Mission life: THE KUKMIN DAILY

26,677 Korean Missionaries Dispatched to 170 Countries in 2014

2015-01-09 17:59
On January 8, the Korea World Mission Association (KWMA) opened its 25th regular general assembly at Sandol Jungang Church (Rev. Shin Dong-u) on Shiheungdae-ro in Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, and announced statistics related to the dispatch of missionaries abroad. The new total includes the 136 member denominations and organizations in KWMA as well as non-member organizations, but does not include missionaries sent by presbyteries or individual churches.

As of last year, the total number of Korean missionaries dispatched around the world reached 26,677 in 170 countries. This was an increase of 932 over the figure in 2013, and was the lowest rate of increase in 10 years. Both the current economic crisis and the reduced number of younger-generation missionaries functioned to slow the increase, but another big cause was the difficulty of grasping the actual number dispatched.

The recent survey, showing that 54.1% of Korean missionaries are stationed in just 10 countries, revealed the necessity to send more missionaries to less-evangelized countries. In evangelized areas where the Protestant Christian population is 10% or above, there are 11,509 active missionaries, meaning that the KWMA has reached -or nearly reached- its strategic goal for the year 2030 in those areas. On the other hand, the number of missionaries in under-evangelized regions remains short, as countries with a 0~5% Protestant population still have only one tenth the number of missionaries targeted for them by 2030.

The areas with the greatest number of active missionaries are northeast Asia (6,499) and southeast Asia (5,346).

Reporter Sangmok Shin (smshin@kmib.co.kr), with Marion Kim (marionkkim@icloud.com)


Click here for the original article in Korean

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