Introduction
founder Dr. David Yonggi Cho
Dr. David Yonggi Cho established Full Gospel Young San Graduate School in 1983 and Full Gospel Young San Theological Seminary in 1986. His Christian life began in the second grade of high school when he was facing death with pulmonary tuberculosis. From the crisis he was miraculously healed by accepting Jesus Crist. Afterwards he attended a revival crusade, led by an American missionary, Ken Tize and he got a job to work as his interpreter, which provided him with an opportunity to read a lot of Christian books. So he opened his eyes to the truth of Christianity. However, having not yet reached conviction of faith, he was in the midst of fasting and praying. Then one night he saw the vision of Jesus Christ who appeared to him in the bright light and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Believing this to be the clear sign of his calling, he was immediately enrolled to the Full Gospel Seminary to be a witness of the gospel.
He met Pastor Choi Jashil at the seminary and founded a church with her in 1958. The church began to grow. When its members reached to nearly 50, they built a tent at the yard of Choi’s house to have worship service. It was immediately after the Korean civil war of June 25 was over. Pastor Cho preached the message to the sickly and poor people, the message of the Threefold Blessing, proclaiming that you would enjoy good health and all go well with you as your soul prospers. The Holy Spirit worked strongly. All kinds of sickness were cured. People were filled with hope for life. Afterwards, pastor Cho had an occasion to interpret at Pastor Sam Todd’s revival meeting held near Seodaemun Rotary. in which a lot of sick people were healed. After the revival meeting Pastor Cho built a tent where he started his second church. The church grew continuously until it finally built a church which could accommodate 1,500 people.
However, Pastor Cho had so much devoted himself to his ministry that he had to face the limit of physical strength a couple of times. From that incident he learned his lesson from the Bible: He should not try to bear the burden of ministry alone. As Moses appointed men of commanders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, he divided the whole city of Seoul into 20 districts, creating the home cell organization. Three years later the number of church members leaped to over 8,000, necessitating it to have service three times on Sunday. The congregation grew continuously until the church building could no longer accommodate it. Finally, the church bought a land in Yeouido and built a church that could accommodate 10,000 members in 1973.
The church grew rapidly after it moved to Yeouido. The membership surpassed 100,000 in 1979. It reached 200,000 in 1981 and 500,000 In 1993 and it finally surpassed 700,000 and was even finally entered into the Guinness Book of World Records. Afterward, the church began to build branch churches for the members who live in areas far from Yeouido and helped them to become independent. The church also built places of prayer all over the country and helped them to become churches. It further expanded the field of mission work through such media as newspapers, broadcastings and the internet.
Dr. David Yonggi Cho retired beautifully, entrusting the Yeouido Full Gospel Church to Dr. Younghoon Lee through the democratic procedure in 2008 when the Korean church was in the midst of controversy over the issue of ‘church hereditary succession’. Even after his retirement he had kept dedicating himself to domestic and international missionary work till he passed away by the call of God.
- * Dr. David Yonggi Cho’s Books (Total 621 books as May, 2008)
- 325 Korean Books like Fivefold Gospel and Threefold Blessing, Spiritual Leadership for the New Millennial
- 49 English written books and 247 Translated Books including The Fourth Dimension,
- Signed contracts with 58 publishers and translated into some 40 languages and published.
* Lyrics composed by Dr. Cho
- Over 30 gospel songs such as “How Much Did it Hurt?”, “The Walk of My Whole Life”
