Our Vision & History

Lifespring Church began out of Dr. and Mrs. James Byun simply wanting to walk in obedience to the Lord’s guidance. In November of 2009, Dr. James and Heather started sensing a call to leave their home, their church and the U.S. and start a ministry in Korea. At that time, they were pastoring a thriving and a rapidly growing church in Washington D.C.

At first, Dr. James could not believe nor understand why, as an English-speaking 2nd generation Korean-American, he would be called to Korea, especially given the abundance of pastors and churches in Korea. After going on dedicated worship, fasting, and prayer times, the Lord spoke to Dr. James and Heather through various passages in Scripture that kept confirming their call for Korea (Ezekiel 47, Revelation 7, Genesis 13, 2 Chronicles 1-2, and John 4). Wanting to follow and obey God fully and after months and months of prayer and fasting, Dr. James and Heather committed to obeying God and submitted to His leading.

In October of 2010, after a time of transitioning out of the ministry in Washington D.C., they left their church, their country, and moved to Korea with 4 young kids to start a new International Church in the Songdo area of Incheon.

The first official meeting of Lifespring happened in the living room of Dr. James’ home on December 12, 2010 with 2 members. The first official Sunday service took place on Easter Sunday (April 24, 2011) in a home with Lifespring’s first core members and Lifespring’s start-up staff and their families.

On May 7, 2011, with the help of Lifeway Church (then Senior Pastor Rev. Sung Hwa Park), Lifespring Church opened its doors with Dr. Daniel (Dongwon) Lee, Pastor Emeritus of Global Mission Church, preaching the opening service. On this day, Lifespring and Global Mission Church officially entered into a sister church agreement. On May 8, 2011, we held our first Sunday service at our previous Prugio Worldmark location with 2 services (Korean and English) and 47 people in attendance (including Kidspring).

Today, Lifespring Church has 3 Sunday worship services and welcomes over 1000 people in Sunday attendance with representation from over 50 countries around the world.