the Korea
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2010.11.07 12:42
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Even though I'm an American,
I've worked in many countries.
I am impressed with the way that they're developing.
But Korea's development is phenomenal.
What, you may ask, is the secret for such rapid economic,
political, and social growth?
I believe that one of the secrets is the rapid increase in the
number of Christians here.
Look over the city of Seoul from a tall building at night
and you will see hundreds of crosses.
These crosses indicate the strength of Christianity here.
This article predicts a bright future for this country: South Korea:
Perhaps the Next Transformed Nation in the World.
The Korea David S. Lim, Ph.D.
South Korea is the fastest rising nation that is positioning itself
to be the next truly Christ-like, discipled, and transformed
country in the world today!
Though the number of baptized believers, both Roman Catholic
and Protestant, remain at about 30% of its population,
their influence in society has been more than their numbers,
mainly due, I think, to the early missionary application of
indigenous church-planting strategy (called Nevius’ principles)
and their investment in Christian higher education.
In the February 8, 2010, issue of Newsweek, B. J. Lee’s article
“Selling South Korea” (esp. page 29) reports that even when
surrounded by bigger powers (China, Russia and Japan),
South Korea is successfully carving out a global role for itself
to “ensure its prosperity and security.”
In his first year in office,
President Lee Myung-bak (an elder in a Presbyterian Church)
made a point of systematically reaching out to foreign leaders
in the United States and other major powers.
Then in 2009, he headed to Europe.
Then in 2010 Lee targeted Africa. For the past 20 years,
constitutional democracy has been fully consolidated in the land,
with five-year terms of their president (with no re-election!),
and the two ex-presidents who were found guilty of corruption
were actually put in jail!
And its model of economic growth with an open society rather
than with a strongly government-controlled one like in China,
Singapore, and Hong Kong will surely serve as an inspiration
for other developing countries to follow.
This political maturity is represented most prominently by
Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations (U.N.)
today. In terms of transformation into a loving and generous
people, South Korea posted 3,000 volunteers in its version
of the Peace Corps to Asia and Africa in 2010, where they
focused on public health and childhood education, with plans to
increase that number to 20,000 by 2013.
Last year South Korea officially became the first former recipient
of international aid to graduate to the donor ranks,
sending $1 billion to dozens of poor countries,
and it plans to triple that sum within five years.
Likewise, the number of troops it commits to U.N. peacekeeping
operations jumped from 400 in 2009 to 1,000 in 2010
and works in roughly 10 nations, including Lebanon and Pakistan.
Lee has big plans for Brand South Korea, too.
As the former CEO of Hyundai, he turned what had been a small
contractor into a global manufacturing powerhouse.
He speaks English, unlike his predecessors as president,
and is comfortable playing national salesman.
Just after Christmas, following six rounds of telephone calls
with United Arab Emirates President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan
and a last minute visit to the country, Lee helped South Korea
beat out a French conglomerate and a joint U.S.-Japan
consortium to win its biggest foreign contract ever:
a $40 billion nuclear-power-plant contact in the U.A.E.
Above all, for the past two decades, Koreans have been sending
the most number of cross-cultural missionaries, estimated to be
more than 13,000 today. Although many of them struggle to
overcome their mono-cultural background, a few have excelled
in recent years in modeling effective missions that empower
local believers to multiply churches among the unreached
peoples in Africa and especially in Asia. As typical evangelicals,
they tend to work individualistically and denominationally,
yet a strong sense of common mission has developed in
recent years among their mission leaders and reflective
practitioners.
They have clearly taken leadership among emerging
“Two-thirds World” and international mission structures,
including Asia Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization,
Asia Missions Association, Third World Missions Association,
Tentmakers International, and Asian Frontier Missions Initiative,
and even Tokyo 2010.
With its track record over the past two decades, and its
dominant representation in the global missions movement,
the next decade looks really bright for South Korea to be next
model nation in the world!
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