Korea, South

Seung Ju Jung

The purpose of this project is to enhancing the project director's expository preaching skills at Happy Church of Daejeon, South Korea, in order to enhance congregational awareness of the biblical text. Through the entire process if planning and implementing the project, the results of the project director's expository preaching skill improvement and the congregation's awareness of the biblical text were presented.

The project director looked at the current situation of ministry in this age and recognized that the word of God must be properly proclaimed through the language of the preachers. There are many ways to deliver God's words, but in this project adopted the principle of expository preaching, which correctly interprets and explains the biblical text. In order to discover common theories of expository preaching, traditional expository preaching theories were analyzed, and based on these, more advanced alternatives were found and methods to be applied to expository preaching texts were studies. Based on the theories discovered through study, a preaching text written by applying modern preaching to the traditional expository preaching theory was preached and was evaluated by congregations of Happy Baptist Church. Throughout the entire process of the project, this project was implemented with a focus on enhancing the project director's research on the biblical text, improving the skill of writing expository preaching, and enhancing the congregation's awareness of the biblical text.

Byunghoon Kwon

"Korean society is now facing a population cliff due to a severe low birth rate. The decrease in infants naturally leads to a decrease in the number of Christian children. The purpose of this paper is to look specifically at how faith is formed through infant school. It is also hoped that parents who have been estranged from their faith through infant school. The conclusion from the project is that the impact of religious education on infant growth has on psychological and social development as well. Also parents who had been separated from the church became member of the church again.." -- Leaf [2].

Mansu Kim

"Although women in their forties and fifties play a crucial role as important dedicators in the Korean Church, they often feel loneliness and emptiness internally, not knowing where to be socially and domestically. Psychologically, they are considered `middle-aged.' In this paper, the author implemented a pastoral care program for middle-aged women in their forties and fifties under these circumstances to find out if the program helps them achieve spiritual maturity and restore their clear life direction and identity. The author conducted an eight-week small group pastoral care program entitled "Healing Mom- A Mother Becomes a Woman" for middle-aged women in their forties and fifties in his church. The program enabled the middle-aged women to reflect on their identity in faith and experience psychological and spiritual healing and recovery." -- Leaf [2].

Do Hyung Kim

"The purpose of this project was to equip aged Christians with a Christian Worldview in order to overcome diverse issues that exist in their senescent life. The author proceeded the project as follows. The groundwork of the preparation of an educational program for the aged Christians and the methods of this paper were described in Introduction. In chapter 1, the author explained roughly the concept and history of Christians worldview. In chapter 2, the author explored the definition of 'aging' from social, biological, and psychological aspects while describing the existing issues of senescent life. The author tried to seek the potential meanings of 'aging' from a Christian perspective based on the Bible. Paul Stevens' understating of aging, Erikson's theory of development stage, John Westerhoff's theory of education, and Christian worldview rooted in Reformed theology were theoretical grounds used for the educational program of the aged Christians. Specially, four factors of Christians worldview - creation, fall, redemption, and consummation - became the main stages of the suggested educational program, 'Senior Worldview Training Retreat.' In Chapter 3, the author described the content and flow of the 'Senor Worldview Training Retreat' and through chapters 4 and 5, the evaluation of the project and conclusion were explained." -- Leaf [2].

Mi Sook Han D.Min.

This thesis-project focuses on fostering interreligious dialogue between the Korean Conference of Religions for Peace (KCRP), the most active interreligious dialogue organization in Korea, and Korean Muslim leaders who asked KCRP’s leadership to include Korean Islam as a member. This issue is still pending. The project seeks to develop interreligious dialogue between these two groups through an exploration in Focolare Spirituality, a spirituality of unity. Focolare Spirituality aims to promote universal fraternity and to achieve a more united world in which people respect and value diversity.
The project deals with four dialogues: dialogue with religious leaders who are related to this issue, Catholic Church’s teachings on interreligious dialogue, dialogue between religion and culture in Korean context, and dialogue with the Focolare spirituality in order to achieve the goal of mutual understanding and collaboration with Korean Muslims. This project concludes by offering a method from a spiritual perspective for a fruitful interfaith dialogue.

Jungmi Kang D.Min.

The author researched the thesis, “A Korean Woman’s Voice to Preach as a Transformed Shaman through Perichoresis-Kut.” Built on the homiletical perspectives of Lisa L. Thompson, Frank Anthony Thomas, and Lynn Japinga, the transforming power of women preachers was envisioned through emotive, resilient, and celebratory interaction with the congregation. Such a transforming interaction was indigenously connected with Korean shamans and their ritual kut, which empowered Korean women’s voices and their ability to speak out for the marginalized. It was theologically connected with Trinitarian perichoresis, which empowered women’s voices and leadership. This thesis was grounded in the methodologies of anthropological and social research into Korean shamans and their ritual kut, homiletical inquiry about women’s voices and leadership, and Asian women’s Trinitarian perichoresis regarding radical subjectivity and open mutuality. While reflecting on these diverse perspectives, the author defined the homiletical significance of the preaching project as follows. First, when Korean women preachers could interact with the Triune God in the pulpit, the congregation might hear in their voices a conviction of perichoresis-kut to speak up for the marginalized against sexism, racism, and cultural colonialism. Second, within the heart of the homiletical significance for churches of Koreans and Korean-Americans, there was the need to change a male-gendered pulpit, by embracing Korean women preachers’ voices and leadership. On the other hand, it was crucial to provide Koreans and Korean-Americans with a transitional and transforming liminal space where every voice and every position could matter, regardless of being at the center or on the margin. Lastly, homiletic significance for the academic field was not only to build up a Korean preaching style rooted in the transformation of perichoresis-kut but also to call hearers to discover their identities in pursuit of advocating human rights and environmental justice.

Ye Yeong Park

This thesis begins with raising question of how to overcome the identity crisis of North Korean refugees as the reunification is drawing closer. From the sense of difference, this paper analyses the identity crisis of North Korean refugees who are currently residing in South Korea and observe how they become surmounting the conflict through bible studies. North Korean Refugees will play a critical role as a bridge in interaction with North Koreans as the reunification is coming closer. Accordingly, this paper aims to prove that North Korean Refugee Christians, who have experienced both systems of socialism and capitalism, are right persons to be acted a medium that eventually connects Two Koreas.

[Note about entry: Abstract submitted to the Atla RIM database on behalf of the author. The text appears in its entirety as it does in the original abstract page of the author’s project paper. Neither words nor content have been edited.]

Jinkyo Chung

This paper studied on the process of individual and social holiness through the ‘Calls of Caring’ project of Masan Central Methodist Church. The author examines how both the counseling volunteer and counselee grows throughout the service, and whether it can be a model of Wesley's Social sanctification. The author conducts paper surveys and face to face interviews, thus finding the possibility of becoming a model of social ministry to contemporary churches.

[Note about entry: Abstract submitted to the Atla RIM database on behalf of the author. The text appears in its entirety as it does in the original abstract page of the author’s project paper. Neither words nor content have been edited.]

Jihye Kim

Changing Attitudes Toward Life: Using Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy in Ministry with Christian Women in Church of the Lord, Anyang, Kyounggi-do, South Korea is a project designed to help the target group increase the degree of meaning and purpose in life and motivate a desire to live lives more meaningfully and responsibly with hopeful attitudes by exploring the biblical messages with integration exercises utilizing the key concepts of Dr. Frankl’s Logotherapy. Through a five-week sermon series, six weeks of group sessions including the final group reflection session, and writing reflection and autobiographies, the participants are provided opportunities to evaluate and even revise their values, meaning, and life-styles. Using quantitative and qualitative instruments, results show that educative pastoral counseling along with reflection in a small group setting can effect significant positive changes in their attitudes and behavior.