Korean churches are facing a crisis; and a discrepancy between faith and life is one of the main causes. But a new movement, and a little technology, are working to help Korean believers live daily in the presence of God.
The Korean church has achieved tremendous quantitative growth since the 1980s. But some note that there has been too little focus on qualitative growth, that it has failed to encourage members to live a distinctive lifestyle, and that the salt has lost its saltiness.
Inconsistency between faith and life has become the main reason for Christians leaving their faith and the church. This inability to find Christlikeness is at the heart of the Korean church’s crisis today and is the reason why the Walking with Jesus Movement (WJM) movement began.
WJM is a rapidly growing movement in Korean and other Asian Churches. WJM aims for people to live every moment with a sense of God’s presence and to enjoy the intimacy with the Lord in daily life. Because of its quintessential purpose and its use of cyberspace, it can be seen as a 21st-century cyber monastery movement.
This movement was started by Rev Kisung Yoo, the senior pastor of Good Shepherd Church in Seoul. He asserts that it is possible for believers to experience the presence of the Lord 24 hours a day in their normal mundane life and to enjoy intimacy with him. He uses the spiritual journal as a tool to develop the sense of presence and intimacy with the Lord. Keeping a spiritual journal every day is the most crucial part of the WJM.
