Pastor David is an ordained minister and Christian theologian, and he is the founding and lead pastor of Church of the Ascent. He earned his degrees in Biblical Studies and Theology from Wheaton College, and in Theology and Ethics from Yale University. He then received his doctorate in divinity from Duke University, where he completed his dissertation under the supervision of Professor Stanley Hauerwas. In addition to his primary pastoral duties at Ascent, Pastor David is also the Visiting Teaching Pastor at Covenant Chapel in South Windsor, CT.

Regarding his theological work and research, Pastor David has a wide range of interests. He is particularly interested in Christology, ecclesiology, political theology, theological aesthetics, Christian ethics, as well as Roman Catholic and Protestant relations. In this, he draws upon the vast resources of the Christian tradition, as he dialogues with thinkers like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As a second-gen Korean American, he is also interested in the ecclesiastical developments of the Asian-American church, and has an article published in Mere Orthodoxy, wherein he highlights the central issues of what’s known as ‘English Ministries’ (or EMs). Currently, Pastor David is working on a monograph regarding the politics of Christian discipleship and its outworking within the saeculum.

 

As Lead Pastor, David’s aim is to help others know and experience Christ through the church-community in whose life together Christ takes visible form. Stewarding this mystery, for him, means raising up mature disciples who are committed to the mission of Christ’s body, as well as cultivating kingdom laborers who are eager and ready to join in the Spirit’s work of reaching the lost. In this, Pastor David seeks to lead a church that is both clear and united in its purpose, so that altogether God’s people would embody the love of Christ, and the hope we have in him, to a hurting and broken world.