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"Report on the church growth in Korea at Keswick”
Sunday evening (July 16, 2000)
At the Sunday evening worship meeting (July 16, 2000) of the 125th anniversary Keswick Convention, the Rev. Phillip Hacking, the convention chairman, reported, to the audience of about four thousand, about the rapid growth of the Korean church as well as her involvement in mission and interviewed with me (Rev. Kim Myung Hyuk). He asked me a question. “What could we learn from the Korean church?” I answered and reported as the following.
First of all, I praise God for his surpassing blessings he bestowed upon the Korean church. I would like to present five lessons we could and might learn from the Korean church.
Lesson number one. Suffering and persecution was the first reason of the church growth in the Korean church. My father who was a Presbyterian minister in North Korea was imprisoned both under the Japanese and Communist North Korean government and finally killed by the North Korean government. I myself was punished at the primary school in North Korean for the sake of my faith in Jesus Christ. When I was 11 years old I left my family and country to gain the freedom of faith. Suffering and persecution played an important role to bring church growth in Korea.
Lesson number two. Prayer was the main resource of the church growth in Korea. In the situation of suffering and persecution, we were in a sense forced to kneel down to pray. I was led to go to the early dawn prayer meeting when I was 9 years old and I still continue to go to the dawn prayer meeting every day at 5 o’clock. Prayer played an important role to bring church growth in Korea.
Lesson number three. The rapid church growth has brought negative problems in the Korean church. Numericalism, materialism, moral complacency and depravity, excessive competition, division creped in with the outward rapid church growth. Now we came to realize that church growth should not be the object of the church. Rather, renewal and maturity should be the object of the church, we have learnt.
Lesson number four. Mission is not the work of ours but the work of God. We now admit that many of the 7,000 Korean missionaries around the world are not qualified missionaries lacking in personal as well as spiritual qualifications. Yet, we have found out that God has abundantly blessed the ministries of the Korean missionaries. Mission is not the work of ours but the work of God.
Lesson number five. God has waited 55years until he begins to hear our prayers of petition to forgive our sins and give us reconciliation and unification between the North and the South Korea. Just last month God allowed the two heads of the North and the South to meet together and embrace each other. We therefore have a great expectation that as God liberated the Isreal people from the 70 years’ Babylonian captivities, he would also liberate us from division and hatred and make us a nation of priesthood and a nation for the world mission.
One more thing about the British mission to Korea. We owe much to the Wales and British church. One of the early western missionaries to Korea was the Rev. Robert Thomas from Wales. In 1866 he came to Pyungyang by a commercial ship. The ship was burnt by the arrows of fire. The Rev. Thomas hardly landed to the shore but was immediately killed and shed the blood of a martyr and a missionary. The blood became the seed of the Korean church. The revival of 1907, which is usually called the “Korean Pentecost” and the beginning of the Korean church, was closely related to the Wales revival in 1904. The Korean church heard about the Wales revival and was challenged and engaged in prayers of repentance and God extended his hand of blessing to the Korean Church. We owe much to the British and Wales church and we thank you very much. Please continue to pray for the church of Korea and for the unification of Korea. Thank you very much.
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