Victor Chen Ministries

Just finished reading the last of the half dozen books I bought during my visit to Ps.Cho Yonggi’s church in 2004 (Other books I bought were: The Great Businessman; How To Pray; The 4th Dimension; How can I be Healed). My favorite read out of all his books is one entitled “Daniel – Insight on the life & dreams of the prophet from Babylon” which is an exposition of the Book of Daniel.

Below is a report I did on the trip back in 2004.



It was a maiden trip to Korea for a lot of us, and for some it was the first time in experiencing what God has done in South Korea. The nation is widely regarded as a Christian country with 14 million Christians in a population of over 40 million inhabitants, and over 5,000 souls are added to God’s kingdom each day in South Korea. God has clearly established this nation to be a spiritual influence and outreach to its neighbors – Japan, North Korea and China.

The world’s largest church

Our first visit began with Friday all-night prayer meeting in Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul located near the Han River. The whole stadium with a seating capacity of over 12,000 was full even before the service began. The church began humbly in 1958 in the aftermath of the Korean War which devastated the country. Overcoming all odds and obstacles, the Holy Spirit guided Pastor David Cho and built this mega-church with global mission outreach, a social welfare town, having 2 universities and a theological institute under its wings. It also owns the Kukmin daily which is a daily secular newspaper but with a section for the gospel.

As of the year 2002, Yoido Full Gospel Church had a membership of over 840,000 members. Current statistics include 600 pastors, 1500 elders and around 20,000 home cell leaders. SIMPLY GINORMOUS! That is not all. We were taken on a tour of their premises in downtown Seoul. The main sanctuary is in a building on its own. It is roughly the size of Stadium Negara. Each Sunday it holds seven services and if you are 15 minutes early, you are LATE! and you won't be able to get a seat.

Along the same strip is four other buildings owned by the Yoido Full Gospel Church. A 13 storey building is totally dedicated to Sunday school. AMAZING! An adjacent building houses the Kukmin daily, while other buildings are offices for its wide-ranging ministries such as World Mission Center, Church Growth International and David Cho Evangelistic Ministries. A sixth building, a high storey apartment block was previously owned by the church, but now the individual units have been given to its various pastoral staff. All these on prime real estate land. It is as if RLC owns 5 buildings along Jalan Sultan Ismail. JUST IMAGINE! If the Lord can do it for the Koreans, He can do it for us too. Amen to that!!! Jalan 221 isn’t too far being off being Lorong RLC, he! he!

International Fasting Prayer Mountain
We stayed in Osanri Choi Ja-shil Memorial Fasting Prayer Mountain for 3 nights which is an hour’s drive north of Seoul. This place is another ministry of Yoido Full Gospel Church. Over 200 individual prayer grottoes are available and it has several chapels with services everyday. More grottoes are currently being built as well as chapels and additional lodging facilities. Thousands of Christians have fasted and prayed there since it was founded in 1973, and the spiritual atmosphere is simply awesome. One can sense the presence of the Holy Spirit immensely and it is easy to enter the spiritual realm rapidly.

Each night, all 78 of us from RLC would meet to worship the Lord and Pastor Joshua will share God’s word with us. Then each of us took turns to share our individual testimonies. The moments of fellowship were very warm, touching and really brought us together as a loving family. In the mornings we broke up into groups of seven to eight people to pray for each other, for RLC, for Pastor Joshua and his family, the RLC staff, the unification of Korea and also for Malaysia and our leaders.

Fervency of prayers

One thing we noticed was that the Koreans are real mighty prayer warriors. They pray deep and long prayers. It is through such prayers that South Korea has become an economic power in Asia after the ruins following the Korean War. It is also these fervent prayers that are keeping any imminent North Korean attacks at bay.

Many poorer Koreans with ailments and other needs camped in the main chapel for weeks, having only bare essentials with them such as a pillow and a mat. They were there to cry out to the Lord. Many will fast and pray, and will not leave until the Lord has answered their prayer or healed them.

Indeed, prayer is essential to our spiritual being in as much as breathing is to our human life. This is what a lot of us take back with us. We now have a deeper revelation of the need and importance of prayer. I now find it such a joy to pray each morning whereas previously it was a struggle. Praise God! I now enjoy being in His presence and just want to savor each intimate moment with Him. I can now feel His love much deeper and feel His presence more tangibly.


The cemetery

On our last night a small group of us went to a hilltop on the adjacent Christian cemetery. In the night a lot of Koreans usually cry out to the Lord there. We went there to simply worship and praise the Lord. We sat in a circle and sang and sang love songs to Jesus; we worshipped Him with songs as the Spirit led and rejoiced in Him in our hearts. It was such a magical moment that no words could ever describe. We tasted heaven.

Then the Lord appeared in a glory of light in the midst of us. He was in a white gown and was pleased with us. Immediately we could nothing but just kneel down before Him. We cried, praised and thanked the Lord Jesus as tears flowed down our faces. It was so beautiful. He even distributed gifts to us individually.

As we gather may Your Spirit dwell within us
As we gather may we glorify Your name
Knowing well that as our hearts began to worship
We’ll be blessed because we came,
We’ll be blessed because we came.

Earlier we had sung these words, that “we’ll be blessed because we came”. We came to Korea to seek the Lord in a greater way. We went to hilltop with no shopping list, but just to praise Him. And as we gathered, He showered us with His love, and we were truly blessed because we came.


Victor Chen
September 3, 2004