It’s not just a question of numbers. It’s true that today 12 million people belong to the Protestant churches in Korea and that, together with three million Catholic Christians, they make up a third of the population. The fact is that these believers of reformed faith are an interesting movement because, unlike other historical protestant churches, they are growing. No, it’s not only the numbers which are astounding. What really is astounding is their faith! What strikes one is their seriousness, their faithfulness, their unity. It is striking to see people of all ages going to Sunday services, joining choirs, reading their Bibles, a book which is studied, meditated upon and lived out, praying fervently, living soberly and unostentatiously a discipleship which, however, is not hidden. Perhaps the most unusual aspect of the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal churches is the habit – shared by all – of spending the first hours of the day in individual prayer, lived out together in the churches. Every morning at about half past five troops of Christians silently come out of their houses to reach one of the nearest Protestant churches, illuminated at night by a red cross. That’s how the day begins, in prayer, for Protestants in Korea. They’re not just a odd groups of people, old women for example, but thousands and thousands of people of all ages, women and men. The people gather, the minister suggests a hymn and reads a passage from the Bible which is quietly meditated upon for about fifteen minutes and then everyone prays, not in turns, but all at the same time. A few people raise their voices but most of them pray silently so as not to disturb the others. Hymn music plays quietly in the background. After about 45 minutes quietly and one by one the church goers leave and go to work or go home. The day has begun. Just like that.
Perhaps prayer is precisely the secret behind the spread of Protestant faith over the last century. Without wars of religion or impositions of any sort but through the witness first of hundreds and then thousands, small churches built at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the twentieth century have grown and got bigger. In the meanwhile Korean society has changed. Once poor, (in 1953 after the war the country was completely destroyed) it has undergone an almost miraculous development. There are churches with 50,000 members; the largest Presbyterian church has 80,000. These are not just names on old lists but they’re people alive, well and active in the churches to which they belong.
Dedication and a missionary spirit have obviously been united with great organizational skills so that each one of those thousands of people is engaged in useful services essential for the work of the Lord in and outside of the local church. Everyone is God’s minister and a disciple of Jesus. All are sent and all go.
The theological colleges are full of students who are studying for the ministry and the ministers themselves live out their ministry. like the first reformers, with dedication and discipline, led by the Word of God.
What can we say? A week’s visit is not long enough to really get to know a reality so vast and complex but it’s enough to realise that something is going on here which cannot be expressed in sociological categories alone. Believers are called to recognize the signs of the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ invited his disciples to do and they are also to call upon the Spirit to renew, in these times of decadence, his church everywhere, sending us out to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Here too, In our midst.