October 01, 1989 by Sang-Bok David Kim

Editor's Note: An urgent, fascinating challenge for Western mission agencies is to know how best to help Third World mission forces.

Young Church, Arise!

Korean churches at home and abroad are getting ready to join the forces of world missions. Korea is only 100 years old in Christ, but already the church has grown to ten million, one fourth of the population of South Korea. In Seoul, the world's largest church boasts a membership of half a million, and six of the world's biggest churches are found in Korea. However, cross-cultural missions are new to Korean churches. Most of the Korean missionaries who are serving abroad have gone out in the last two decades, but their number is increasing. During Expio '80, about 85% of the one million present at the historical gathering on Yeo-ui-do Island stood up and gave their lives for world missions. This young church is rising up to meet the challenges of world missions!

KWMC Mobilizes

This spring the Korean World Missions Council was organized in Wheaton, Illinois, to mobilize the 2000 Korean-American churches for world missions toward the year 2000 and beyond. This was a result of the first Korean World Missions Conference, held in July 1988 at Wheaton College. Fifteen hundred delegates from Korean-American churches, including 150 career missionaries, met to consider the task of world missions. General sessions attracted 2400 people each night, packing out the Wheaton auditorium. Speakers included Ralph Winter of the U.S. Center for World Mission, Samuel Moffet of Princeton Theological Seminary and leaders from Korean churches in the U.S. as well as Korea. One Korean-American leader summed up participants' feelings: "This is only the beginning. The Korean churches will definitely have a major pan in the world of missions from now on. This is our destiny." Another said, "We are still young and inexperienced in world missions.

However, one thing is certain that we are willing and we will be ready."

Since the conference, many follow-up rallies have been held in local churches. Korean churches in the Washington DC area alone sent out 100 young people on short-term summer missions to Haiti, Kenya, China, Russia, Chile, Uruguay, Japan and Thailand.

Future Leaders In Training

Although Koreans compose only 0.3% of the U.S. population, they now make up 5% to 20% of the seminary students in the U.S. A Korean-American Youth Workers Conference was held July 31-August 4 of this year at Masters College, California, to sharpen the vision for world evangelization. The conference was designed for future leaders, for Bible college and seminary students and recent graduates who are now on the cutting edge of second-generation ministry in Korean-American churches.

Organizing the conference were staff-members from the newly established

Korean Center for World Mission (KCWM), a resource and service office located on the USCWM campus in Pasadena. The Korean Center is already planning to expand its operations not only in North America but also in Korea itself, where the Gospel is flourishing (even in North Korea).

The Gospel In North Korea

Rev. Ki-jun Koh, general secretary of the North Korean Church Federation, recently said that the first two church buildings built in North Korea since the Korean Conflict were completed last fall in Pyong Yang, the capital city . He reports about 10,000 Christians in 500 house churches. The government is allowing the production of some Christian materials; for example, as early as 1983 North Korea published 10,000 New Testaments, a hymnbook, and in 1984, 10,000 Old Testaments.

Help mobilize Koreans and Korean-Americans for the frontiers. Contact KCWM director David Park at 1605 Elizabeth St., Pasadena CA 91104 USA (818/398-2207).