According to “2016 Korean Missionaries Dispatch Facts,” published by the Korea World Mission Association (KWMA) on January 9, the United States has the second largest number of Korean missionaries: 2,473, dispatched by 79 mission organizations. This is double the number of Korean missionaries dispatched to India. Why are there so many Korean missionaries to the U.S., the number one mission country?
On January 11, several mission organizations and mission experts pointed out that a considerable number of missionaries active in the U.S. are professionals. They are tentmaker missionaries, teaching at colleges or working at corporations, where they form Bible study groups or communicate the Gospel.
Good examples are University Bible Fellowship and Campus Mission International. CMI operates campus and professionals ministries and plants churches. As of the end of last year, there are 691 UBF missionaries and 102 CMI missionaries currently active in the U.S. The two organizations combined account for approximately one third of Korean missionaries active in the U.S.
The rest of the missionaries are involved in ministries for Native Americans and other minority peoples, or work at multiracial churches. Recently some missionaries are said to have moved to the U.S. after being deported from their country of mission, or for the education of their children, and then changed their ministry to multiracial mission.
Some point out, however, that it is inefficient to have so many missionaries in the U.S., because many missionaries are still needed in “unreached” regions throughout the world where fewer than 5% are Christians. Others say that Korean church pastors in the U.S. should not be included in the count of missionaries.
On the other hand, some say missionaries are needed in the U.S. because it is no longer a “Christian country” and has turned into a mission field like Europe, due to secularism and atheism. Therefore, they insist that missionaries are necessary in the U.S. in order to re-evangelize it. In fact, the rate of Protestants in the U.S. had dropped to 48% by 2014, from 71% in 1961. American Baptist Churches USA declared in 2014 that the U.S. is no longer a missionary country but a mission field.
In “Operation World,” the prayer for the U.S. is: “The U.S. church needs a revival. A syncretism of faith and materialism is widespread. The U.S. needs Biblical holiness, restoration of spiritual oneness, and proactive Christian participation in the public sphere.”
Reporter Sangmok Shin (smshin@kmib.co.kr), with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)
Original Article in Korean:
‘선교대국’ 미국에 왜 한국 선교사가 많을까: 한인 선교사 두번째로 많이 파송된 국가, 미국… 그 이유는
Related Article:
For First Time, Number of Korean Missionaries Stays Same Two Years in a Row
Why Are There So Many Korean Missionaries in the U.S., a “Missionaries’ Nation”?
2017-01-13 17:35
