A study of mission method for Filipino and Korean missionaries in Iloilo

Abstract

Korean churches have grown towards maturity after celebrating their hundredth anniversary and they are sending out more and more missionaries. In terms of experience in the history of mission work, Western churches can be said to be in their adulthood and the Korean churches are in their infancy. Although the Korean churches have attracted world-wide attention because of their fast growth since the 1960's, They had not paid much attention to world mission. The reason for this has not been because they were poor in resources. They just did not have sufficient interest and devotion to world mission.

But recently, interest in world missions is arising spontaneously in the Korean Churches, owing, for example, to national economic growth and active overseas development. Today's Asian mission is done by the people who live in Asia. Therefore, the role of the Korean Churches toward foreign missions has increased the focus of their interest in the Philippines. The door for evangelism in the Philippines is widely open because among other things, the people who are influenced by the Catholic Church are nominal Christians, which means that they are Christians in name only. People as a whole are very receptive to the gospel.

There is a total of 87% of the population which belongs to Catholic church. Of this, 7% attend a regular worship service or mass. These so called Christians who are in such circumstances must be made the object of mission in order to deepen their faith in God.

The purpose of this paper is to establish effective mission strategies for the evangelism of the Philippines through the study of some religious groups in the country such as Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and independent and indigenous religious groups which have grown up fast recently in the Philippines. The author tried to look into their mission methods and contributions, in order to derive from them insights that can be used by new mission groups which are assigned especially in Iloilo. The Korean mission has been in the country for the period of about 20 years. In Iloilo alone, Korean mission has been here for at most 5 years. This study is intended to provide guidance in the formulation of mission method to Korean missionaries in Iloilo and Filipino Evangelical Churches.

Scope and limitation of the study

A study of mission method for Filipino and Korean missionaries in Iloilo is important. It must be acknowledged however, that resource materials in this subject are insufficient. This paper utilizes data derived from reports and interviews of Korean missionaries who have ministered in Iloilo.

This paper discusses the importance of studying the missionary methods of religious groups which have done mission work in the Philippine. Their work is evaluated so that out of this, certain principles and guidelines are derived for the consideration and guidance of current and future missionaries. Each chapter, from chapter 1 to 5, is devoted to the discussion of a representative group. Chapter 6 contains evaluation of mission methods derived from the experiences of Korean missionaries. From out of this evaluation, recommendations are made in Chapter 7.