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It took a Barnabas to make a Paul, and a Paul to make a Timothy. None of us fulfills God's destiny and purposes in isolation. You need encouragement and support, and so do those around you. May the story in this article challenge you to believe whole-heartedly in following God and His will for your life. God can achieve great things through you and the people He has called you to pour life into. |
I first met Yonggi Cho the summer of 1958. He was young and full of zeal. Ralph Byrd, an older pastor of a church in Atlanta who traveled overseas as a healing evangelist, had invited me to go with him to South Korea. We were to pray for the sick and preach in week-long tent campaigns in South Korea's six major cities.
Maxine and I had already gained distinction for eight years of missionary work in Liberia, West Africa. The president of that country had even knighted and funded me in a presidential inaugural salvation-and-healing campaign that took the Gospel into that country's seven major coastal and interior cities, towns and villages. While on furlough from Liberia, Bird had invited me to preach with him in South Korea, leaving Maxine and Karen in the States.
We needed two Korean interpreters for our crusades. I'll never forget one of those interpreters. He was a thin Bible school student, eager to talk about the things of God. When we stayed in the same room together, I remember our many talks and his fervent times of prayer.
Cho frequently interpreted for me, and spoke in the early morning prayer meetings. The pace was fairly rapid with four daily services, but we often talked between the meetings. Above all, the young student-preacher's questions were about divine healing. Even though he himself had been healed of tuberculosis, Cho had heard guest lecturers at his Bible institute say that the age of miracles had passed with the last of the twelve apostles. Divine healing and miracles, they contended, were no longer needed.
But Cho had read a book on healing by Oral Roberts, who pointed to Bible passages that supported healing in present times. Cho asked whether I thought healing and miracles were for today. He also asked, "What would happen if I prayed for someone, and that person wasn't healed?" I responded by telling him of healings I had witnessed in West Africa. "Healing," I emphasized, "is vital to God's present-day plan."
Soon, dramatic conversions and healings began to take place in those summer crusade meetings. The Japanese had tortured one old Korean man for a minor disobedience. To punish him, his captors had thrust a chopstick into each of his ears, bursting his eardrums. He had not been able to hear for fifteen years. During a crusade service he suddenly started hearing again. The next day the old gentleman brought all his family members to the meetings, including his grandchildren. That entire family became born-again Christians. Cho told me, "Now I believe in the healing ministry more than ever!" Before the tent crusades were over and I returned to America, Cho himself was praying for the sick.
Meeting Cho,
the young pastor
During those crusades, I knew God had called me to change fields to Korea, and returned with my family by the end of 1960. Yonggi Cho had already started a tent church with his future mother-in-law, Jashil Choi. News about their tattered tent church had spread in the small community. A man with palsy for seven years was healed. A local shaman renounced her witchcraft, accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, and burned her idols. A well-known alcoholic was converted.
By the time I again met Cho, the young pastor, their church attendance had climbed passed the 200 mark. I took Maxine to meet him first on a cold, snowy day. While Jashil Choi warmed Maxine's hands in hers, Cho and I sat cross-legged on the Korean floor. The young pastor excitedly told how the tent church had started and grown, and talked of future ministry.
Our talked turned to more even more serious matters. The Korean Army had sent him a draft notice; he was to soon enter the military for three years of required service. Cho's main concern was his congregation. He asked me to pastor the tent church in his stead, assisted by his able future mother-in-law. I told him I would; I knew God had called me to support and encourage this young Korean pastor.
In a few months our silver 32-foot Spartan trailer arrived in the southern port of Pusan, and we brought it to Seoul. We parked our silver trailer next door to Jashil Choi's home and the tattered tent church. After Cho started his term in the military, we went to early morning prayer meetings, and visited homes during the day. The same shipment that contained our trailer also brought a large pre-fabricated building, purchased with funds from the Global Conquest program of the Assemblies of God, from the Voice of Healing in Dallas, and other donors. We soon began construction in the distant but prominent Sodaemoon (West Gate) area.
We also took a new tent that had come in the same shipment, and set it in the local marketplace for a revival. I preached that revival with a focus on the Holy Spirit. One morning service as I walked among nearly 800 in prayer, there was such a strong sense of God's presence. Each person I heard was speaking in tongues. It was a touch of heaven.
Meeting Cho,
the maturing man of faith, vision and compassion
The tent church had been praying for Cho's early release. After seven months of service, the Korean army gave Cho an honorable discharge for medical reasons; God later healed his bleeding hernia. By now the tent church congregation had grown to 600, and we had moved into the new tent, now positioned near the top of a nearby hill.
I asked Cho and Jashil Choi to join me in the large pre-fabricated building we were constructing; God's hand was evident on Yonggi Cho's life. Cho's faith and vision had grown, and he knew God wanted him to build the largest church in Korea. We were curious, and visited what was then the largest church there, with a membership of about 10,000. Cho stepped off the size of that sanctuary in meters, while I stepped it off in yards. Much to our surprise, our new sanctuary was even wider. That simple act excited us: we wanted to work in cooperation with the vision we knew God had birthed in our hearts.
Cho and Jashil Cho agreed to come to the new facility, but we soon found it like starting over. Only a few from the tent church could afford the long bus ride to the new location, so we started with a revival in a nearby tent. On October 15, 1961, we held the first service in the new 1,500-seat auditorium. The building was packed. In the middle of the service, there was a flurry of commotion in the center aisle. A crippled beggar, who had pulled himself to the church on a wooden cart, got up and started to walk. Healings were frequent in church services.
At that point Cho had been licensed--but not ordained--by the Korean Assemblies of God. Since preachers in that denomination had to be ordained to pastor a church, I served as pastor of the new church for the first year, with Cho as my associate. But since I was not fluent in the language, Cho did the bulk of ministry.
We developed a weekly pattern. Tuesday and Wednesday we counseled in the church office and did sermon preparation for the Wednesday evening service. Thursday and Friday Cho and I visited people in their homes.
My strongest memory of our visits was on a cold autumn day. Cho and I walked near the top of a mountain to find the shanty of a poor family who had started attending our church. We sat on the dirt floor of their one-room home and ministered to them. Just then, we heard the distant cries of a baby.
After that visit ended, we looked for the source of the crying. Cho and I hurried through the brisk wind and found a tiny, roofless pasteboard structure, where a mother huddled with her crying toddler. It was so cold, and cardboard walls did nothing to keep out the piercing wind. The woman's face was streaked with tears.
Cho and I quietly walked in and began talking with her. Her husband had been killed in the recent Korean War, leaving her with three children. She was only 30 years old, but hard work and little food had already taken their toll. She looked like an old woman, sick and no longer able to work and support her family. Cho stooped and picked up that crying, dirty toddler, and held her close against him until she got warm and stopped crying.
That scene touched my soul. Cho was not just as a maturing pastor of faith and vision, but also of deepening compassion. Cho and I returned to the church to send others back to the widow on the mountain. Men built her a roof, and women brought clothes and food for the widow and her children. That widow was so touched that she came to church, and gave her life to Jesus Christ. After she was physically healed, she returned to work as a street vendor, able to support her three children.
By 1962 a core of more than 1,200 believers formed the congregation. In April of that year, the Korean Assemblies of God ordained Cho. I stepped down as senior pastor, becoming missionary advisor. I have always believed that missionaries are like scaffolding: once the work was built, it is time to move on. Ongoing leadership in Korea should come Korean pastors.
Our pattern changed. Sunday mornings Cho would preach on salvation and healing. Sunday nights I preached on the Holy Spirit. During many weekdays I took a core of Bible school students to other cities, held a revival, and left one or two students to nurture the new church plant.
Cho was mindful of my family, and often checked on Maxine and our daughter Karen when I was on preaching trips in the country. He stopped by once when Karen was in distress. She had a dog named Happy, an attentive and playful golden cocker spaniel she loved to play with. But as Happy had grown older, he began to lose his sight, and a white glaze covered his eyes. In the cold of winter, we had brought Happy into the warmth of our small silver trailer, but it wasn't easy for him. Karen's heart almost broke as Happy banged his head on furniture he could not see.
Cho's response was direct. He bent over, placed his hands on Happy's eyes, and prayed for the dog's sight. The next day there was no longer a white glaze over Happy's eyes. Happy and Karen played together joyfully that day, no longer hindered by Happy's blindness. And my daughter, like many others in the growing church, had learned two important lessons: God is indeed a healing God, and He is concerned with every detail of our daily lives.
Meeting Cho,
leader of the cell group movement
In the midst of the good times, we did have our difficult moments. By 1964, the congregation had nearly reached the 3,000 mark. Cho was taking his role as senior pastor seriously. He preached the two Sunday morning services, the Wednesday evening service, and at nearly every early morning prayer meeting. When there was a wedding or funeral to be performed, Dr. Cho would officiate. When someone came to the office for counseling, Dr. Cho would pray with him. He felt the responsibility of doing everything himself. After all, he was the senior pastor, and God did work mightily through him.
On a fine summer Sunday in 1964, Cho preached the two morning services to a packed sanctuary. He always preached well, but there was a tired and worn look about him. That afternoon he was to water baptize 300 new converts, as the weather was warm. I offered to help. "No," Cho protested. "I'm alright. I'm strong. Besides, it's my responsibility."
So three hundred times Cho had lowered thin and plump bodies into the water, baptizing them "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Later that afternoon Cho was to go the airport to meet a visiting American evangelist, and interpret for him during the evening service. Again, I again offered to help. I would pick the evangelist up at the airport, and allow Cho some needed rest.
Again Cho refused, "No. He's expecting me." So he had gone to the airport, taken the visiting evangelist to the hotel, and came to church with him in time for the evening service. He had not even had a chance to eat.
When the evening services started, I sat in a chair on the platform. When it was time for the sermon, Cho walked slowly to the pulpit, and stood shakily to the left side of the guest American evangelist. For a few minutes, everything seemed fine. Tired Cho interpreted each phrase of the fiery minister's sermons, even trying to gesture and move the same way he did.
Then his legs began to quiver. Suddenly, Cho collapsed,
and dropped to the floor, his lean body limp on the wooden platform.
I rushed from my chair, and knelt at Cho's side.
"John," he faintly called, "I'm dying."
Deacons of the church quickly arranged to rush Dr. Cho by stretcher to a nearby hospital. Maxine, Karen and I followed closely behind, leaving a startled guest evangelist with a different interpreter to preach to a now somber congregation.
Much of that night still remains a blur in my memory. The doctor's diagnosis was clear: Cho had broken his health, and would need at least six months of bed rest to return to any sense of normalcy. Temporarily, Jashil Choi and I divided the pastoral duties between us.
Tragedy soon turned into triumph. While convalescing on his bed, Cho read his Bible in a fresh light. He was most impressed by Moses' story in Exodus 18:13-26 and the pattern of the church in Acts, struck by the phrase "church in the home." He realized that he had been trying to do too much by himself, and needed his lay people more involved. When Cho felt a bit better, he started the first home groups. Those first groups failed, but he persisted, and started again.
Later that year, Maxine and our family left for two years of furlough in the States. By the time we returned in 1967, the church had grown to 7,750 and Cho had married Grace, Jashil Choi's only living daughter. We went back to the old pattern; Cho preached on salvation and healing Sunday mornings, and I ministered on the Holy Spirit Sunday nights. By 1968, the church had 150 groups. In 1969 I started a night Bible school at the church; Cho wanted to provide training for the church's group leaders, deacons and deaconesses who worked during the day, but felt a call to enter full-time ministry.
By the time we left Korea in 1970 to head our denomination's mission in Vietnam, the church had grown to 10,000. Cho and Grace had their first child, the church was planning the move to Yoido Island, and had added three pastors on staff to oversee the growing number of cell groups. By then other pastors started to come and ask questions about what we were doing. God had not only helped Cho find solution for his church, but also to spark a cell group movement.
Meeting Cho,
the international church statesman
Even while I headed the mission in Vietnam the next five years, Cho did his best to help. He sent a Korean missionary, Nam Su Kim, and his family to join our now international team. By the end of 1973, Cho's church had moved to a much larger structure on Yoido Island, with a pastoral staff of 20 serving 12,556 members. By the end of 1974, there were 542 cells groups in a membership of 16,309.
Maxine's and my time in Vietnam was filled with much joy and sorrow. We had started a Bible school, planted several churches, and begun a drug and rehabilitation work. But in April of 1975, when Saigon fell, we were forced to leave. I barely took the pressure. Not long after being air lifted back to the States, I had a heart attack. I felt like I had helped to birth a young and fledging church in Vietnam, and was then forced to leave it alone and helpless.
While I was recuperating in California, Cho came to see me. Donald McGavran, founder of the church growth movement, had visited Cho in Seoul, and called his the "most organized church in the world." By then growing numbers of pastors were going to see his church, and McGavran suggested that he start some type of organization to teach them. Cho invited me to return to Korea to do just that, and by the end of 1976, several things had happened. The church itself reported 1600 cell groups and a membership nearing the 40,000 mark. Maxine and I returned to Seoul, this time with an adult Karen, to establish Church Growth International (CGI).
CGI hosted the church's first international pastors' seminar in June 1977, with 577 participants, including 210 American and 119 Thai church leaders. I will never forget the electric sense of excitement as the first overseas seminar, held in Bangkok, Thailand, was attended by 2,100 pastors and church leaders. A growing advisory board of pastors from various countries soon formed.
On November 4, 1979, the church celebrated a membership of 100,000 and a bustling 7,000 home groups in the cell system now vital to the fabric of the church. Even more foreign pastors came to see the church, considered a divine phenomenon. In just two years, church membership doubled again. On November 30, 1981, the church celebrated a membership of 200,000, including more than 14,000 home cell groups.
We left Korea the end of 1981, to return to work
with churches in the States. By that time Church Growth International had
held 100
seminars for 40,000 foreign pastors and church leaders.
Yonggi Cho had become "Dr. Cho," a prominent church statesman with a message
and ministry to the international church community.
Celebrate the people God has
called you to encourage and support
I sometimes wonder if it has been worth it for Maxine and I to lay down our lives to encourage and support Dr. Cho and other leaders and pastors. But those moments pass quickly; God is the One Who gives the increase.
Paul Ai was among the Bible school students Maxine taught in our closing days in Vietnam. Years later we discovered that Ai had started an underground church movement in Vietnam that had resulted in more than 17,000 Vietnamese becoming born again believers, clustered in hundreds of small to medium sized house churches throughout that country. Even though we had to leave that work prematurely, God was busy preserving and growing His church.
In May of 1958, Dr. Cho invited me to speak in the opening session of his church's 40th anniversary celebration. The congregation then numbered over 750,000, with more than 20,000 cell groups.
It was a thrill to see my old friend again. Cho had matured even more, with a gracious manner only great men have. He wanted to honor me, and one last time interpreted for me. As I spoke to that vast crowd, I was deeply proud of Yonggi Cho. As I stood with Cho by my side one more time, I celebrated that moment, grateful for the life God had given me.
What about you? Who have you met? Who has God put
in your path that He wants you to build up and support? It took a Barnabas
to make a Paul, and a Paul to make a Timothy. None of us fulfills God's
destiny and purposes in isolation. You need encouragement and support,
and so do those around you. From time to time, we all grow discouraged.
From time to time, we all wonder if it's worth it. We must rightly discern
who to pour our lives into. But there is no greater joy or blessing than
giving your life away so someone else can become all he can be in God.
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During the 1998 40th anniversary of Yoido Full Gospel
Church, Dr. David Yonggi Cho presents Dr. Hurston a plaque of meritorious
service for his
"dedication and commitment to the development and growth of our church." |
