The Vision Manifesto of Korean Church for Diakonia

Ever since the Gospel has been introduced into the Korean peninsula, the Korean Church has done its best to play the roles of light and salt whenever the nation has been in difficulties. Our Korean Church in its early period of mission served the nation for education , medical care and social welfare before and after the Korean War, and for democratization during the period of the military dictatorship. Also, in the period of economic development, our Church served the nation as the defender and supporter of the socially weak.

Now, our Korean Church hears the Voice of God to take powerful steps toward an integral convergence of sharing mission which should be carried out in a way not to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing(Matt. 6:1~4), and serving mission, which has to be done in a way for our neighbors to see and know our good deeds(Matt. 5:13-16).

Thus, regarding ourselves as taking a supplementary role of institutionalized social welfare, feeling deep sympathy with the pain and suffering of those who are in the blind spots of the welfare system, and determining to actualize the life of sharing and serving, as Jesus Christ sacrificed himself, in order to succeed to the beautiful history and tradition of the Korean Church by unifying the two works of welfare and diakonia, we declare the Vision Manifesto of the Korean Church for Diakonia in the following:

First, we run wherever there is disaster and its derived pain and suffering.

We are now witnessing a painful reality in which sorrow and pain occur due to natural disasters and/or human-caused disasters which happen inadvertently. We will be the first to arrive at the spots of suffering and to give our help to them, and we will also be the last to stay there with the victims to support them with emergency services and emotional and spiritual support.

Second, we together actualize our mission to serve the people who are in need.

Being grateful for the blessings God has poured upon the Korean Church so far, we will carry out our mission of serving the people in need at the spots of disasters and sufferings in cooperation with churches, denominations and organizations which are the supporters for need-based aids, and, in so doing, we will try to generate a synergistic effect of grace among the victims. In order to avoid competition between aiding organizations and to utilize the resources each organization has in an efficient and effective way, we will discuss in detail necessary matters and try to play the role of bridge between people in need and providers. In this way, we will maximize our serving mission.
May. 2009

Third, we will continue to develop our mission programs of serving, which our Church ought to do, and provide them to people everywhere there is a need for them.

We agree on the fact that the mission of serving and sharing must continue to be provided on a long term basis. This includes some long-term supporting programs of the Church for the elderly, the handicapped, children, the homeless and multi-cultural families who are in the blind spots of social welfare and who are neglected outside our institutional capacities. For that purpose, we will examine and research the cases in which our serving mission of the Church has failed, and, based upon the results of the research work, we will try to find a coherent and organized model of serving beyond a simple aid mission. We will ultimately aim to provide an exemplary model for a Church Serving Mission, which will seek the return of the relief recipients to their society.

Fourth, our mission is to help local churches to respond to the needs of its local area.

Remembering that serving and sharing would be maximized when churches become the hope for their local area, we will try to do our best to respond to the need of our local areas. Thus, we will develop leadership formation programs, which will be expected to guide local areas, and various programs to successfully serve them. For that purpose, we will build up a network to make a bridge between local areas.

Finally, we will endeavor to make the image of Korean Church better by this systematization of our serving and sharing missions.

Although the Korean Church has taken the lead in socially serving mission, we are facing the regrettable fact that its good effort and intention have not fairly been recognized due to the lack of the systematization of these two missions. Given the diversity of the churches, it is the time to organize and unify their capacities by quantifying and systematizing the missions of serving and sharing, and, in this way, we will expect to take to maturity the Korean Church which will be efficient and effective at serving and sharing.