한국교회 성장 동력의 회복을 위한 소고

Abstract

The church rapidly grew after acceptance of Christianity in Korea. However the major church leaders discuss about the Christian Crisis Theory with the proving evidence of phenomenon that a number of church members and the offering donation amount in a monetary unit decreases currently. In such the situation, looking at the growth factors for Korean church, I analyzed the phenomenal factors caused for the stagnation of church growth in Korea from a critical perspective and described social factors, spiritual perspective, internal factor of church, external influences of church to prepare the power source for the future growth of church. Therefore I researched all these issues to suggest guidance for the development and growth of church along with the purpose of the mission. The Koran church was pioneered by western missionaries. According to the history, the religious column of Korea, confucian established by Cho-Sun Dynasty must yield their highest position to the Christianity. The change of society generally creates new motivation. The relationship between Israel’s Exodus and the change of society testifies the previous sentence described as an example. Scholars generally insist that the causes of Korean church’s rapid growth are racial characteristics having religious mind, western medical technology, education and the realized vision of the missionary nature revealed in the Bible. As a matter of fact the Korean church has changed our nation with western newspaper, medical technology and social volunteers. Especially, we can certainly assure that the Pyung-Yang conference was the major catalyst of Korean church growth. With such the power, the Korean Christianity had to endure persecutions and hardships from the policy of eliminating Christianity under Japan’s suppression. Additionally the Christianity has become the space of the nation’s hope as the pain of dividing the Korean Peninsula goes deeply. As passing 1960s the church had been positioned as the new community in Korea through civilization that the city was densely populated from the suburban side with the advent of the industrial society. The church grew rapidly day by day. Also the new political and religious power was created. But the growth of Korean church ceased as passing 1990s. The various many causes about this were already revealed. But as passing by 1990s, we recognize that the church growth has been stagnated. We could discover many various causes. Those are the influence of secularization, the stagnation of population composition and the negative image of leadership. Especially the advent of similar Christianity caused people to be confused generally with the real identity of Christianity. For the instance, such as the principal sermon of the unification church (tong-il-kyo) and the lesson of ku-won-pa, both of these representatives of Korean heresy accepted the traditional Christianity and history to damage the truth of Christianity. Additionally, such the heresy, shin-chon-ji has directly damaged the traditional church and caused enormous problems. I, the writer of this article attempted to find alternatives for future growth of church through two organizations. The first alternative came from the internal factor from church inside. The spiritual power source such as Pyung-Yang Revival Conference opened in 1970, the spiritual dynamic movement with fullness of Holy Spirit, prayer movement and mission movement should be restored and must sweep through the Korea peninsula. Because all church members of Korea consistently agree with the spiritual meaning of Pyung-Yang Revival Conference opened in 1907. Secondly, it was mentioned that the social function of church from the perspective of Holistic Salvation Theory should be realized for the second alternative. I already insisted that the Theology of Diakonia, multicultural community, a community life with neighbors could initiate the second growth of Korean church in the post-modern society. Thirdly, the last alternative is to restore the Korean church leadership. The Korean churches suffer from the scarcity of leadership currently. The change of philosophy caused from secularization, the development of SNS which became the representative communication of world expose the inner problems of church called ‘holy place’ and influenced the leadership of church negatively. I, the writer of this article pray that the Korean church must be remembered as the amazing church in the world church history and missionary history, furthermore to expand the God’s kingdom.