Joachima Kim Speer: Starting Out Small

By Matthew Ralph

“As a musician and worship leader, my mission is to help others experience the loving, healing presence of our Lord. Our calling is not about the updated sound equipment or of learning all the most popular songs out there – it is a calling to help the hurting, the afflicted, the poor, and the poor in spirit.”

Joachima Kim Speer was leading worship in a small group with just a guitar when a call came for her to use her love and talent of music to make an impact beyond the four walls of the space where her small group met.

The call came from a worship leader at her church at the time – Chestnut Assembly of God in Vineland – when a family emergency sent him on a Sunday afternoon mission to find someone to fill in for him that night.

“I remember feeling overwhelmed and really scared because I never led with a band before – just me and my guitar for small groups,” Joachima recalled. “I faced the fear that day and stepped into my calling.”

Today, the Vineland resident is no stranger to leading large groups of people in song as the worship leader at Evangel Assembly of God Church in Mays Landing. But she’s also still a regular in smaller settings with just her acoustic guitar and a collection of some 70 songs she has penned over the past three decades.

“Singing praises and prayers has always come naturally,” Joachima said.

Joachima, whose name means “established by Yahweh” in Hebrew, decided to follow Jesus at age 19, but even before she was drawing her inspiration from faith in Christ, the church played a role in the discovery of her musical gifting.

“I remember going to a church fundraiser BBQ / carnival where a band was playing,” she said. “I remember standing in front of the guitarist and telling myself that I want to learn to play.”

Her first guitar came not too long after that church carnival as a present for her 10th birthday.

The original compositions started to flow in her teenage years as expressions of “the emotions of my heart,” which turned into “simple songs from my heart to Him” when she accepted the Lord as Savior at age 19.

In the years since, Joachima, who is known as Kim by her friends, has married (her husband, Jim, is an A/V tech at the church and a constant friend and supporter) and raised three boys — all of whom have taken after their mom as musicians — and recorded a pair of CDs, most recently the 10-song album “Stand.”

Her music and work at a church she initially went to as a home missionary called to rejuvenate a struggling congregation (the church is no longer considered a home mission, praise God) has also led her to missions on a global level. She is in the midst of planning and raising money for a trip to Columbia, South America.

“As a musician and worship leader, my mission is to help others experience the loving, healing presence of our Lord,” she said. “Our calling is not about the updated sound equipment or of learning all the most popular songs out there – it is a calling to help the hurting, the afflicted, the poor, and the poor in spirit.”

It is a calling that, like so many God stories we as Christians love to hear, started out small and grew in ways that for a time were hard to even imagine.

Visit her online at www.joachimaspeer.com, myspace.com/joachimaspeer or twitter.com/joachimaspeer.

Past features:
Paul Baloche…a glorious journey