A Korean Baptist Home on East 22nd Avenue
Tucked into a quiet block of East 22nd Avenue in Anchorage, the building at 5144 E. 22nd Avenue has been the home of 앵커리지 제일한인침례교회 (Anchorage First Korean Baptist Church) since the turn of the millennium. For Alaska's Korean-speaking Christian community, it is a familiar landmark: the place where Sunday worship begins at eleven in the morning, where worshipers file in from the long winters and the long summer days alike, and where a congregation that has watched Alaska's Korean population grow and change for nearly half a century still gathers to pray, sing, and study the Bible in Korean.
The church is best known in the city for three things. First, its schedule of gathered worship, with Sunday services plus a dawn prayer meeting every weekday morning and a midweek service on Wednesday evenings. Second, its network of neighborhood house churches (목장), which has long been the primary way members care for one another beyond Sunday morning. And third, its remarkably wide circle of mission partnerships, stretching from Senegal and Cuba to Indonesia and Kazakhstan.
Welcome from Pastor Hyunwoo Yoon
The church's greeting to newcomers comes directly from Senior Pastor Hyunwoo Yoon. "Our church home page welcomes all of you in the name of the Lord and blesses you," the welcome letter reads, "and we hope that we can walk together with you on a happy road of faith for the joy and glory of God in Christ." The pastor signs off with a single aspiration: "For a happy church before God." It is a small paragraph, but it sets the tone for a congregation that takes seriously both the joy of gathered worship and the calling to share that joy beyond the building on 22nd Avenue.
Sunday Morning, Dawn Prayer, and Midweek Worship
The weekly rhythm of Anchorage First Korean Baptist is built around four anchor services.
- Sunday worship (주일예배) meets at 11:00 AM and is the main gathering of the week, with preaching and congregational singing in Korean.
- Sunday school (주일학교) meets at the same 11:00 AM hour and runs alongside the worship service for the church's children and students.
- Dawn prayer (새벽예배) meets at 6:00 AM Monday through Friday, a quiet start to the workday for those who can come.
- Wednesday worship (수요예배) gathers at 7:00 PM and is the main midweek Bible-preaching service.
Around those four anchor services the church has built a busy week. House church leaders train at 5:30 PM on Wednesdays. Lay training, discipleship training, and a new-family Bible study all meet at 1:10 PM on Sundays, after the morning service and a shared meal. Saturday afternoons and evenings close the week with an intercessory prayer gathering at 2:30 PM and worship team rehearsal at 5:30 PM. The schedule is dense, and it reflects the conviction that Christian formation happens through repeated, ordinary gathering, not just the Sunday hour.
Worship services are held in Korean, and the congregation's resources include Korean-language Bible reading and writing tools, as well as the Baptist Faith and Message in both Korean and English. A YouTube channel carries recordings and livestreams of services, allowing members who are traveling or away from Anchorage to keep up with the week's preaching.
House Churches Across the City
For more than two decades the heart of the church's small-group life has been its house church system (목장). Eight house churches currently meet across Anchorage and the surrounding area, each led by a member of the congregation.
- 충성 (Faithfulness) - led by Deaconess Jaebun An
- 믿음 (Faith) - led by Deaconess Younghee Yoon
- 사랑 (Love) - led by Deaconess Eunam Hong
- 소망 (Hope) - led by Deaconess Uimoon Hong
- 온유 (Gentleness) - led by Deaconess Mikyung Lee
- 감사 (Gratitude) - led by Deaconess Younghee Yoon
- Youth & Young Adults - led by Pastor Youngwon Lee
- Sunday School - led by Deaconess Jen Kim
House churches meet in homes for prayer, fellowship, Bible study, and mutual care. They are the ordinary means by which the congregation tends to one another's needs week by week, and they have been a consistent feature of the church's ministry since at least the early 2000s.
Sunday School, Youth, and the KEM Group
Children and students have their own ministry track inside the church. The Sunday school, under Deaconess Jen Kim, meets during the 11:00 AM Sunday hour and walks students through the Bible year by year. Each summer the church runs a Vacation Bible School; recent themes have included "Breaker Rock Beach."
Middle-school and high-school students gather as part of the KEM Group, the church's youth and young-adult ministry led by Pastor Youngwon Lee. Lee joined the staff in March 2023 after graduating from Daejeon Baptist Theological University, and his hiring is credited in the historical record as a deliberate investment in the next generation of the church. The youth group runs a winter retreat each January and a summer retreat each August; recent summer retreats have used the Otter Lake Lodge at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
A Missionary-Sending Congregation
Few things distinguish Anchorage First Korean Baptist as clearly as its breadth of mission partnerships. The church lists active ministry relationships with workers and congregations across four continents.
- Senegal (Africa): missionaries Keunshik Choi and Susanna.
- Kotzebue, Alaska: John T. Forrester, pastor of First Baptist Church of Kotzebue.
- Indonesia: missionary Hyungjung Park, recognized as the first silver missionary (retired pastor sent out as missionary) in Korean Baptist history.
- Dominican Republic: ongoing ministry partnership.
- Cuba: ongoing support for five Cuban seminary students, sustained through annual scholarship projects.
- Brazil: missionaries Jongseong Ji and Seongnam Lee.
- Thailand: missionaries Abraham and Sara, supported through short-term mission trips and yard sales.
- Ukraine: missionary Hwansam Kim.
- Kazakhstan (Central Asia): missionary Dongkyun Cho.
- Domestic U.S. partnerships: Cookeville New Heaven Church (Pastor Gyoseung Hur), Madison Livingstone Baptist Church (Pastor Jeongtaek Ko), and Eurasia Baptist Church (Pastor Jaehyu Lee).
Supporting these partnerships is woven into the life of the congregation. Annual mission bazaars and yard sales raise money for the seminary students in Cuba, the church in Ukraine, and the short-term trip to Thailand. In recent years the church has also helped five American pastors' families facing hardship, a ministry Koreans often call 이삭줍기, or "gleaning." Members have served meals to 120 guests at Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission in several recent winters, a local outreach supported in part by the women's mission group.
The Staff Who Keep the Week Running
The pastoral team is intentionally small. Senior Pastor Hyunwoo Yoon leads the congregation and its preaching. Pastor Youngwon Lee serves the youth and young adults. Minho Lee, who is studying at Grace Mission University, leads the FKBC worship team and serves as the church's administrator. Jihoon Kim handles the broadcast and video ministry that feeds the YouTube channel. Jen Kim directs the Sunday school. Together with the women's mission group (여선교회), the men's mission group (남선교회), and a board of deacons and deaconesses, they keep the week's many services and small groups running.
Forty-Six Years of History
The congregation traces its roots to October 21, 1979, when founding pastor Woobong Jang gathered the first worshipers in Anchorage. Since then, nine pastors have served the church in succession, each leaving a mark on the congregation's life.
- 1st Pastor: Woobong Jang (founding, 1979)
- 2nd Pastor: Jonggu Yoo
- 3rd Pastor: Sungpil Kim
- 4th Pastor: Jinsu Lee
- 5th Pastor: Woobong Jang (returned for a second tenure)
- 6th Pastor: Jongduk Lee
- 7th Pastor: Pilseong Lee
- 8th Pastor: Jaewon Lee
- 9th Pastor: Hyunwoo Yoon (current, since May 1, 2024)
The first decades were marked by steady growth and a number of revivals. Pastor Jang's early years included the launch of an adult Sunday school in 1995, and the church hosted large revival meetings with Korean Baptist leaders like Kangwon Lee, Choongki Kim, and Byungwook Lee. In 2000 the congregation purchased the land and existing building at 5144 E. 22nd Avenue and moved in at the end of that year, ending years of meeting in temporary spaces.
The mid-2000s brought administrative consolidation and the start of a regular women's and men's mission society structure, as well as the launch of a Summer Leader School that ran for many years. In 2009 the church celebrated its 30th anniversary with a large revival led by Pastor Dongwon Lee. Pastor Jaewon Lee's tenure saw the church host regional joint revivals, including the 2015 Alaska Baptist joint revival at the church's sanctuary and a 40th anniversary revival led by Pastor Sungkwon Lee.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced the church online in March 2020. Members met for parking-lot prayer services on Sunday afternoons through May, and in-person worship resumed in June 2020. Pastor Hyunwoo Yoon's installation on October 6, 2024, came at the 45th anniversary celebration, with Deaconess Mikyung Lee ordained at the same service. The 46th anniversary revival in July 2025 was led by Pastor Kyungwon Song of Tacoma First Baptist Church. The church's outdoor programs, including its all-church outdoor worship at Valley of the Moon Park and youth summer camps at Hilltop, continue to mark the rhythms of Anchorage's long summer days.
Beliefs and Baptist Identity
The church is a Korean Baptist congregation in the conservative evangelical tradition, with the Baptist Faith and Message available in both Korean and English through its resources. Services follow a familiar Baptist shape: gathered congregational singing, prayer, Scripture reading, and expository preaching. The ordinances observed are believer's baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper, and the church maintains the congregational polity characteristic of Baptist churches, with members voting on matters of budget, property, and calling pastors through general business meetings (총회). Baptism services in recent years have been held in cooperation with neighboring Baptist congregations, including University Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of Anchorage.
What makes the church distinctive is not its doctrinal commitments, which it shares broadly with Korean Baptist churches across North America, but its sheer persistence in Alaska. For Korean Christians who have moved to Anchorage for military service, university, work, or family, the building on East 22nd Avenue has been a steady gathering place for nearly half a century. On Sunday mornings, on weekday dawns, and in house churches across the city, the congregation continues to live out the simple prayer of its founding pastor: that it might be, before God, a happy church.