The expansion follows the launch of GOD TV’s dedicated Greater China service on 16 October 2008, which is broadcast directly from Jerusalem via two new satellites, providing the entire Far East region with Christian programming that is catered specifically to Chinese viewers.

The new satellites are Agila 2 – among the most popular in the region, providing direct-to-home access to millions of viewers – and the IS-4 satellite which spans throughout most of the Far East. The utilisation of these two satellites yields a powerful combination, reaching mainland China, Vietnam, Korea, the Philippines and Japan.

“In 2004, we became the first English language Christian broadcaster in Hong Kong with a sizeable Chinese viewership, but we have always wanted to bring so much more to this region,” said GOD TV founder and Chief Executive, Rory Alec. “Now, God has opened up Greater China to us by providing a literally unprecedented opening, which we believe is going to be one of the most significant outreaches in our history.”

Co-founder and Director of Television, Wendy Alec, added, “For years we’ve waited and prayed for an opportunity to reach the Greater China Christian community, and now the dream God seeded in our hearts is becoming a reality. This gateway to millions of new viewers in a region that has been closed to broadcasting the Gospel for generations, will now receive quality Christian programming.”

GOD TV’s Greater China launch was marked by a special live broadcast from GOD TV’s studios in Washington DC on October 16 where the GOD TV founders shared their network’s far-reaching vision for China. Rory and Wendy prayed a prayer of blessing over all new viewers.

The new Greater China feed includes GOD TV’s full line-up of international programming, with some programmes in Mandarin, including popular Bible teacher, Joyce Meyer and the Alpha Course’s Nicky Gumble. Also included in this month’s schedule are two high-profile Christian events in Hong Kong – ‘onething’ from the International House of Prayer, and Christ for all Nation’s Hong Kong Conference with global evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.

Already, new Chinese viewers are contacting GOD TV’s regional office in Hong Kong with enthusiasm. One Chinese student, Yue Yanyun, said: “I watched GOD TV today and it’s really amazing!” Another new viewer from the south of China expressed her appreciation: “I am 23-years-old and I am very happy to have GOD TV, which I believe will help me face my problems and become more positive about life.”

GOD TV was founded in the UK in 1995 by Christian media pioneers Rory & Wendy Alec.

Source: Christianity Today: God TV debuts in China

Up to 1,000 people are still missing after a landslide buried the village of Shiaolin in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung county. The landslide hit the village after 2.5m of rain fell in just 24 hours last Friday. In the city of Wenzhou in China, a four-year-old boy was killed when his family’s house collapsed in heavy rain.

World Vision has distributed food, cleaning supplies and relief kits containing essential items like toothbrushes and towels to 700 people living in emergency shelters in Taimali Township and Jiadug Township in Taiwan.

“The most pressing needs now are providing shelter, food, and clean water for those who have had to evacuate their homes. We also want to make sure the children are secure and have a safe place where they are cared for,” says Hank Du, Executive Director for World Vision Taiwan.

World Vision’s Southern Area Office Manager, Wesley Chen, said many of the people affected lived in remote areas where the roads have been badly damaged.

“Highways and bridges are flooded and blocked by mudslides, fallen trees and other large debris. For those who can’t reach shelters, we are working to find way to bring aid to them,” he said.

World Vision said families and children in its programme areas that were still accessible were safe, although many of their homes had been damaged or completely destroyed. It said, however, that it was yet to find out the status of communities living in the remote mountainous areas that are still cut off from aid workers.

It is aiming to raise around £500,000 to provide relief and rehabilitation support to families affected by Typhoon Morakot.

Mr Du said: “We pray the floodwaters will recede quickly so people can return home and begin the recovery process.”

Source: Christian Today: World Vision reaches out to hundreds of typhoon victims

The sharp decline in fertility threatens the social harmony and “sustainable development of Korean society.”  Concern over the “national crisis of super-low fertility” has prompted calls for political and cultural changes from unexpected quarters.

“Crisis” is not too strong a word. Its low fertility rate means that South Korea will soon become an aged nation. Within 25 years, Korea will go from 7 percent of its population being over 65 to 20 percent. In this respect, it will become much like its neighbor and rival Japan—a homogeneous society whose low birthrates threaten its survival.

Along the way, South Korea’s export-driven prosperity will fall prey to its demographics. As the number of working-age people declines, more and more of its economy will go to supporting its aging population. Currently, there are seven working-age people for every retiree. Within 10 years, that number will be reduced to four and a half. By the middle of this century, the ratio will be close to one-to-one—simply not sustainable.

After years of encouraging families to have only one child, the government has done an about-face. It established a “Low Fertility Rate and Aging Society Commission” under the direct control of the president.

But as Choi Seon-jeong realizes, government policies aren’t enough. He notes that attitudes “towards marriage and having children has changed a lot among the younger generation. They think more highly of relationships with their partners and are less likely to depend for fulfillment on their children.”

Choi called on “religious groups . . . to advocate respect for life, abortion prevention and positive values on marriage and parenthood, [and urge] the younger generation to form families and have children.”

This is good advice for any society. What makes it extraordinary is that Choi is the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Korea!

Commenting on the irony, Choi says that “as the needs of Korean society have changed” his federation’s goals have changed. They are now promoting “child-bearing and child-rearing.”

“Needs of society,” promoting child-bearing and child-rearing, respect for life? You won’t hear those words from American Planned Parenthood officials. Their sole concern is personal autonomy—the “right to choose” is so sacrosanct that even talking about respect for life is seen as a threat to individual autonomy, and talking about the birth dearth is depicted as an attack on the freedom of women.

What’s happening, you see here, is that the Koreans are recognizing what Phillip Johnson, the great scholar, calls the postmodern impasse. In today’s “I’ll do it my way” relativistic society, with no over-arching moral truth, when we get what we want—that is, choice and self-gratification—we discover we can’t live with it.

Fewer kids mean that we become extinct. And their worldview, they discover, just doesn’t work.

The Koreans have come to their senses. Maybe they can get their American counterparts to face reality as well.

Source: Crosswalk – South Korea Tries to Save Its Future – By Having Babies

Upon joining, the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), a church alliance representing 64 denominations and 21 organisations, renewed its vow to cooperate in world evangelisation nearly two years after it formed a “historic” partnership with the WEA.

“I believe God is glorified through this and He blesses us abundantly,” CCK’s president, the Rev Eom Shin Hyung, said during a speech welcoming WEA officials to South Korea.

Dr Geoff Tunnicliffe, international director of the WEA, meanwhile, praised the churches of South Korea for the “good example” that it can set for the world.

“The passion, vision, and devotion that Korea churches have for evangelism can make a great contribution toward world churches,” he stated, according to Seoul-based Christian Today.

Dr Tunnicliffe urged South Korea’s churches to work together to overcome the enormous challenges worldwide.

CCK’s entry into the WEA, which represents 420 million evangelicals, comes as key leaders from the Lausanne Movement are gathered for their biennial meeting at the Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary (PCTS) in Seoul.

While leaders hope to maximise the fellowship of the international Lausanne constituency during the June 8 to 12 meeting, most pressing on the agenda will be the confirmation of plans for Cape Town 2010, the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation.

“Many key details of Cape Town 2010 will be finalised in Seoul,” reported Dr Michael Oh, president of Christ Bible Seminary in Japan and a member of the Lausanne Administrative Committee.

“It’s certainly our hope and prayer that the Lord will use Cape Town 2010 to impact to the very ends of the earth,” he added in the Lausanne Movement’s official weblog.

For the upcoming congress, the WEA has partnered with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelisation and is playing an important role in Cape Town 2010’s planning and development.

Lausanne III is expected to gather around 4,000 Christian leaders in Cape Town, South Africa, and will link up millions more around the world via satellite when it takes place October 16 to 25, 2010.

The highly anticipated congress will seek to address what one Lausanne official called the “scandal of fragmentation” within the body of Christ, as well as the continuation of mission.

Source: Christianity Today: World Evangelical Alliance welcomes South Korea’s largest church body

Jonathan Shibley, Vice President of Global Advance says there has been substantial growth in the number of Christians, especially in Chinese business circles.

“All of a sudden, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small businessmen fellowships taking place, both within major corporations in China, and within homes,” reports Mission News Network.

“So businessmen are beginning to get a glimpse of what the Gospel looks like, transforming not only their own lives, but transforming the culture around them and becoming salt and light.”

Shibley was speaking on the back of attending a Global Advance Marketplace Missions conference in China, which was aimed at giving tools to Chinese Christian businessmen to further increase the Christian presence in the country.

He says that while the Chinese government is concerned about the increase in Christians in business, it has done little more than reprimand them for their faith. He believes this is because they know that Christian businessmen are more honest, less corrupt and contribute to the wealth of China.

As a result Shibley said, “China is potentially on the tipping point in the next decade of either becoming a Christian nation or submitting to the god of materialism … I think what we do to help pour into the godly leaders of China within the next ten years will greatly determine which way it swings.”

Source: Christianity Today: China could be Christian country in a decade

The Catholic bishops’ Committee for Promoting Christian Unity and Interreligious Dialogue and the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) announced last week that South Korean churches will hold ecumenical activities such as prayer services, forums and exchanges throughout this year.

“During 2009 we hope all Christians in Korea find their mission to be ‘salt and light’ in the world,” said the Christian leaders in a joint statement released at the press conference, according to the Union of Catholic Asian News.

It will be the year Korean Christians “together sow the seeds of true unity and reconciliation, and overcome division”, it added.

Auxiliary Bishop Hyginus Kim Hee-joong of Kwangju, a city about 150 miles south of Seoul, noted during the press event that, “Catholicism and Protestantism came to Korea about 220 and 120 years ago, respectively.”

But despite the long history of the two Christian traditions in Korea, they have not only had a distant relationship, but have even been in conflict at times, Kim admitted.

“2009 will be the year of confessing our faults to God and forgiving our brothers,” he said.

Through ecumenical unity, Korean churches hope to be “the stepping-stone” for a society that is suffering from “tensions and discord” in the political, economic, and social sectors.

NCCK chairman Kim Sam-hwan agreed saying, “Unity will give hope not only for the churches but for the whole society.”

The Christian unity year will kick off with a prayer service on January 18 at the Olympic Hall in Seoul, which will launch the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which will be observed by believers worldwide. An ecumenical forum featuring world-renowned theologians is set to be held some time in May.

Other ecumenical prayer services will be held at different locations throughout the year.

Source: Christianity Today: Korean Christian leaders declare 2009 a year of unity

Dr Sam Mings founded the initiative nearly 25 years ago at the Los Angeles Olympic Games. At this year’s Olympics in Beijing, China, he is leading the outreach initiative RT2008BM (Right Track 2008 Beijing Mission) in what will be his seventh Olympics outreach.

Each year, Christians in the host city play a vital role in putting the event together and so the tradition continues in Beijing, where expats church the Beijing International Christian Fellowship are key organisers of the main event, the ‘More Than Gold Evening with the Stars’. The event takes place within wider evangelistic efforts over the Olympics under the clarion banner, ‘What we’re about is worth more than gold’.

The outreach event and service will be joined by one of the greatest Olympians of the century, US sprinter and committed Christian Carl Lewis when it takes place at Beijing’s 1,800 capacity 21st Century theatre on Sunday.

At a time when persecution watchdogs are warning of greater persecution over the period of the Olympics, a huge banner promoting the RT2008BM event drapes the front of the theatre, located in the heart of downtown Beijing.

“To organise such an evangelistic rally within the midst of an Olympic festival, to arrange for athletes to come and speak in the middle of their contests, to prepare the promotional materials, advertising paraphernalia and to motivate the local Christian community to get on board, is a marvel beyond words,” says Mark Tronson, Baptist minister and International Prayer Network director for RT2008BM.

Dr Mings and Tronson anticipate that the turnout of athletes and locals will surpass any previous outreach event in an Olympic host city.

“This will be incredibly significant in China, a communist country; something like this has simply never previously been dreamed of,” says Dr Mings.

“The Olympians sharing their ‘power and inspiration source’ must be unprecedented.

“Even more impressive is that the message will go out from the host city to the world. The situation is unparalleled.”

Adds Tronson, “This is what has been achieved since 1984. Each host city’s evangelical community has mobilised behind this remarkable outreach.”

The Beijing International Christian Fellowship serves as a worship centre for expats, with members from no less than 70 nations. Its international make-up is the basis for its permission from authorities to function openly as a Christian church in China, where religious freedom is curtailed by the communist government.

“Once again the Lord had established a situation whereby the RT2008BM might function during the Beijing Olympics,” notes Mark.

The ‘Evening with the Stars’ event will kick off with a ‘Parade of the Stars’, in which the Christian Olympians will be greeted by Carl Lewis, Dr Mings and the pastor of the Beijing International Christian Fellowship, Jon Davis.

For Dr Mings, though, the stars are there for one purpose and one purpose only.

“It will be a historic moment to remember forever in the glorifying of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Source: Christianity Today: Greater than gold: Witnessing Christ in Beijing

In a letter to supporters, the General Secretary of the Langham Foundation Hong Kong, Victor Sun said that the church in China was thriving in the new age of economic and social development.

He added, however, that the growth of Christianity was coupled with a “severe lack” of pastors and Bible teachers in China today.

“There are too few seminaries to keep pace with the staggering growth of believers. This is where John Stott Ministries-Langham Partnership International through the Langham Foundation in Hong Kong can contribute to building a healthy church in China,” he said.

There are currently 10 Chinese Langham scholars. The Langham Foundation, meanwhile, is helping to stock the libraries of a number of seminaries and universities in China with evangelical books. Langham, which is a John Stott ministry, will hold its first preaching seminar for China mainland pastors in September.

Sun welcomed the opportunities for Christian fellowship and engagement brought by the Beijing Olympics, saying that local churches were making the most of the Olympics by hosting special cultural and musical shows.

With the Beijing Olympics in full swing, “China is not only showing her best face to the world, she is also sending out a clear message that the country is ready to take her rightful place in the family of nations after re-emerging as [a] global economic giant,” he said.

“One day we hope to see that the church in China can become a blessing to the nation and the world,” he added.

The Beijing Olympics are now in their third day, after opening in spectacular style on Friday with fireworks and hundreds of impeccably choreographed dancers.

Source: Christianity Today: Now is time for healthy church in China, says Langham leader

The 6th Korean World Mission Conference (KWMC) consisted of daily services, mission forums and special lectures which provided missionaries with mission strategies from various mission specialists and scholars. This year’s speakers included the Rev Lorean Cunningham of Youth With A Mission, the Rev Reinhard Bonnke from Christ for All Nations, and Dr Ralph Winter of the US Center for World Mission.

At the closing service, the Rev Joon Won Kang, the chairman of KWMC, urged the missionaries in his message to keep going after the unreached.

“There are a lot of people running in this world … but where are they running toward?” he asked.

The mission leader reminded attendees to run towards God and remember to direct others to runing towards God.

“Even in difficult situations, remember that you are taking part in delivering the Gospel globally,” he said. “If God is with us, anything can happen.”

Korean missions has grown rapidly since the first KWMC conference 20 years ago. Korea now sends around 18,000 missionaries to 168 countries, making it the second largest missionary-sending country in the world. The July 28 – August 1 conference concluded with a new goal to send out 100,000 missionaries by 2030.

Another highlight to this year’s conference was its fully-documented declaration which was formally composed and presented. KWMC staffs the Rev John S Ko and the Rev De Heung Kang read the declaration, titled the “2008 Wheaton Manifesto”, in the honour of the world renowned evangelist the Rev Dr Billy Graham and Wheaton College who supported the founding of the conference 20 years ago.

The declaration starts with stating the historical significance of the mission conference, which started in 1988 to avoid “mistakes of misguided zeal and amateurity” of the earlier attempts of Korean missionaries. It also proposed 21st century mission strategies to be developed in the future.

The next KWMC conference is slated for 2012. Held every four years at Wheaton College since 1988, KWMC was founded by a small group of Korean-American pastors and endorsed by Dr Billy Graham. It is sponsored by three Korean mission organisations, Korean World Mission Council for Christ, Korean World Mission Association and the Korean World Mission Fellowship.

Source: Christianity Today: Korean missionaries harness energies for worldwide evangelisation