Church Growth in Korea

Background

Until the 1950s, Korean Protestantism grew only gradually. Beginning in the 1960s, industrialization and urbanization drew many people from the countryside into the cities. Churches absorbed these newcomers through active evangelism and church planting. Commonly cited factors in the growth include urbanization, denominational expansion plans, and large-scale evangelistic rallies. The influence of the theories of the Church Growth school associated with Fuller Theological Seminary in the United States, introduced in Korea from the 1970s onward, is also frequently mentioned.

Development

• 1960s: Analyses based on church statistics estimate that membership grew by an average of roughly 40 percent per year during this period.
• 1970: The Presbyterian Church of Korea (Tonghap) adopted a five-year plan to plant 300 new churches each year, with the goal of reaching 5,000 churches and 1.5 million members.
• 1973: An evangelistic crusade featuring Billy Graham was held for five days at Yeouido Plaza in Seoul, with Han Kyung-chik serving as chairman of the preparatory committee. On the final day, June 3, attendance reportedly exceeded 1.1 million; one count put it at 1.15 million.
• 1974–1984: A series of large gatherings followed, most notably Explo '74 (1974), the National Evangelization Crusade (1977), the World Evangelization Crusade (1980), and the Korean Mission Centennial Convention (1984).
• 1975: The General Assembly of Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapdong) adopted a ten-year plan with the goal of planting 10,000 new churches.
• Late 1970s: Reports indicated that an average of about six new churches were being founded each day.
• 1980s: Yoido Full Gospel Church (Korea Assemblies of God), which had begun as a tent church in 1958, grew to 200,000 members in 1981 and 510,000 in 1986, becoming the largest single congregation in the world.

Results and Impact

According to the Population and Housing Census conducted by Statistics Korea, a census of the entire population, Protestants numbered about 6.49 million (16.1 percent) in 1985 and about 8.76 million (19.7 percent) in 1995. The rate of growth, however, gradually declined through the 1970s and 1980s, and analysts concluded that growth had effectively stalled by the 1990s. The 2005 census recorded about 8.61 million (18.3 percent), a decrease of 1.6 percent from ten years earlier, confirming a decline for the first time.

The 2015 census counted about 9.68 million (19.7 percent), and Protestantism was recorded as the largest religion, surpassing Buddhism for the first time. Critics noted, however, that this figure included adherents of groups that the major denominations regard as heretical, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unification Church. During the same period, membership figures compiled by the major denominations themselves showed a downward trend. One analysis contends that, excluding natural increase from births, the number of adult Protestants actually declined. According to the same analysis, the proportion of Protestants under age 20 fell from 41.1 percent in 1985 to 22.3 percent in 2015.

Assessment

Those who view the growth positively point to evangelistic zeal and small-group organization as its driving forces. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture identifies the thoroughly organized district (cell) system of Yoido Full Gospel Church as one of the main factors in its rapid growth.

Critics argue that the growth focused on the numerical expansion of individual congregations rather than on evangelism in the broader sense of extending the kingdom of God. Some also contend that it fostered a tendency to overlook theological problems so long as a church kept growing. The number of churches continued to rise even after membership growth slowed, and some analysts attribute this to an increase in church plants founded by seminary graduates. In 2005, the membership totals reported by denominational general assemblies exceeded the census figures by some 5 million. This discrepancy raised questions about the reliability of church statistics, including duplicate membership, in which one person is registered at several churches.