New Life – About Us

Pastor Eric Shin (affectionately known as “PE”) has been serving as the Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship since its inception in 1997.  PE was born and raised in Seoul, S. Korea until he was 13 years old, when he and his family immigrated to the U.S. and settled in New York City. Though he went through tumultuous teenage years while adjusting to life in a new country, he met Christ at the age of 18 at his home church’s fall retreat. After experiencing the joys and challenges of following Christ and serving his local church during his high school and college years, he left behind aspirations of being a lawyer in his adopted hometown of New York City and followed God’s call to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. 

In the fall of 1994, PE and his wife, Lynette, received God’s call to move their family down to Houston, Texas, where PE served at Seoul Baptist Church of Houston as the youth pastor.

While serving, they responded to God’s prompting and, together with about 20 members and the blessing and loving support of Seoul Baptist Church, founded New Life Fellowship on August 10, 1997.  Since then, PE has been experiencing the joy of witnessing the expansion of God’s kingdom through house church ministry.

Over the years at New Life, PE, Lynette and their three now adult sons, Enoch, Caleb and Josiah, had the privilege of trekking through nine countries in Southeast Asia and China and serving in Mexico and Camp Barnabas as a family for missional purposes. PE has also had the honor of serving the Lord in far-flung places like Afghanistan where he has been able to live out his faith and share the gospel with the Muslim world.

Several years ago, PE visited a college house church, where they had a potluck dinner.

That evening, there were five different kinds of chicken served: McDonald’s McNuggets, Church’s Chicken, Popeye’s Chicken, Boston Market Chicken and KFC! PE will never forget that house church meal!

When PE isn’t equipping New Life members to make Christ’s disciples of all nations through their house churches or prayerfully using New Life’s resources to help other churches implement their own house church ministries in the spirit of the New Testament church, he enjoys traveling with Lynette, fishing, sharing good food with good people and drinking senior citizen coffee from McDonald’s. But no matter where he is or what he’s doing, PE tries to live by one of his favorite verses in 2 Corinthians 8:9 because it reminds him of how Christ became poor for our sake, so that through His poverty we might become rich. 

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Lisa Bennett serves as Administrator of New Life Fellowship, managing the administration and daily operations of New Life.  In 2004, Lisa was invited to house church at New Life by a close friend, and in 2005 she accepted Christ into her heart as her Lord and Savior. During this time, she was working in Corporate America, but God gave her a heart to serve Him by going into full-time ministry.  He brought her to New Life Fellowship, and she has been working under Pastor Eric as Administrator since 2008.  Lisa and her husband, Ray, have also been serving as house church shepherds since 2015.

Lisa’s favorite verse is 2 John 1:6 “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

In her downtime you will find Lisa spending time with her family – husband Ray and children Kori, Quinnie and Christian – and her house church, listening to music and exploring Houston restaurants.

Lisa’s most memorable house church moment was when she and Ray got into a huge argument with each other at house church, involving all of their singles and married HC members in an impromptu marriage counseling session.  It lasted for hours with no one else being able to share that evening, but with the help of their house church members, Ray and Lisa were able to reconcile with one another.  They are thankful for their house church family and for the gift of reconciliation.  They still laugh about it to this day!

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Lang Teague serves as Administrative Assistant at New Life Fellowship, providing administrative assistance to the New Life Fellowship staff.  

Before her kids were invited to New Life’s VBS program in the summer of 2008, Lang and her family did not go to church or know God.  They had only heard of Him. Little did they know what God had planned for them, but soon Lang and her family – husband, Larry, and children Allison and Will – came to know and love God through VBS, house church and serving people. 

God also led Lang to her position at New Life by calling her specifically through Pastor Eric. When Lang began looking for a part-time job after her children began attending school, she found that the positions offered to her were unsuitable because it would not allow her to be home when her children were home from school.

And when the opportunity to work at New Life arose in 2012, she prayerfully asked God to show her that she should go back to work only if Pastor Eric asked her to apply for the position, which he did!  Lang has been happily serving as Administrative Assistant since then.

Lang’s favorite verse is Isaiah 55:11, “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” It seems very discouraging when one encounters people who do not come to believe in Jesus for one reason or another, but this verse is a reminder to Lang that God’s desires and purpose will be accomplished whether it will be now or many years from now. God’s word(s) will not return to Him empty.

Lang’s other interests include reading, gardening, and crafting.  Lang is deeply committed to house church because that is where Lang, her family and her house church members love to gather and share deeply without judgment. She knows she can share anything during HC, and has shared everything, ranging from finances to her relationship with her husband, God, and her children. She can see God’s love for her and her family through her village leaders and the many shepherds who have poured into Lang and her family. 

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Pastor Sang Chon joined New Life Fellowship as a member in 2004 and, prior to becoming New Life Fellowship’s College Pastor, had been a house church shepherd at New Life for 12 years.  

While Pastor Sang lived in different cities (Calgary, Pittsburg, and Chicago) throughout his childhood, he spent the majority of his life in Houston, Texas and accepted Christ in high school through an outreach ministry called YoungLife.  

After Pastor Sang graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, he worked in the semiconductor industry in design and marketing for 20 years. 

In 2019, after much prayer and deliberation, Pastor Sang obeyed God’s calling to full-time ministry as New Life’s College Pastor.  Currently he is pursuing his M.Div. degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

When Pastor Sang is not shepherding college students and mentoring college house church shepherds he enjoys spending time with his wife, Justy, to whom he has been happily married for 17 years, and his two children: Eli and Gracie.

Pastor Sang’s most memorable house church meal was when Justy prepared a brown butter garlic salmon, crab, and steak meal. 

One of Pastor Sang’s favorite verses in the Bible is Romans 5:5 “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

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Pastor Mia Yoo serves as New Life Fellowship’s Children’s Pastor. She is married to Joe Yoo, who is a Village Leader and Town Leader, and leads the Family Strengthening Ministry in New Life Kids. She loves serving together with her husband, Joe, and two children, Sarah and Joey.  They are a family on God’s mission together. 

Pastor Mia has been a member of New Life since 2000 and has spent 20 of those years serving as a house church shepherd.  Her passion is Jesus, God’s Word, and making disciples for Christ.

Prior to becoming New Life’s Children’s Pastor, she also served in full-time ministry as the VP of Inspire Women for 14 years, producing city-wide conferences, raising funds for scholarships for biblical training, and creating programs that train women for ministry.  She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Christian Education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  She also has an M.B.A. and management experience from her time in Corporate America prior to being called into full-time ministry.  

In her spare time, she dates her husband, spends time with people, reads God books, and cuddles with her children. Pastor Mia’s most memorable – and favorite –  house church meal is eating her husband’s South American grilled meat (Asado) hot off the grill.  Her favorite verse is Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” 

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Paul Cho serves New Life Fellowship as its Property Manager.  Paul has been a member of New Life since 2014 and has been faithfully serving as a house church shepherd since 2017.  Paul was witnessed to by his college roommate many years ago and had dabbled in church and the Bible since then but it never made any sense to him.  This led him to become critical of the church and organized religion overall.  In fact, arguing against religion became a favorite pastime.  However, through certain devastating life choices and God’s grace, the existence of God – and specifically Jesus – became clear to him in 2014.  As a result, Paul accepted Christ and was baptized that year.  

Paul has learned that God has been pursuing him all his life and that God provides the perfect path and opportunities that we need if we just listen to His promptings.  Paul is married to a faithful, ever-believing wife, Sangsoo, and has one precious daughter, Esther.  Now his pastime involves sharing his faith with whoever is willing to listen and going on long bike rides. They even stayed long enough to have their final New Life Sunday worship over YouTube.  Even though it was a goodbye, it was very grand!

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