7

100 Days in Inchon

Overview: Chapter 7, 100 Days in Inchon, conveys how a Church experiencing the 'Cell Growth Rate' is capable of accelerating their growth with a great evangelistic effort.

Over one hour west of Seoul by bus is a large cosmopolitan city of one and a half million people called Inchon. The four year old Full Gospel Inchon Church, pastored by Rev. Choi Sungkyu, is the fastest growing Church in the city. Recently in March, Pastor Choi (pronounced Chay) launched an evangelistic effort for 100 days. By the end of June, their membership grew from 12,000 members to over 20,000 members. Possibly it is easier for some people to relate to this size Church than Dr. Cho's which has 100 of thousands of members and even their Sunday attendance is measured in 6 figures. The organizational structure of the Church in Inchon is identical to Dr. Cho's Church in Seoul. There are even instances where they share supplies.

In the history of their Church in Inchon, they had previously been a sub-district of Dr, Cho's Church with cell groups and one Pastor. On paper they had 2,000 members but Pastor Choi assured me that they only had 700 in reality. Of course most Pastors would love to start with 700 members although growing to 12,000 in 4 years might seem like a dream. As you might imagine, not everyone was willing to switch. In one home, of a couple who were leaders in the Inchon Church, there was their mother who was out spoken in letting me know that she is still a member of Dr. Cho's Church in Seoul.

After three years of growth, Pastor Choi, with a loan from Dr. Cho's Church, built a beautiful new five story building that will hold 3,000 people in the sanctuary. It is on high ground in the middle of farm land and already homes are being built around it. In march, this one year old building was adequate with an average Sunday attendance of 5,000 in several services. They had 15 Pastors on staff in addition to Pastor Choi and 992 weekly cell group meetings. This praying group of believers are well aware of the history that Inchon, Seoul's main port city, was to point of entry of the first Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries, who arrived on the same boat in 1884. Many believe that when Inchon becomes 100% Christian, all of Korea will be positively affected for Jesus.

The Evangelistic Plan

On March 23, the Full Gospel Inchon Church began their 100 day effort to mobilize the entire city of Inchon for Jesus. The highly organized and systematized approach was implemented through a series of seminars. First, the people of the Church mobilized with prayer and fasting. One of the main keys to their success was the strong prayer support. The organizational plan that was communicated in the seminars not only spelled out goals for each district but also gave detailed instructions for every week for the 16 main committees. Goals were even encouraged for each person. They invited over 100,000 prospects to attend their Church on June 28. One couple invited over 10,000 people and had 2,061 come on June 28.

One Section Leader had 11 people respond and all of her people were quickly brought into the body of Christ. I was in a home with a woman Pastor who was making her initial visit to one of these 11 people. The new member proudly informed me that she had accepted Christ on June 28.

During the 100 days, there were 15,195 converts, over 5,000 of them on Sunday, June 28. Sunday attendance usually is around 5,000 but on June 28 they had 11 services from 7am to 11:30pm with 41,462 people in attendance and Pastor Choi preached every service without getting hoarse. Everyone was involved in their effort - even the children. The top high school student brought 45 people. Pastor Choi stated, "I was constantly encouraging people to share their testimony and get individual people saved, rather than being concerned about having a big Church, because each soul is important." These fired up children of God were so enthusiastic in their efforts to spread the Good News of Jesus that they out grew their new Church in 100 days. They continued to work on getting the rest of the new converts in their Church. Out of the over 41 thousand people who came on June 28, approximately 5,000 were Christians from other Churches. On July 24, the Inchon Church had more baptisms than Dr. Cho's Church in Seoul.

Details of the Plan

They shared this plan with me so I can share it with others to help the body of Christ grow throughout the world.

1. All 15 Pastors and many members fasted without breakfast for the entire 100 days (this would be like an American going without the evening meal)

2. Every day of the 100 days, 24 hours a day, there were different members of the Church who were fasting and praying. They took turns being at the Church in prayer.

3. Beginning the 9th week and ending the last week, every Tuesday night from 11pm to 2am there was an all Church prayer meeting at a prayer mountain near Inchon.

4. The last 20 days there was an all Church prayer meeting from 9:30 to 11pm at the Church.

The Scripture used for the effort was Luke 14:23 "Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that My house will be full". Pastor Choi shared, "We invite them, then we let the Holy Spirit move on their lives." He also related an opinion that reflected his efforts as senior Pastor the entire 100 days, "The Hardest Part Was To Make The Lay People Aware Of The Importance Of Evangelizing Non-Believers."

The first 25 days were "preparing, the second 25 days were "activating", and the third 25 days were "gathering and the fourth was "reaping". They rented 60 buses to help bring people to and from the Church. They printed 350,000 tracts for distribution and placed billboards around the city. On June 1 & 2, they conducted a six hour seminar each day to further train the people. The copy of instructions given to given to Church members was titled, "Let's look for the people who need to be evangelized" and makes 31 suggestions of types of people to contact; like neighbor, salesperson in a store, child's teacher. etc.. Essentially, the approach was to invite people to their Church on June 28th. Although they were encouraged to share their testimony, the people didn't feel required to have everyone converted before they came. In the box in the lower right hand corner, "Guidelines for Evangelism", members were encouraged to write down the names and pray for those being evangelized before they went to witness. Then to show them love and care for them.

After the cover sheet, Page 1 & 2 describe the contents of the 30 page booklet. Page 3 is an organizational chart with a chain of command with pages 4 & 5 listing names and positions beginning with Pastor choi as chairman. 16 subcommittees are listed with the names of the director, assistant director and advising Pastor. Pages 6 & 7 clarify the duties of each of the 16 subcommittees. Page 8 gives the evangelistic goal for each person in each district which totaled 22,460. Since they actually had over 41 thousand, many exceeded their goal. Page 9 is a graph reflecting the progression of the goals. Pages 11-24 were lists of each district with names and specific goals for each leader. Pages 25-30 were duties for each of the 16 committees planned for each of the 15 weeks.

Pastor Choi's intention in sharing his plan is to help others spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. He told a Korean magazine reporter, "I would like to give this vision to every Church in Korea." As the first English speaking person to be aware of this plan and have it translated, I hope Churches and Pastor's all over the world will be blessed, as provide it free on the internet.

For the title page and contents, Chapter 1 Setting the Stage, Chapter 2 Only in Korea?,

Chapter 3 Winning a Country for Christ, Chapter 4 Prayer That Moves Mountains,

Chapter 5 The Weapon at Work, Chapter 6 How Cell Groups Work,

Chapter 7 100 Days in Inchon, Appendix: Written Interview Comments