Charlene’s Story

For Charlene, practice and theology always remain in dialogue with one another. This is clear in a story from her time serving as a hospital chaplain in the early, terrifying days of Covid. She wrote of her experience on Ash Wednesday that year, “On the floors…that day, I had begun sensing the holy mystery of rituals as I marked those waiting for healing and those accompanying the sick with dust of our common mortality.”

Charlene blends her educational intelligence with a strong faith and gift of compassion, a firm foundation for her role as our associate pastor. We cannot wait for you to meet Charlene, her husband James, and her children Harold, Frances, and Kate, and to join with them in God’s work.

Faithfully,

Regina Hunt, Chair

Carol Ferguson

Becky Gruchalla

Reuben Herriage

Frances Knipp

Peter Sehnert

Jim Welch

Dr. Charlene Jin Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea and spent her early years in Hong Kong, where she attended British schools. Eventually, her family moved to New York and from there to California. Educational and work opportunities took her, her husband James, and their three children to the East Coast and then in 2007 back to California, where they currently reside.

In 2007, Charlene was called to be the Director of Christian Education at San Marino Community Church. While serving in this role, she finished her doctoral work and was eventually called to serve as Assistant Professor of Christian Education and Director of Student Formation at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California. She has been teaching in seminary and undergraduate programs for the past ten years.

Her faith has been a motivating and animating factor throughout her career, so much so that she found herself saying “yes” to an unexpected invitation to take an associate pastor role at a church in California. It was there that Charlene discovered her passion for ministry and congregational life. The experience was profoundly transformative, allowing her to explore and nurture her aptitudes for pastoral care and leadership, and to recognize within herself the call to seek ordination.

Like Charlene, James is a seminary scholar, and their shared vocation has taken them all over the world. James, whose area of expertise is the Old Testament, is the president of International Theological Seminary in Los Angeles. The school, its mission, and community are close to the Lee family’s hearts, and they consider it to be an extension of their family.

Although they have lived most recently in California, the Lees are no strangers to Texas. James went to high school in Dallas and college at the University of Texas at Austin. Though they will be putting down new roots here, international travel and time at the beach are passions the family shares. Charlene is also an avid kickboxer and considers herself a novice carpenter.