Former Agent to Hollywood Stars Becomes Ordained Minister
An agent to Hollywood stars recently became a Protestant minister in Scotland.
As of June 2, Sang Cha became an ordained minister for the Church of Scotland, according to the Guardian.
His earnings as a minister, $50,000, will not compare to his former Hollywood lifestyle, which brought in about $3 million.
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“In the Church of Scotland the most one can ever make is £30,000 per year so I chose this path with my eyes wide open,” he told BBC.
Cha, 34, is also the first person of Korean descent to be ordained into the Church of Scotland.
He came from a Christian family beginning with his grandfather’s conversion to Presbyterianism, influenced by John Ross, who published the first Korean translation of the Bible in 1911.
When he was eight, his family moved to New Jersey and then after college he moved to California where he wanted to be a “social commentator” but ended up working as an agent with two pagers, a cell phone and 83 hours immersed in work.
“It was a manic lifestyle, spent going through piles of scripts. You had to be 'on' at all times,” he told BBC.
When he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, he originally wanted to pursue being a producer, he said.
"I never wanted to be an agent, I wanted to be a producer, to make the next Dead Poets Society. That movie still animates my world and Peter Weir I think is a fantastic director," he shared.
He is best known for working with Giovanni Ribisi, Sean Astin, Samwise Gamgee and Juliette Lewis.
He said that although he enjoyed the thrill of Hollywood, at the end “it perpetuated the material culture.”
However, he added that if it was used as a medium to connect storylines and narratives that can “positively impact the world and shift, and impact the way we feel,” then “it’s a wonderful thing from God.”
He left Hollywood in 2002 and began working in Alaska as a volunteer for AmeriCorps. He later went to Cambridge University where his mentor suggested him to go to Church of Scotland's theological school.
He believes that the church should be attentive to the ideas the world has to offer, such as Hollywood, of course without getting seduced by them but “navigating them on our own terms."
