Finally Home: How Grace Lee Went from Honolulu to LA and Back to Find Her Place

Though she had just graduated from seminary, Grace Lee had given up on church.

“I decided church wasn’t for me so I stopped going,” Lee said. She had no idea what God would call her to in just a few months’ time.

Born and raised in Hawai’i before decamping after college for Los Angeles to pursue a music career, Lee originally had no plans on pursuing a call in ministry.

“I made the decision to move to LA to attend a music school for about a year to get some formal training,” she said. “I wanted to see where that would take me. I was very naïve and didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I felt like if I didn’t at least try, I would regret it.”

After a couple of fruitless years trying to launch a music career only to find an uncaring industry that didn’t recognize her talent, she pushed pause, sought wisdom, and decided to pursue her other passion: ministry.

“I grew up going to church, was very involved, and was passionate about it,” Lee said. “In LA I was going to a church where all the pastors were Fuller grads, and I was living in Glendale at the time, so Fuller was the obvious choice for seminary.”

While in seminary, Lee worked out more than just a new career path. She also brought much bigger identity questions with her into the classroom.

“A big part for me was coming to terms with my sexuality,” Lee said. “I wanted to figure out for myself what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, what God really thinks about gay people. I’d heard all my life growing up in my conservative church that gay people were going to hell, that we were an abomination. I wanted to do some investigation of my own.”

And it was there where Lee was finally able to reconcile her own queer sexuality with a gospel that had often felt unwelcoming.

“I had a come-to-Jesus moment and personally felt like God was saying to me that I was perfect just the way I am,” she said. “Like God said, ‘I love you and I died for you just the way you are.’ Receiving that message really changed my life in terms of the way I look at the world and God and how God exists in my world. I found myself going back to church but with different perspective.”

Lee still possessed a vibrant faith, but didn’t see it reflected in the limited and unwelcoming spaces of the churches she knew. So she gave up on ever finding a church that would be right for her and her wife Debbie and looked instead into chaplain work.

And then God called her back to Hawai’i. God called her home, and in more ways than one.

“I was trying to figure out my next steps after I graduated from Fuller, and I wanted to do chaplaincy but I found it difficult to find a job,” Lee said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do and I felt God calling me to move back to Hawaii. I never thought I would move back here. I thought I’d be in LA forever, but I felt a very strong pull to come back. I don’t get those often, so I paid attention.”

Lee secured a job as a full-time hospital chaplain while Debbie remained in Los Angeles, and the couple managed to make that work for over three years, until Debbie moved to Honolulu and they were reunited. But that led Lee back to church, just not in the way she imagined.

“After about six months into it, Debbie asked if we could look for a church community because she wanted to be part of a community,” Lee said. “So she and I looked at a handful of church communities that were open and affirming, and we found ourselves at Calvary by the Sea Lutheran, and from the very first time we visited, we felt like, ‘This is our church, this is our community.’ We felt welcomed.”

Growing up Methodist, Lee knew little about Lutheran theology, but the welcome was enough. And then it became more than enough when the then-new pastor, Moses Barrios, recognized something holy at work in Lee and invited her first to consider working alongside him at Calvary by the Sea as an Associate Minister, and then to pray about pursuing candidacy and ordination in the ELCA.

“Personally, I never considered ordination,” Lee said. “As a queer person, I didn’t want to be affiliated or associated with any specific denomination, and I think that’s personal baggage with the church in general. But he asked me to pray about it, and just in the little time serving there and getting a better understanding of the ELCA, it felt good.

“If Calvary is this kind of community and is part of the ELCA, then I can get on board with that.”

Lee will be ordained in June.

Her next steps are uncertain, but she feels called to parish ministry and hopes to continue doing so in Hawai’i, especially so she can offer that expansive welcome she and Debbie felt the first time they visited Calvary by the Sea.

“In my own way, I hope I can redeem the church experience for those who have been shunned or felt rejected,” Lee said. “Can we redeem God and journey together in bringing the love of God to others in the world.”

For Lee, extending that love is the paramount purpose of her call.

“At seminary I learned so much but came out with more questions than answers, and I realized that questions are okay, that not having all the answers is okay,” she said. “The pastors I grew up with made it seem like they knew everything, and I realized we don’t know anything. That’s part of the mystery, and it’s beautiful.