Pastor Moonyoung Lee is a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. She was commissioned in June 2010 and began serving at St. Paul’s on January 3, 2011. Prior to St. Paul’s, she served at Wayside UMC as the pastor in charge and during her candidacy years, Moonyoung worked with children at Wilshire UMC as the children’s pastor for more than five years. 

Moonyoung was born in Seoul, Korea but moved to the States when she was nine years old and was raised in Claremont, California. She graduated from UC Irvine with a BA in Political Science and returned to Claremont to begin seminary at Claremont School of Theology. 

Moonyoung currently lives in Lomita with her sister, who is also a United Methodist minister. She loves to travel and watch old classic movies during her downtime.

Sharon has been a member of St. Paul's for 28 years and has served in every capacity on each committee, other than Trustees. Sharon was the Lay Leader for a period of 17 years and thoroughly enjoyed it. She's served as chair of Ad Council for 4 years, and is still serving in that capacity. She is also head of Outreach at this time. For 14 years she was the Director of AIDS Heartline, which she says was a wonderful ministry. She was also instrumental with the start up of Project: Needs and in which she served for 5 years. She was part of the Conference AIDS Committee and worked with the District as well educating churches about AIDS. Sharon's worked with our conference in several capacities including the Vision 2000 to take a look at what the future is for our churches. 

Sharon is a widow with 3 grown children and 3 grown granddaughters. She works part-time as a consultant for a non-profit foundation and stays busy as well with church activities and other obligations.

Rhonda Yeager-Hutchinson came to St. Paul’s in May of 1996. She immediately fell in love with the surroundings and spirituality of the church and became a member that following June. She was born into and baptized within the First United Methodist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her father, Franklin William Yeager, M.D., was a long-standing member and on the board of Trustees for many years.

Along with having a very handsome family (husband and three fine young men) she hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps and be the best Lay Leader and church member she can possibly be.

“I want to make my father proud. I want this journey to never end.”

Ruth was born on an Iowa farm. She attended country school, the town high school, Iowa State College, L.A. State and Morningside. She taught Home Economics, assorted junior high school classes, counseled and disciplined for 32 years. She now resides in Torrance.

Ruth has a daugther, Terri, and a grandson, Tim.. Her dedication to St. Paul's is demonstrated through having served on every committee of St. Paul's (member and chairperson). She took over as Treasurer in 1990.

"My faith and soul survives from the nourishing I receive from this congregation." 

I found St. Paul's through dear friends Jerry and Jerry, longtime member of St. Paul's. I immediately felt a sense of family and fellowship. It may be a small church but it has a big heart and people who respect and care for each other. I've often described it as a small country-type church in a big city. As a member of St. Paul's one can get involved and make a difference in their church and community.