Two Campuses, One Congregation in Northern New Jersey
Bethany Church of New Jersey has been meeting for four decades in the rolling country north of New York City. The main campus stands at 491 Alps Road in Wayne, New Jersey, with a second campus at 430 Main Street in Fort Lee. The Wayne campus hosts the church offices and can be reached at 973-694-3880. From these two locations the congregation serves Korean-speaking families across Passaic and Bergen counties and a growing English-speaking community connected through its English Ministry, The Covenant.
Forty Years Built on Six Families
The church traces its beginning to September 1, 1985, when Pastor Jang Dong-chan (장동찬) and six families first gathered for worship under the name Calvary United Church (갈보리 연합교회). In 1990 the fellowship relocated to Wayne and opened the sanctuary that would mark the start of the Bethany Wayne era. Through years of steady growth, fervent Bible study, and expanding mission work, the church became a recognizable presence in the New Jersey Korean community. The current lead pastor, Rev. Sueng Lin Baik (백승린), is Bethany's third senior pastor and has guided the congregation into its 40th anniversary season. The 2025 milestone was marked with a 40th-anniversary praise concert, a K-Culture and Food Festival with neighbors, a sending ceremony and missionaries' mission conference, and a thanksgiving service under the motto "40 Years of Grace, New Hope for Bethany" (은혜의 40년, 새소망 베다니).
Worship Across Two Languages
Sunday worship is the rhythm of the week, with a Korean-language service in the Wayne sanctuary and an English-language service through The Covenant English Ministry. Members gather to worship God with their very best, as the church's own description puts it. Each Sunday's sermon, the praise band, and the choir are captured and published on the church's YouTube channel, Bethany Church TV, organized into separate playlists for sermons (주일 말씀), praise (경배와 찬양), and choir anthems (찬양대 찬양). Visitors who cannot attend in person can follow along through these livestreamed and archived services.
Cells and Small Group Mission Societies
Pastoral care at Bethany happens cell by cell. New members complete a registration and orientation process and are then assigned to a small group, called a 셀, based on where they live. Cells meet in member homes at agreed times and function as miniature churches for prayer, study, and mutual support. Alongside the cells, the church organizes 소선교회 (small-group mission societies) where members of similar ages gather for fellowship, service, and outreach. A monthly Cell Leader and District Leader Meeting keeps these groups connected to pastoral leadership. The recent dedication of new elders reflects the importance of lay leadership in this network.
Trinity Bible Institute and Open-Door Bible Study
Bible teaching is structured around the Trinity Bible Institute (트리니티), a ten-week school offered several times a year. Each term focuses on a different book of the Bible, with classes held on Wednesday evenings, Thursday mornings, and Sundays at both the Wayne and Fort Lee campuses. Recent terms have covered 성문서 (selected Scripture passages) and 예언서 (the prophetic books). In addition, the Open Door Small Group Bible Study (오픈도어 소그룹 성경공부) is a six-week course through the Wayne office, with Pastor Shin Min-chul (신민철) as the contact person. Other ongoing educational ministries include the Motherwise (마더와이즈 동행) women's program led by Pastor's wife Kim Hye-ryeong and the Women of Grace Garden (여성 은혜 동산) small groups.
Next Generation: Children, Youth, and Young Adults
Children are gathered into the church school (교회학교), which meets for monthly programs, Children's Sunday, and the annual Vacation Bible School. The 2026 VBS, themed Rainforest Falls: Exploring the Nature of God, runs for three days in late June for ages two through fifth grade. Nissi (닛시) is the young adult fellowship, and its winter and summer retreats bring college students and young adults together for teaching and retreat weekends coordinated by Deaconess Choi Woo-young and Deacon Jang Sang-eun. The Covenant (The Covenant / EM) is the English Ministry that serves English-speaking members and reaches out to second-generation Koreans and internationals. Fort Lee, a younger expression of the church's life at the 430 Main Street campus, has its own Friday night praise and prayer gathering.
Bethany Korean School and Community Education
Bethany runs a Korean School (베다니 한국학교) that opens each spring and fall semester to children ages four and up. Morning classes run from 9:00 a.m. to noon, with an afternoon K-culture session from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. The 2026 spring term ran for sixteen weeks. Deaconess Lee Min-jung coordinates registration. Other community-facing activities include the Bethany Running Crew 5K and musical drama nights where neighbors are invited.
A Worldwide Mission Network
Bethany describes its outreach as Bethany Global Mission (BGM), rooted in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20. The church supports a roster of twenty missionaries and partners, including three sent missionaries - Pastor Lee Young-chan and missionary Hong Su-ja in Kenya, and Kim Jae-han Grace in Panama - plus more than a dozen co-operating missionaries serving in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Baltimore, Eswatini, Arizona, Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, YWAM, Ecuador, Cambodia, Uganda, Cuba, Nepal, and CRU. Mission agencies supported through the church include World Vision Korea, International Urban Mission (국제도시선교회), the Good Neighbor Mission Society, New York Church Where God Works (뉴욕하나님이일하시는교회), Hana Mission Japan East Mission Center, Amazing Grace Mission Network, and others. Letters from these missionaries appear regularly on the church's blog, sharing the realities of life and ministry in Uganda's rainy season, Sri Lanka's flood recovery, Eswatini, Ecuador's shifting security situation, Cambodia, Malaysia's Tamil ministry, Cuba's ongoing prayer needs, the Hopi reservation, and Panama's Darien Gap.
Short-Term Mission Trips
Each year the congregation steps out of New Jersey for hands-on mission work. Recent and upcoming trips have included a Kenya campaign in Kwale County's Matuga region with Pastor Baik and a thirty-three-member team focused on large evangelistic rallies, school and door-to-door outreach, and leadership seminars; a Dominican Republic trip with university student rallies, home visits, and the Eunhye Garden children's program; a Nicaragua medical, children's, street evangelism, repair, and hairdressing mission through the GMC 한미연회; a Paterson city mission through 하나미션 offering soup kitchen service, VBS, evangelism, and homeless support; and a December Holy Land pilgrimage following the missionary journeys of Paul.
Reaching Paterson and the Surrounding Community
Local outreach centers on the 하나미션 Paterson partnership. Each summer a team of seven, led by Deaconess Lee Chung-hyo, runs a week-long program of soup kitchen service, vacation Bible school, evangelism, and homeless ministry in the city of Paterson, with prayer focused on a Christian school taking root there. On Easter Sunday the church hosts a blood drive in partnership with the New York Blood Center at the Wayne fellowship hall library. Throughout the year the congregation also welcomes visitors with new family welcome dinners, evangelism training led by missionary Kim Ho-sung of International Urban Mission, and the Beth-El district Korean-style New Year celebration.
A Member of the Global Methodist Church
Bethany is a congregation of the Global Methodist Church (GMC), the global Methodist body formed in 2022, and operates under the GMC 한미연회, the Korean-American Conference of the GMC. The church shares the GMC's stated mission: to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly. John Wesley's words, "The world is my parish", are quoted by the church as the heartbeat of its mission vision. The annual GMC 한미연회 gathering, held under themes such as "Let us go together with the heart of Jesus", draws the Bethany team together with sister Korean-American Methodist congregations for worship, teaching, and joint mission deployment.
Forty Years and Counting
From a living-room gathering of six families in 1985 to a two-campus congregation supporting missionaries on four continents, Bethany Church of New Jersey has built its life on fervent worship, small-group discipleship, and a deep commitment to global evangelism. The 40th-anniversary motto - 은혜의 40년, 새소망 베다니 - captures both the weight of four decades of grace and the forward-looking hope of a church still sending, still teaching, still reaching its Wayne neighborhood and the wider world.