Korea Christian Gospel Mission

Mission Statement

The purpose of Korea Christian Gospel Mission is to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ and practice His love in all the world by ministering to and through the Korean people, while adhering to the principles of the New Testament and the Restoration Movement.

Below you’ll find videos featuring KCGM and an interview that Brianna Erickson from Madison recently conducted with john Che from KCGM

What's a day look like for you both?

Our days are pretty hectic haha. We spend nearly every day working from morning to night, whether it is at the orphanage during the week days, visiting and preaching at churches on the weekends, or going to the radio station, university, or meeting with our missionaries. We are fortunate to have great partners and staff that do a lot of the things that we are unable to handle, because we are spread pretty thin. We do our best to give our full attention to everything that we do, and we try to keep it personal. So, we may be in the office taking care of "big picture" things or tedious administrative work (which is also important), but we also make sure to visit the orphanage children's rooms and play with them every day. My parents especially enjoy going and hanging out in the babies rooms. We also have worship at least 3 times a week so that we can stay focused on God in the midst of the busyness. The biggest sacrifice we make is free time.  

 My parents have always lived this way since their youth. This is why even though they are in their 80's, they have not retired. This is their calling and they put in 110%. On the other hand, I come from a lazier generation. I like vacations. I like spending time with my family and especially with my 1 year old. I haven't been able to do that as much since I got to Korea so it has taken some time getting used to, and it is still difficult especially for my wife. It is draining sometimes for me too, but I've found that whenever I felt this way, God gives me the rest or rejuvenation I need one way or another.

I know you said that you have terribly polluted air- is that a hindrance to your daily lives?

Yes, it definitely is a hindrance to our daily lives. Seoul has some of the worst air pollution in the world. In fact, we topped the smog index, and fine dust levels multiple times this spring of any city in the world. We get emergency alerts every other day. Everyone wears masks, and children especially are advised to not go out on especially bad days. We don't know the long term effects of breathing in all this fine dust, but it can't be good. So we are worried, and we do our best to keep our kids inside, but there is a limit of what we can do. It has become a major political issue as well. In fact, when I moved here last year with my family, one of the biggest concerns I had to commit as a missionary was how the air pollution would affect the long-term health of my son.

Tell us about the radio broadcasts- are they done by many pastors in South Korea?  Are they broadcast just in South Korea or other places?

My father has been radio broadcasting the Gospel message since about 1975. We broadcast through the Far East Broadcasting Corporation, and the primary focus of our broadcasting is actually to North Korea. Christianity is illegal and persecuted in North Korea, but we are aware of thousands of hidden underground churches and underground Christians. My father used to preach to them every morning at 5:10am so they can listen secretly in their homes before going to work. Sometimes, we hear back or receive correspondence back from our listeners by mail smuggled through China and other countries just to reach us. There is so much correspondence that we have a museum at the radio station where we display all of the letters we've gotten. Of course, the north koreans are risking their lives sending letters like that to us, but it gives us encouragement and the strength to continue doing it. In 2019 all radio broadcasts to North Korea have been temporarily suspended by our government because of the political situation as a goodwill gesture to the North Korean government to help with peace talks. However, as Christians, we are hoping it starts up again soon.

Tell us about how the seminary is going.

Seminaries seem to be struggling worldwide. Our seminary is struggling too. We are struggling with bringing in students. We are struggling with employing quality faculty. We are struggling with finances. We are struggling with corruption at the highest levels of leadership. My father is serving as the founder, as a board member and chancellor but has stepped aside from the day-to-day many years ago. However, the people that were put in power when my father stepped down have completely corrupted the system, so that has been something we have been discouraged by and are hoping it finds its way back to its roots, as a preacher/missionary training school. There is a chance the Korean government closes our school down in the next few years, but we are hoping that its not the case.

Any new endeavors happening?

When our work first started, it was about sending my father back to his home country of Korea as a missionary. He planted churches, the orphanage, the university, and a number of other things. Now, more than 50 years later, we are proud to be sending out and supporting Korean missionaries we have trained to other countries. We have missionaries serving in China, Tanzania, Russia, Vietnam, Brazil, North Korea, Mexico, Senegal, the Phillippines, Kenya, and South Africa. We want to increase this network of partners in the future. So, because of God's grace, we have been blessed to transition from one missionary to Korea, to many Korean missionaries all over the world. Therefore, our name is the same, "Korea Christian Gospel Mission," but it means something different now. We are so thankful to witness this transformation.

What is the attitude of the South Korean's to the North Korean's?

North Koreans are thought of as long-lost brothers to South Koreans. This is especially true of the older generations who still have family there that were split up during the Korean War. Our hearts ache for our starving, suffering brothers and sisters just 20 miles north of where we live. One of the most commonly sung folk songs is a song about future unification. This has been a dream for a long time, but it has yet not been achieved.

What are the biggest prayer requests you have?

Please pray for our orphanage children. They grow up happy and healthy in our home but they tend to struggle when they graduate and get out into the real world. Korea is a very relationship-based country. No matter how qualified you are, you are unlikely to get a job offer when competing against someone who has a family background or some sort of relationship to those in power. As such, many of our kids struggle as adults. Korea has a very high suicide rate as a country, but they say 4 out of every 5 who attempt suicide within the 18-23 age group have grown up or spent time living in an orphanage like ours. This is a major prayer need.

Please pray for our university that it can go back to its root as a Christian university. It has been sad to see it deteriorate, especially under bad leadership. Please pray that God cleans it up, puts the right people in charge and keep them grounded in faith in the future.

What are some growths happening in the church there?

Even though we are not a large population compared to other countries, we send out a lot of missionaries. Here's a statistic I found on the internet: South Korea ranks No. 5 at 1,014 missionaries sent per million church members, a sign of the continued strength of its missions movement compared to the No. 9-ranked United States at 614 missionaries sent.

So this has been an exciting phenomenon in the Korean church considering Christianity only really entered korea about 200 years ago. We are proud of our korean christians who put their faith into action. I think we are the third or fourth highest missionary sending nation in the world after the United States and Brazil, so that is quite a commitment from such a small country.

What are the biggest struggles for the church?

Our biggest struggle is similar to a lot of other countries and churches. Our churches are not growing anymore. Our churches consist of mostly older generations and many young people are leaving the church. I think a lot of this has to do with the inundation of entertainment and media but also the younger generations being let down by the hypocrisy of the older church leadership.

For you John, do you have goals for the future?

I would love to be the generation that finally gets to enter North Korea and minister to the people there who, to this point, have been brainwashed and left unaware of the love of God and the power of faith. They say there are 3 million starving people in North Korea. There are 300,000 locked up in concentration camps. There are so many orphans and people who live in poverty. I would like to do in North Korea what my father has done in South Korea: take care of the orphans, plant churches, and start schools where people can learn about God. Of course, this is not up to me but up to God to open that country in His time. Its possible it never opens up even in my lifetime. The hope is tha it does, because you can't starve your people forever. Some thing must be changed. 

I would also love to continue sending out Korean missionaries. For my dad, he was a one-man mission. He did everything and spread himself very thin, but by God's grace, he was able to do a good job. I would love for our mission to transition into more of a network or a partnership. I think we can accomplish great things together now that South Korea is more Christianized than ever before, and I want the scale of our work to reach the rest of the world, and especially North Korea. 

One of my kids questions is "does the church in Korea know of or talk about Robert Jermain Thomas?"  We watched the kids DVD about him going to Korea.  So I told them we would ask you.  

Yes, Thomas is a legendary figure among Korean Christians. He was one of the earliest missionaries and his tenure as a missionary in Korea was very short. Yet, in that short time, his impact was great and this goes to show how great God is. The story goes that even in death, he handed a bible out to his attackers. There is also a story where a Korean used the bible to wallpaper is house, and many koreans came to read his wallpaper. This is the impact Thomas had, and my father likes to use his story in his sermons often.