Biography of Doctor David Yonggi Cho as the Founder of the World’s Largest Church in South Korea

Early Life
He was born on February 14, 1936 in Ulju-gun in South Korea, which is currently part of the metropolitan city of Ulsan. Cho had two sons named Doo-chun and Kim Bok-sun and was older than his 5 brothers and 4 sisters. He graduated with honors from middle school. However, when his father went bankrupt in his business (manufacturing socks and gloves), due to inability to pay high school or university tuition, he had to enroll in a cheaper technical high school to learn a trade. During those days, Yonggi Cho began frequenting the nearby American military base camp and learned English from the soldiers he befriended there. He quickly became fluent in English and became the translator for the base commander and also the director of his school.
Yonggi Cho grew up in a large Buddhist family. At age 17, after meeting a beautiful girl who preached to him about Jesus Christ, he converted to Christianity, and this was before his tuberculosis illness.
When Yonggi Cho felt that God called him to service, he began working as a translator for an evangelist named Ken Tate. In 1956, he received a scholarship to study theology at the Bible College in Seoul and graduated in March 1958. There he met Choi Ja-shil, who became his mother-in-law and a close colleague in his ministry, and together they founded the Yoido Full Gospel Church (Yoido Full Gospel Church), which is one of the branches of the Pentecostal churches. Based on statistics available since 2007, this church had 830,000 active members at that time, and this church is considered the largest church in the world.

Expanded Ministry
Doctor Yonggi Cho emphasized for more than 44 years the importance of home church services, which he believed was the key to church growth, as well as small group services.

In November 1976, Yonggi Cho founded the Church Growth International organization. This organization was dedicated to teaching the principles of gospel understanding and church growth to pastors around the world.
In January 1986, he pioneered the construction of the Elim welfare city and created many facilities and opportunities for elderly people, youth, the homeless, and the unemployed. For these people, training programs and four employment options were provided.
In 1988, he founded a newspaper company called Kukim Ilbo. From 1992 to 2000, he was the president of the Global Fellowship of the Pentecostal Church and did not pursue another term after those years, and from November 1998 served as president of the Association of Christian Leaders of South Korea. In 2008, Doctor Yonggi Cho retired and Young Hoon Lee was appointed as his successor as senior pastor.

Death
Doctor Yonggi Cho passed away on September 14, 2021 at the age of 85 due to a stroke.

South Korea, which was a Buddhist country for centuries, has been formally declared a Christian nation by the United Nations in recent years.

Based on Wikipedia