Reverend Youngsan Yonggi Cho and Christian Education

Abstract

All pastoral ministries have commonly coexisted with the related Christian educational activities. As all of pastoral ministry has been based on specific theology, all pastors must be theologians and Christian educators within the boundaries of their own theology. Christian education never exists alone regardless of theology. Therefore, all the realities of Christian education have been performed on the background of theological philosophy. From this perspective, Youngsan and his Christian education have been intimately related. As we examine his pastoral ministry, Youngsan initiated Christian education through such abundantly various theological education institutions as Sunday school, layperson leadership training program for small group ministry, establishing and extending domestic theological seminary for the purpose of training Korean pastors, and furthermore managing a total of seven theological seminaries in foreign countries to educate the foreign native pastors as the core of Christian education. Through the various activities of Christian education in his ministry, Youngsan theology was a foundation and contents to practice and connect them to the surpassing outcomes. However, studies on Youngsan theology done from the perspective Christian education are not sufficient to produce academic and practical outcomes. Therefore, more vigorous research rather than now from the Christian educational perspective must be essentially requested for the consistent extension and development of Youngsan theology.