Choi Ja-shil

Life

Choi Ja-shil was born on August 15, 1915, in Haeju, Hwanghae Province, the first-born daughter in a family of two children, a son and a daughter. She is said to have lost her father at the age of six and to have grown up in hardship, with her mother supporting the family by taking in sewing. As a child she attended a tent revival meeting led by the revivalist Rev. Lee Seong-bong, where she experienced divine healing and came to faith. She also led her mother, who had been a Buddhist, to the church.

She graduated from Myeongsin Girls' School and from the midwife-nurse training institute of Pyongyang Provincial Hospital, and she worked as head midwife in the obstetrics and gynecology department of Sinuiju Provincial Hospital. At twenty-five she married Kim Chang-gi. In the 1950s, while working as a midwife, she also ran a match factory and a soap factory, but her businesses failed and left her deeply in debt. After losing her mother and then her eldest daughter in quick succession, she had come to the point of contemplating suicide when she again attended a revival meeting led by Rev. Lee Seong-bong and had an experience of the Holy Spirit. In 1956 she entered Full Gospel Theological Seminary, where she met David Yonggi Cho.

She died of a heart attack on November 9, 1989, while leading meetings in Los Angeles, California.

Ministry and Achievements

In 1958 Choi Ja-shil and David Yonggi Cho graduated together in the fourth class of Full Gospel Theological Seminary and jointly founded a church in a tent settlement in Daejo-dong, Seoul. In 1962 this tent church moved to Seodaemun and became Full Gospel Central Church; it later became Yoido Full Gospel Church and grew into a world-renowned megachurch. In 1965 Choi's daughter Kim Sung-hye married Cho, making Choi his mother-in-law. Kim Sung-hye later served as president of Hansei University.

For some thirty years Choi assisted Cho in his pastoral ministry, devoting herself to church growth and to missions at home and abroad. Because she greeted everyone she met by waving and saying "Hallelujah," she earned the nickname "the Hallelujah Lady." She is said to have constantly repeated the saying, "To live is to evangelize; to die is heaven." She also took the lead in establishing a fasting prayer mountain at Osan-ri in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, which now bears her name as the Osanri Choi Ja-shil Memorial Fasting Prayer Mountain. Her books include her autobiography, I Was the Hallelujah Lady, and The Fruit of Fasting Prayer.

Influence on the Korean Church

Having been involved with Yoido Full Gospel Church from its very beginning, Choi played an important role in the spread of the Korean Pentecostal movement. In particular, the fasting prayer mountain became a place of prayer visited by many believers regardless of denomination, and it is regarded as having helped spread the practice of fasting prayer and the culture of prayer mountains in the Korean church. She also contributed to overseas Pentecostal missions. Her denomination, the Korea Assemblies of God, permits women to be ordained as ministers, and Choi is frequently cited as an early example of a woman in pastoral ministry.

Assessment

Within the Full Gospel tradition, Choi is highly regarded as a pioneer devoted to prayer and evangelism and as a leading figure in the growth of Yoido Full Gospel Church. Some critics, however, in connection with debates over prosperity theology, take issue with the messages of divine healing and blessing emphasized by Yoido Full Gospel Church and the Pentecostal movement. No official judgment by any denomination or ecumenical body concerning Choi's personal activities is known.