Discipleship Training Movement

Background

Until the 1970s, discipleship training in the Korean church was regarded chiefly as the work of parachurch mission organizations. The practice of intensively training a small number of people over an extended period and raising them up as ministry workers was considered the responsibility of organizations outside the church rather than of the local congregation. Ok Han-heum, a pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Hapdong), learned this approach while leading Bible studies for university students at Seongdo Church in Seoul. He later studied at Calvin Theological Seminary in the United States. He reinterpreted discipleship training within the framework of Reformed ecclesiology (the theology concerned with the nature and mission of the church) and held that laypeople (church members who are not clergy) could, once trained, become coworkers who share in the ministry of the church.

Development

• 1978: Ok Han-heum planted Eunpyeong Church in Gangnam, Seoul; in 1981 it was renamed SaRang Community Church. From the church's earliest days he made "raising laypeople as trained disciples of Jesus" the goal of his ministry.
• 1984: He published Called to Awaken the Laity, which set out his experience and principles of training. The book became a bestseller and sparked a wave of interest in discipleship training across the Korean church. It is reported to have since gone through more than 100 printings and to have been translated into eleven languages.
• 1986: He founded Disciple-Making Ministries International. In March of the same year he launched the "Called to Awaken the Laity Discipleship Training Leaders' Seminar" (CAL Seminar) for pastors.
• 1999: Pastors who had completed the seminar formed the Discipleship Training Pastors' Network (CAL-NET). Through this network, discipleship training spread to churches throughout Korea and abroad.
• 2003: Ok Han-heum retired as senior pastor; he died in 2010. The seminars of Disciple-Making Ministries International have continued to be held under the sponsorship of SaRang Community Church.

Results and Influence

SaRang Community Church is regarded as the first instance of discipleship training being integrated into a local church. By around 2003, when Ok Han-heum retired, it had become a megachurch with some 40,000 registered members. SaRang Community Church offers graded training courses such as the disciple class and the sunjang (cell leader) class. Trained lay leaders known as sunjang lead small groups called "upper rooms" (darakbang). This structure has become a model for other churches. As of 2021, the thirty-fifth anniversary of the CAL Seminar, about 21,000 people had completed the seminar in Korea. Including seminars held abroad in the United States, Japan, Brazil, Taiwan, and elsewhere, a total of about 25,900 pastors had completed it. Ok Han-heum was also involved in church renewal efforts: in 1996 he served as president of the Pastors' Council for Church Renewal, and in 1998 he founded the Korean Christian Pastors' Council, serving as its president until 2007.

Assessment

Supporters of the movement cite as its chief contribution the adaptation of discipleship training, once considered the work of mission organizations, to the local church on the basis of ecclesiology. They also point to its raising up of laypeople as coworkers in the ministry of the church. Ok Han-heum is regarded as a rare pastor who was respected not only by conservative evangelicals but also by progressives. At the same time, some within the church have voiced concern that discipleship training can become merely a church-growth program or be reduced to completing a course of study materials.