Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, announced on January 16th its achievements from 2022 and pledged to expand its influence for good along with internal growth in 2023 as well.
GWACHEON, KOREA, January 23, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ — Shincheonji Church of Jesus continued to grow exponentially last year, producing 106,186 mission center graduates. In contrast to the atmosphere of the general church community, which has suffered from a decrease in the number of members after the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of members has increased significantly within Shincheonji. The church’s dramatic increase in membership is drawing attention from all walks of life.
The increase in the number of members was mainly driven by online seminars and the operation of an online mission center. Shincheonji Church of Jesus’ online seminars, which were released on YouTube last year (including eight seminars by Chairman Lee Man-hee) were broadcast worldwide in 24 languages and noted a total cumulative view of about 20.98 million. The response to these online videos led to the signing of 177 MOUs in Korea and 3,760 overseas (as of the end of December 2022). Further, numerous domestic and foreign pastors have entered into gospel exchange agreements with Shincheonji Church of Jesus.
In addition, the ‘Online Mission Center’ which started in earnest after the spread of COVID-19, has increased accessibility to the words of Shincheonji Church of Jesus. After the online system transition in 2020, the online mission center opened a total of 3,347 domestic and international classes (1,715 domestic and 1,632 overseas) during the year.
This led to the ‘largest number of graduates ever produced’, exceeding 100,000. It is believed that the scale has grown due to shifting from the pre-COVID, face-to-face approach to a non-in-person system which relieves the constraints of time and space. In fact, overseas last year, 21 Shincheonji Churches were newly established in 18 countries around the world, another example of this phenomenal growth.
Shincheonji Church of Jesus also conducted a large-scale blood donation campaign for the second time last year. As a result, 18,819 people participated in the first round and 73,807 people participated in the second round of this blood donation. This effort conducted in early 2022 achieved the largest number of blood donations by a single institution in the shortest period, setting a Guinness World Record. Shincheonji garnered certification by the Korea Record Institute (KRI) for the largest number of blood donations. And in July of last year, ‘We Are One’, a volunteer group consisting of 90,000 Korean and foreign youths, was launched. The young people of this organization announced their plan to solve national challenges and global crises.
Shincheonji Church of Jesus is again aiming for 100,000 graduates in 2023. The motto for this year is “the year of achieving our goal in single-hearted unity,” and all members of the church pledged to evangelize with more heart. To this end, ministers such as branch leaders, homeroom teachers, missionary center instructors, and evangelists are taking the lead in evangelism activities.
The 2023 online mission center will be operated as before, but some offline mission centers will also be opened and operated. The goal is to further increase accessibility so that anyone can visit and hear the Word directly. At the same time, it plans to focus on the education of the saints. The Shincheonji Church of Jesus said, “We are taking a Bible test every month for all members, and from the beginning of this year, we plan to implement a ‘Speech on the Book of Revelation’ with the goal of improving the skills of all church members to ensure that everyone is equipped with the ability to teach the Bible.”
Lastly, in 2023 Shincheonji is aiming to provide Bible education opportunities to more people by enlarging its scope, such as expanding the number of Bible seminars within Korea as well as abroad and increasing the signing of MOUs with pastors. Further, there is a plan to expand social contribution activities. In particular, “We Are One”, the youth volunteer group, announced that it is preparing to expand its activities to various fields such as environment, peace, and education this year.
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