"God Will Never Stop Doing Missions"

WEC
Byung-Gook Yoo, who has been the president of World Evangelization for Christ (WEC) for six years, shared his thoughts on how the church can more effectively participate in world missions. |

WEC
(Photo : Christianity Daily)
Byung-Gook Yoo, who has been the president of World Evangelization for Christ (WEC) for six years, shared his thoughts on how the church can more effectively participate in world missions.

"Britain, America, and other missionary-sending countries are on the decline, and even the reality of the Korean church is grim," said Byung-Gook Yoo, a missionary who has been serving as the president of World Evangelization for Christ (WEC) for six years.

"But God will never stop doing missions."

"There are studies that say that in 10 years from now, the number of Christians in South Korea will decrease to 2 million," Yoo added. "But in the meantime, there are other nations in which Christians are increasing, like China, India, and the Philippines. It seems really difficult for nations that have already become secularized and materialistic to come back around in being a leader for world missions. The role of the Korean church in world missions will also soon decrease in significance after some point."

"The day has already come for nations that were once mission fields"”including China and India"”to become missionary-sending, and the time will soon come even for Africa," he said. "Right now is a very important time to help and invest in emerging missionary-sending nations."

Referring to the Chinese church, Yoo said, "It grew in a very short amount of time, but they have a fire and passion for missions. Many Chinese missionaries are going overseas in faith."

"The churches in Beijing, Manchuria, Henan, and others are growing very quickly, and many say that that growth simply needs to continue westward. We want to send missionaries to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa," Yoo said.

However, Yoo added that there are missionaries in China who "live like the homeless" due to a lack of financial support, and language and cultural barriers.

"The Chinese church has been realizing the importance of training missionaries who go overseas, but they don't have the resources to train on their own. So they've been reaching out to mission organizations for help," Yoo explained. Hence, there are Chinese missionaries that have been trained and sent by the WEC who are currently doing ministry in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Thailand, and several are being trained in New Zealand.

Yoo said that evangelization in each continent would be most effective by way of the native people themselves.

"Missions in Africa must be done by African people. There's a limit to the effect that foreigners can have," he said. "There are a lot of missionaries that go out to Nigeria, Ethiopia, and other nations. But even if those from other continents don't show much interest to these African nations, missions in Africa can be done autonomously, by the people themselves."

"Even in the Middle East, there's a limit to how much foreigners can do, and the impact that they can have. In Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and other nations in the area, there are ancient Coptic churches and Orthodox churches, but there are also Presbyterian churches and Pentecostal churches, and there are many in these churches that want to do mission work."

Meanwhile, Yoo said that in order for the Korean church to do missions more effectively, there is a need for a collaboration between local churches and mission organizations.

"We can't be so caught up in our own groups," he emphasized. "In the mission field, people from all nations work together. But if we're too busy thinking about the organization, or the church, it limits how much of a role that the missionaries can have in the nations, and the competition and conflicts that may arise between these groups may even hurt the ministry in the mission field."

"It's sad that churches are so adamant in wanting to send their own missionaries, and it seems that even after sending the missionaries, many churches fail to take care of them well," Yoo added.

Yoo commended churches for evangelizing to foreign workers and/or exchange students from foreign nations and sending them back to their home countries for missions, but he said that "how churches should go about sending the missionaries is a completely different story."

"Grassroots missions cannot happen if those people [the foreign workers and/or exchange students] go back to their home countries and simply live in abundance off of the financial support from Korean churches," he explained. "This kind of negative effect happens often when churches do not partner with mission organizations and send missionaries on their own. Mission organizations exist to fill the need in areas that churches may be lacking," he said. Yoo added that there are some churches that have experienced this firsthand, and now only acknowledge missionaries when they are sent in collaboration with a mission organization.

Ultimately, Yoo said, "In order for the Korean church to be able to resolve these issues, the leadership must first be awake to realize and clearly understand these problems."