in seeking a suitable replacement. We searched high and low. We called, we courted, and we tried our very best to convince suitable candidates. But for a variety of reasons, none of them agreed. Months of searching later, Kev said to me “I thought we’d find a pastor by now”. Same brother, same. Never had I felt the “clergy drought” so acutely.

One thing led to another, and then the conversation turned to me – the bottom of the barrel. But before we go there, I just want to affirm those who declined the invitation to be pastor that it was a hard call. The Well is a small church. Members speak about having 10-15 people on a regular Sunday. Some recall Sundays when there were more people serving up front than there were sitting in the pews. Finances were (and still are) tough. There’s a bit of savings in the bank. But with low giving (which of course is expected for its size) and no property (church or manse/parsonage), it’s hard to say “yes”. But through this entire journey since 2022, I had grown a deep love for the people. They had an obvious love for the Lord and for each other. Surely God hadn’t brought the church to this point only for everything to fold. In fact, that was part of the pastoral search conversation. If things didn’t work out, then there had to be an exit strategy for the members.

So as I was talking to the elders at The Well, I asked if they would be willing to write a letter to my elders at GracePoint to kindly ask them to bless me for the role. I brought this letter to the GracePoint elders and there was a lot of discussion about it. But the best way to summarise their insights is this comment that an elder made: “Elliot, we will not bless you to go because we don’t want you to go. But if you do go, we will bless you”.

Months of prayer and reflection later, we felt released to go and partner with The Well Church and the work that God is doing there. We (I use the pronoun “we” because my ministry is deeply connected and enabled by Sherilyn) had helped to grow GracePoint Lidcombe to its physical capacity, we had trained 4 cohorts of lay leaders, and we had identified/raised/trained 8 pastors-in-training. All of this felt like a nice check point. So on April 28, 2024 at a joint campus worship service, we announced to GracePoint that we would be finishing off by the end of 2024.

What’s Next?

So what’s next? Well, we formally started our ministry on December 5, 2024 (after having 3 months of break). And it’s been a wild journey. We moved from the then existing building in Newington to a new spot in the Sydney Olympic Park and we’re slowly settling down.

December was spent navigating through the changes of the move, planning for 2025, and getting to know people. It’s been a really sweet time.

The people have been remarkably welcoming – certainly more than we deserve. And they have really embraced us as a ministry family. On one week, we were invited to the home of one family for wollamsam and then another a few days later for laksa.

We’ve just started a sermon series on the Psalms and we’ll be starting Growth Groups in February. We don’t have anything fancy planned. We just want to keep the main thing the main thing, and trust that as we go deep, God will take it as wide as he pleases.

So please pray for us. We’ve been connecting with a lot of dechurched people, which has been my heart’s missional desire for many years. We’ve loved building deep relational wells with existing church members. The growing number of kids and the corresponding kids ministry is such a joy. And we’ve been blessed by a team that has joined us in renewing the ministry at The Well.

We were worshipping last Sunday and I felt a deep sense of peace about our decision to move here. It was my first Sunday back in weekly preaching. There was a lot of anxiety; with preaching, with the new venue, with meeting new people, and leading the church. But there was a shalom rooted in the knowledge that God’s hand is in on this. My prayer is that God would do a work here that defies human expectation and understanding, so that when people look at The Well Church, they would collectively utter “only God could have done that”.

Will you please join me in that prayer?

Speaking of the significance of the second day of the month, we will be having an Installation and Relaunch Service on February 2, 2025. We’d love for you to join us as we celebrate God’s goodness and grace over our church. If you want to “check out” or just “visit” our church then that’s the best Sunday to do that. We’ll be catering for lunch so please rsvp here https://tinyurl.com/twcrelaunch.

One More Story

Before you go, I want to tell you one more story.

As the elders and I (Kevin and DJ) were discussing my potential fit for the church, we asked each other what we were afraid of if this went ahead.

I had wrestled with a ton of fears and insecurities about this call to be their pastor. One story of encouragement was reading/hearing the story of how Tim Keller ended up at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. He was part of a committee that was meant to find a planter for that church. But after a sequence of rejections, the committee then turned to see if he would do it. Of course, I am no Tim Keller. But it seems like our first choices are not always God’s choices. And if it’s not beyond Keller to be the “last choice”, then it’s not beyond me either.

So, Kev and DJ shared their fears. And they asked me about mine. There were lots. But I narrowed it down to this. I told them that I was afraid of being the one to kill the church. The Well Church was experiencing a season of decline. Furthermore, it’s size and demographics fits the profile of churches that have shut down over the past 5 years – even within our denomination. And I was afraid that I would come and be the one to bury the church. I have a lot of ego, insecurity, and pride. And I had to bring all of that before the Lord because I needed to be open to the possibility that I might be more of a spiritual undertaker than a spiritual caregiver. It might be God’s calling for me to help The Well finish well.

My brother-elders responded in this way: “Elliot, if that ever happens, then we will be the last 2 guys standing next to you”.

Wow. No pad answer. None of that polite “nah Elliot, that’ll never happen”. They were sober about that possibility. But they were seriously committed.

I decided in my heart that night and this would be it. That possibility of a spiritual burial remains. But God is at work. So we will go on with the sacred ministry of shepherding people to know and love Christ, and to know the incredible peace, hope, and joy God has for them in Jesus Christ. Small steps of faith. Long obedience in the same direction.

So please pray for us. And if you are in a position to financially support us, then we’d appreciate that. We’re asking that the Lord would take the very little that we have – the 5 loaves and 2 fishes – and bless multitudes with it (Matthew 14:17-19).