Increasing number of churches are adopting church social volunteer programs. A major issue in organizing social volunteering concerns the management that are most effective for recruiting member participation. Grounded in previous research and discussion, this study develops and estimates a model identifying the relationships of religiosity, church social volunteer recruitment management, and level of church members’ social volunteering. Using survey data from 1,490 church-going Christians and employing multiple regression method, this study demonstrates the importance of organizational intervention such as church social volunteer recruitment management to promote Christians’ social volunteering. This study discusses directions for future research on same research topics.

Korean missionaries and Korean diaspora churches are all around the world now. In fact, Korea is widely known as the second-largest missionary sending country in the world, and the country where the biggest church in the world is located. However, although Korean diaspora churches are located in strategic places for world mission, many are reaching out to only Koreans. Of course, they are engaging in various forms of mission. But mission is not their main pursuit. They tend to focus more on internal programs, and differentiate those programs from mission. Missional churches, on the other hand, have a different understanding. They think of the church as having one vocation: participation in the missio Dei—that is, the Triune God’s own mission. In other words, traditional churches have programs, some of which focus on mission; in contrast, missional churches focus mainly on mission and seek to bring all their programs to bear on that task. This study, in which the author commends the latter ecclesiological stance, explores how Korean diaspora churches in North America might be able to move from a traditional stance to a missional one. Utilizing three transformation theories as a framework for analysis, and working from data from interviews with leaders from ten Korean churches in North America and North American-based Korean missional leaders, plus library research and the records and histories of the churches studied, this study concluded that the authoritarian model of pastoral leadership in first generation Korean diaspora churches in North America militates against the employment of any change process that does not focus first and foremost on senior pastors. Given the support of the senior pastor, the study further recommends a strategy for change that is tailored to the culture of first generation North America Korean churches.

This paper is intended to explore the relationship of korean churches and the shamanism from the missional perspective. July 7, 2007 the very interesting article was reported in ‘The New York Times’. It bears the title, “Shamanism Enjoys Revival in Techno-Savvy South Korea”. According to this report, there are an estimated 300,000 shamans in south-korea. By contrast it is approximately 120,000 protestant pastors in south korea. Until now the shamanism and the mudangs are estimated so negative by reason of their ‘health and wealth gospel’. Specially the korean church took it as the mammonism. But the health and wealth gospel of shamanism aims the worldy centered worth, not the mammonism. By religious ritual named ‘gut’ they will find a solution to one's problem, but will not accumulate wealth. They think that the most problem of human beings arise from the distorted relationship between the divine beings and the livings. So by the gut they try to reconcile the livings with the divine beings. For this, the mudangs serve their gods with all their hearts; they pray every early morning with the lustral water, support their gods with fresh new fruits. This faithful devotion is called ‘chiseong’ in korean, and this could be comepare with the spiritual discipline. By this ‘chiseong’ the mudangs can be recognized as the spiritual psychics. And this will afford an excellent lesson to the korean churches, for the church as a missionary organ have to witness the presence of the living God in this world.

This paper aims to deal with the background of emergence of the missional church, to analyse changing cultural context in Korea, to suggest indicators of the missional church, and to delineate the essence, leadership and ministry, and structure of the missional church. In conclusion, it simply evaluates the Korean church based on the practical discourse of the missional church and suggest a future outlook of the Korean church. The emergence of the missional church(or the missional ecclesiology) orginated from Lesslie Newbigin's mission work and his mission theology. It has been expanded to the movement, so-called “the Gospel and Our Culture conversation” in the early 1980s in England. The missional challenge Lesslie Newbigin faced was the missional response in between the gospel and western worldview. Influences of the movement has spread by American missiologists as it formed a “network” in the mid 1980s in north America. In the early 1990s north American churches had been loosing social credibility due to the influences of materialism and secularism. In this situation “Gospel and Our Culture Network” became spreading its influences on the church and society by producing books and articles which contained missional insights and analyses of the north American church and American culture. The church's reaction to changing cultural context can be shown in three modes: (1) relevancy; (2) resistance; and (3) adaptation. But these approaches distort the essence of the gospel and cannot properly cope with the rapidly changing context. So we need a new approach in order to overcome the limits of these approaches. This must be a missional church that is grounded on the Bible and sensitively responds rapid culture change, and is created and led by the Holy Spirit. The missional church that firmly responds to a changing cultural context is a forming and reforming church as being called by the triune God and sent to the world. That is, the church must be both confessional and missional. The missional church reveals the triune God in the encounter between the gospel and culture. The very reason that the missional church exists in the world is not because of human purpose or hope, but the result of creating and redeeming work of God in the world. Therefore to participate in the mission of triune God(Missio Dei ) who calls the church, sends it to the world, and renews it in the power of the Holy Spirit is a long journey that A key of the formation of a missional community is missional leadership. The essence of the church, being the church, determines the ministry and structure of the church. The missional leadership is incarnational(servant leadership) and apostolic leadership. The holistic leadership that mobilizes believers to various ministries is closely related to the doctrine of priesthood of all believers and is a leadership form which equips believers to be ministers. The five leadership roles, apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher, which are shown in the book of Ephesian, are decisive factors determinating on the church's ministry. These concepts of Christian ministry claims a paradigm shift from clergy-centered hierarchical leadership to divine gift-centered lay leadership. In order to verify the fact that the church is missionary in essence, the church must rediscover the gospel. A church trying to restoring the gospel can find crucified and risen Jesus Christ, and firmly realizes the meaning of Christian discipleship in carrying out the great commission, and is empowered to live out the gospel in every sphere of its life.

It could be said that the Korean Church has improved through continuous diverse debates and division in its history. The debate in Korean Church history has begun after missionaries who came in early Korean Church history, so that it became different denominations. It my theses, I will study the diverse debate forms in the history of the Korean Church. For this, I will divide the Korean Church history in several periods according to the most important events. The first period is the 1910's in this period the Korean Church was established. The second period is 1930's, where there was theological debate between conservative theologies and liberal theologies. The third period is 1950's, when the Korean Presbyterian Church began to divide. The fourth period is 1970's: in this period there was a lot of debate over indigenization and 'Minjung' theology and also the conservative theology which made the churches grow. The final period is 1990's, in this period, conservative theologians and church leaders made super-size churches expel two liberal theologians who tried to establish the Korean theology in a Korean context. In my thesis, I will study the debate forms of each period and transitional phases in Korean Church history. It would not be possible, of course, to study all the denominations of the Korean Church. Therefore, I will research the Korean Methodist Church and the Korean Presbyterian Church, as the Korean Methodist Church has been in existence since the arrival of early missionaries who first came to Korea and also the Korean Presbyterian Church which has been most divided of the different denominations in Korean Church history. It could be helpful to find the new way of mission for unity and forgiveness in Korean church history.

As Samuel Huntington has asserted, this world suffers from tension and conflicts between diverse cultures. According to Paul Tillich, the core of culture is religion. There is no clear understanding of culture without appropriate understanding of religions. There has been a long history of tension between Christianity and Islam, although the two have the same Abrahamic tradition. Afghanistan began its Islamic tradition in the 18th century in the Pashtun tribe in the area of Kandahar. A Korean short-term mission team sent by Saem Mul Church was kidnapped by the Taliban armed troops. Two members of the team were then killed by the Taliban in July 2007. The rest of them were released after negotiations between the Korean government and the Taliban were made. Koreans had different opinions about the short-term mission team sent from the Saem Mul Church in the city of Sung Nam, Korea. Some people rebuked them. Others kept silence. Some churches encouraged them. In this critical situation, the Korean Church was embarrassed. This study attempts to offer some suggestions to help the Church overcome this crisis by providing missiological insights based on evangelical mission theology. First, missions need to be carried out according to the promise and the commission revealed in the Scripture. Second, missions should be implemented with the guidance of the Holy Spirit through the prayers of the church. Third, missionaries need to understand the various cultural situations of the area where they are called to serve. Fourth, churches and missionaries should be one in Jesus Christ as the doctrine of the Trinity states. Fifth, mission groups need to put a holistic mission into practice as Jesus Christ exemplified in His time on earth. Sixth, mission groups need to be free of an imperialistic paradigm in the age of postcolonialism. The Korean Church has to repent of negligence and pride over underdeveloped countries since it has become materially affluent. The Church needs to be incarnational in terms of attitude and holistic in terms of ministry in order to help the people to become Christians in a non-Christian world like Afghanistan. The blood shed by the two Korean short-term missionaries in Afghanistan will produce an indigenous church in the Islamic country because the blood of martyrs are the seed of the church as maintained by Tertullian in his Apology.

The term “culturally refracted contexts” means the distorted, twisted, and fixed contexts which have lost the functional roles of the social integration in the specific cultural situations. The author tries to categorize three kinds of the distorted cultural patterns among the culturally refracted contexts of Korean society by using an anthropological method. The first one is related to “distorted nationalism” in a refracted context of the traditional pre-modern culture in Korea. It has been shown up to the society as a phenomenon of worshipping the national forefather Dangun. The second one is to be known as “extremely twisted totalism” in a culturally refracted context of militarism in Korea. It has impacted on the politic, the economy, the religion, and even the education of Korean society. The third one is to be tied with “distorted mammonism” in a culturally refracted context of materialism. It has been rooted and fixed to “extreme ethnocentrism” in Korea. The author, then, argues that Korean churches should have God’s mission to integrate the distorted and twisted society with the gospel of Jesus Christ which brings reconciliation and recovery to the culturally refracted contexts of Korean society. The distorted and twisted contexts of Korean society should be recovered to the grace community of God, the peace community of Jesus Christ, and the mission community of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the “distorted nationalism” in a refracted context of the traditional pre-modern culture in Korea has to be deleted in the society by God’s universal grace. The social oppressed and the weak can be protected and empowered by the grace of God. The “extremely twisted totalism” in a culturally refracted context of militarism in Korea can be nullified by Christ‘s sacrificial peace which brings the culture of resurrection and life. The “distorted mammonism” in a culturally refracted context of materialism in Korea should be transformed into the sharing community to the world by the witness of the Holy Spirit who gives the forgiveness and reconciliation. Korean churches as the community of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and God the Father should have a social and missional role of integration within the refracted Korean contexts of the distorted nationalism, totalism, and materialism with God’s grace, Christ’s peace, and the Holy Spirit’s sharing witness to the world and the society of Korea.

This study presents George G. Hunter’s church growth insights revealed in his classic, To Spread the Power: Church Growth in the Wesleyan Spirit. On the basis of his insights and interpretations of collected data including interviews, letters, and observation, this study evaluates the mission programs of Anjung Church of the Nazarene. Hunter adopted John Wesley’s ideas and the church growth theories developed by Donald A. McGavran and C. Peter Wagner to produce his own church growth theory. This study attempts to apply Hunter’s church growth insights to a local church, Anjung Church of the Nazarene. This church represents the Korean Nazarene Church (KNC) in this evaluation. (KNC was organized in 1948, although some Nazarene churches were already planted in Pyong Yang and Seoul during the Japanese colonial period). Hunter’s church growth insights were translated into six “mega-strategies.” The six mega-strategies are: 1. Identifying receptive people, 2. Reaching across social networks to people, 3. Organizing new recruiting groups and ports of entry, 4. Ministering to the needs of people, 5. Indigenizing the ministries to fit the culture of the people, and 6. Planning to achieve their intended future. This study discovered some strengths and some weaknesses of the Anjung Church of the Nazarene. The church was comparatively strong in evangelism and outreach, although DGR showed diversity between “poor” growth and “good” growth. The church has grown steadily since it was planted in 1947. In particular, the church was very aggressive in church planting work. However, the church was comparatively weak in cross-cultural missions, although it tried to build two church buildings, one in the Philippines and another in North India. This study presents seven suggestions to Anjung Church of the Nazarene based on missiological analysis and evaluation. In summary, the church needs to carry out holistic mission programs to maintain the balance between proclamation / evangelism and social action / social service. Anjung Church of the Nazarene has a great potential to fulfill the Great Commission and to implement the Great Commandment. The classical purposes of missions are conversion, church planting, and the extension of God’s kingdom. God will be glorified by the local church.

Diese Aufsatz untersucht die missionarische Bedeutung der Kirchenreform. Es ist deswegen notwendig, weil die koreanische Kirche trotz ihres großes Wachstums zur Zeit sich mit vielen Kritiken von innen und außen konfrontiert. Da aber in diesen Kritiken verschiedene Forderungen impliziert sind, die sowohl persőnliche moralische Probleme der koreanischen Christen als auch Őffentlichkeitsfrage der koreanische Kirche umfassen, műssen diese Kritiken vorsichtig berűcksichtigt werden. Es ist allerdings keine Frage, daß die koreanische Kirche sich reformieren soll. Wir wissen auch, daß die Frage der Kirchenreform in der Kirchengeschichte immer wichtige Aufgabe der Theologie und Kirche war. In der Selbstverständnis der Kirche gehőrte diese Frage zu wesentlicher Frage der Kirche(ecclesia semper reformanda). Deswegen geht es bei uns nicht darum, ob die Kirche sich reformieren soll oder nicht, sondern darum, auf welchem Grund sie stehen soll, in welche Richtung sie gehen soll. Das ist gerade darum der Grund, aus der Frage 'was ist die Kirche' ausszugehen. Wenn man diese Frage beantworten versucht, kann man einigermaßen den Grund der Kirchenreform und ihre Richtung feststellen. Es geht dabei vor allem um die scharfe Unterscheidung und die angemessene Beziehung zwischen der Entstehungs-(i.e. dem Grund) und Gestaltungsdynamik(i.e. der Richtung) der Kirche, weil es schwer ist, ohne dies genau zu erkennen, űber die Kirchenreform zu diskutieren. Da die Frage nach Kirchenreform nur auf diesem differenzierten Erkenntnis hin angemessen zu beantworten ist, ist dieser Erkenntnis auch sehr wichtig fűr die missionarische Kirchenreform, weil sie zuerst die angemessene Gestaltung der Kirchenstruktur im Bezug auf die missionarischen Aufgaben der Kirche in der sich verändernden Welt sichtbar zu machen bedeutet.