David Yonggi Cho

Peter Allen

David (previously called Paul) Yonggi Cho is Senior Pastor of the world's largest

church in Seoul Korea. He was born in 1936 and was raised as a Buddhist. His

early life was a struggle, firstly he lived through the Japanese invasion of Korea

and then the Korean war. He grew up with a tremendous ambition to be famous

and successful because of his povertystricken childhood.

At the age of 19 he was holding down several jobs and was struggling just to

exist. One afternoon he started vomiting blood. He was diagnosed as having

incurable tuberculosis and was told that his life expectancy was a maximum of

4 months.

Conversion

He went home and cried out to his god Buddha for healing, when this didn't

eventuate he denounced his Buddhist faith. He then cried out to the unknown

God. Cho recounts what happened next in his book The Fourth Dimension:

A few days later a high school girl visited me, and began to talk about

Jesus Christ. She told me about Christ's virgin birth, His death on a cross,

His resurrection, and salvation through grace. These stories seemed

nonsense to me. I neither accepted her stories, nor paid much attention to

this ignorant young female. Her departure left me with one emotion: relief.

But the next day she returned. She came again and again, every time

troubling me with stories about the Godman, Jesus. After more than a

week of these visits, I became greatly agitated, and roughly rebuked her.

She did not run away in shame, nor retaliate in anger. She simply knelt

down, and began to pray for me. Large tears rolled down her cheeks,

reflecting a compassion foreign to my wellorganised and sterile Buddhist

philosophies and rituals.

When I saw her tears, my heart was deeply touched. There was something

different in this young girl. She was not reciting religious stories to me;

she was living what she believed. Through her love and tears I could feel

the presence of God.

'Young lady,' I entreated, 'please don't cry. I am sorry. I know about your

Christian love. Since I am dying I will become a Christian for you.'

Her response was immediate. Her face brightened into a glow, and she

praised God. Shaking hands with me, she gave me her Bible.

'Search the Bible,' she instructed. 'If you read it faithfully you will find the

words of life' (1979:23).

What a marvellous witness this young girl was! Cho never even learned her

name, but through her Cho was saved. Cho read the Bible with a new found zeal

and he came to know Jesus as his own personal Saviour and friend. Instead of

dying within three months, he was out of his deathbed within six months.

After graduating from an Assemblies of God Bible school in 1958 he started his

first church in an old American service tent next to a dump.

He had a burning desire to build the largest church in Korea. Not only did he

achieve this goal, but within 20 years he had built the largest church in the world.

Faith Goals

One of the first lessons he learnt early in his ministry was the importance of

setting clear and defined faith goals. Not long after starting this first church he

was so poor that he had very few material possessions. He read of God's

promises in the Bible, so he put his faith into action and started believing for a

desk, chair and bicycle.

Nothing happened for six months until the Lord told him to be specific in what

he was asking for. He then started believing for a desk made of Philippine

mahogany, a chair with an iron frame and a bicycle made in the U.S.A. with

gears on the side. In his words he became 'pregnant' with these things, so much

so that he became known as the pregnant pastor. However he had the last laugh

when he received his desk, chair and bicycle.

What a marvellous lesson in faith you must ask definitely and specifically. He

started to apply these principals to believing for church growth. By 1961 the

church had grown to 600 and moved to the Sodaemoon district. He then set a

goal of 3000 by 1964. The only problem was that he was doing everything

himself and in 1964 when the numbers were only 2400, he collapsed from stress

and a weak heart.

Here he was able to heal those around him and although he was standing on the

promises of God for his own healing, he wasn't being healed. Daily living was

a struggle for him, some days it was a effort just to get out of bed. The Lord

gave him a word that he wouldn't be totally healed for ten years, but at least he

knew that he would be healed.

While he was recuperating he studied the word and prayed as much as he was

able. During this time he wrote his first two books, Jesus Christ, the Divine

Healer and The Holy Spirit. He also formed a deep and personal relationship with

the Holy Spirit. The Lord gave him the blueprint for Church growth by saying

to him 'Let my people go and grow' (Cho 1981:16).

Shared ministry

He began to see that by doing everything himself he was robbing his people of

the chance to grow. From this he learnt the importance of delegation and of

training up the people for the work of the ministry.

Cho then went on to devise his plan to minister to the people through a network

of home cells and using the people to lead them. He took this plan to the deacons

but they said no. He then took the idea to the deaconesses and they accepted it.

They realised that the biggest problem with this was going to be for the men to

come under the authority of women leaders. Women in Korea had always taken

a subordinate role and as Cho says, 'There is no feminist movement in

Korea'.(Cho 1981:24) They overcame this problem by having the women wear

caps to signify that they were under Cho's authority.

Using the women as leaders they started with 20 home cells. This quickly grew

to 150 groups. They had to overcome some early problems and set in place

formal structure to cope with growth within the home cells. Once this structure

was in place it didn't matter how big they grew.

Outstanding growth

Actual church numbers were not recorded during the next few years. However

in 1973, when they purchased land on Yoido Island and built a new church, the

membership was 18,000. Not all the people wanted to shift to the new church so

8,000 remained at the old church and 10,000 came to the new.

The growth of the church over the next few years was outstanding. By 1980

membership stood at 150,000 meeting in 10,000 home cells. Now it is believed

to be somewhere around the 750,000 mark. What a remarkable growth story, but

as Cho himself says

No revival should be the product of a single personality. I do not

claim to be responsible for the revival that is occurring in our

church. In fact, the revival continues whether I am there or not (Cho

1981:52).

Not only has Cho been involved with the Yoido Full Gospel Central

Church, he has started Church Growth International. He now ministers and

lectures around the World on the principles of Church growth. He also

completed a Degree in Law at the National College of Korea in 1968 and

was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity Degree from Bethany

Bible College in Santa Cruz U.S.A. in the same year.

In addition to this he has written several books. Some of the titles are The

Fourth Dimension, The Leap of Faith, Solving Life's Problems, Prayer:

Key to Revival, More than Numbers, Suffering ... Why Me? and Successful

Home Cell Groups.

Prayer has the highest priority in Cho's life. He states that he himself

spends several hours a day in prayer and he expects his assistant pastors

to pray at least 3 hours a day. Cho has established a prayer mountain

where people from his church pray and fast around the clock.

God has used Paul Yonggi Cho in a remarkable and mighty way but as he

himself says, 'It is not me but God working through me'. I believe his

success lies in the fact that he is obedient to God. I can remember a few

years ago Dr. Larry Lea saying that he had once driven several hours to

interview Dr. Cho. When Cho walked in the room Dr. Lea asked him

what the secret to his success was. Cho replied, 'I pray and I obey.' With

this he turned around and walked out of the room.

It is this simple yet unyielding faith linked with prayer that has enabled him

to build and maintain the largest church in the world. Along with this he

has helped to impact his nation for Christ. Today 35% of the population

of South Korea are Christians.

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