| The Vision and History Of |
| The East-West Center for Missions Research & Development |
| HISTORY |
| The leaders of churches and missions from fourteen Asian countries have joined to form the Asia Missions Association. At a consultation in Seoul in 1973, they entrusted to Korea International Mission to establish a center of missions research and training in Seoul. |
| To provide the finest training possible, benefiting from the experience of generations of Western missions, the Korea International Mission planned to establish the East-West Center for Missions Research and Development in Korea. |
| The Rev. David J. Cho, who had served as the Executive Director of the Consultation, was subsequently appointed by the Continuation Committee as its Secretary-Treasurer. He set a goal of training at least 10,000 Asian missionaries at the Center by the year 2000 A.D. |
| He took an initiative step of establishing the Summer Institute of World Mission in Seoul, right after the All-Asia Mission Consultation Seoul ¡¯73 was held. The Institute was attempted as an experimental project of the permanent East- West Center for Missions Research and Development which is established as a project of the Asia Missions Association. There was no missionary training institute in Asia before this Institute was established. |
| Since 1973, more than 2,000 candidates and local pastors received their training at the Center until the year 1999. All of the candidates had already finished their college or seminary training. The candidates came from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong as well as from Korea. |
| The churches in the East are paving the highways to succeed the unfinished task of the world mission from the West. The project for the task of missions research and training has been steadily materialized. |
| In 1979, the landbreaking service was observed and rhe campus of the Center was constructed and named as PAULINE HOUSE. |
| In 1999, the Founder, David J. Cho, retired and the Pauline House was transferred to GMS (Global Mission Society). |
| In 2004, a group of leading senior fellow graduates of the Center formed a new Board of the East-West Center for Missions Research and Development and rehabilitate the Center. David J. Cho, the Founder of the Center, appointed Dr. Timothy Kiho Park, Professor of Fuller School of Intercultural Studies, as the new President to succeed David J. Cho's position to take initiation for rehabilitation of the Center. He incorporated the Center to California State and began reshaping the program and raising fund for the Center rehabilitation. |
| PURPOSE |
| 1. To help available missionary manpower keep pace with the population explosion at a time when the Western missionary force is not increasing. |
| 2. To help prepare the Asian missionary force that will be required when China, North Korea and other communist countries open again, even tentatively, to the Gospel. |
| 3. To train Asian personnel in an Asian program with Asian instructors and concepts. |
| 4. To contribute, by joining in a common effort, to greater maturity in relationship between Christian institutions of the East and the West. |
| 5. To invest the long accumulated Western experience and the results of in-depth studies in training the under-utilized missionary resources of the East. |
| DISTINCTIVES |
| Since missiology is a new scientific approach in the study of Christian mission there are very few scholars and experts in the Western hemisphere as well as in the Third World churches. However, a few decades ago the churches and academic institutes in the West already developed and established the science of missiology as a field independent from the general fields of theology. |
| 1. According to the cardinal spirit of the East-West Center which stresses equal sharing from both East and West. We would like to invite at least half of the faculties of our institute from the West. |
| 2. The center will establish various courses and degrees in Christian missions. We are not only aiming to train young missionary candidates for their future fields but also to encourage eligible missionaries to carry on their research or graduate degree work. |
| 3. Today, we are facing enormously increasing demands from the unreached world for Asian missionaries. |
| However, the missionaries who will carry out the task of propagating the Gospel beyond their own regions are naturally required to be equipped with various skills and techniques in terms of cross-cultural communication, culture and linguistic specialties. Without this special missiological training in addition to their calling, the modern mission will drift far away from success. Therefore it is an acute and urgent task for the Asian churches to train great forces of missions. The Center has pledged to fulfill this historic task for the Lord¡¯s harvest fields. |
| 4. For the first five years (1976-1980), the Center has a plan to train at least 250 candidates; half of these future graduates will be those from various countries of Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. For the second five years (1981-1985), we plan to increase the number of graduates from 500 to 1,000. This double or triple multiplicity of students in our training program will be followed every five years, so that our Institute will reach the goal of 10,000 graduates by the year 2000. If we recast our estimated training program, the increased numbers of graduates every five years until the year 2000 will be as follows: |
| 1976-1980: |
250 - 400 |
| 1981-1985: |
500 - 1,000 |
| 1986-1990: |
1,200 – 1,500 |
| 1991-1995: |
3,000 – 3,500 |
| 1996-2000: |
5,000 – 6,000 |
|
| These estimated numbers were vision and plan for the evangelization of the world before the year 2000. |
