World Cup Churches: 32. South Korea

The last of a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - to see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

South Korea made little impression on the World Cup: but the churches of Korea have made a great deal more impression on Christianity over the past hundred years.

The real story begins in what is now North Korea and the remarkable spiritual revival in 1907 in Pyongyang.  There can be little doubt that were it not for 20th century politics, some of the largest churches in the world would be in and around Pyongyang - which has only a handful of 'show' churches under its current regime.

Many of the Christians of those days were killed or fled south and/or abroad to North America as the sad and complicated Korean peninsula history unfolded, culminating in the Korean War.  This people movement brought Christianity to the South where it has flourished.  Unlike in Wales (which we looked at earlier click here) the evidence of Korean revival is still found in the life of churches rather than their buildings.

This brings me to Yonsei Central Baptist Church.  

When England won the World Cup in 1966 this church did not exist.  When I was ordained into Christian ministry this Church did not exist.   Yet, of course, it can trace its history atmospherically to the Christian spirituality of the missionaries and revivals that century ago.

You could spend a long time watching the prodigious output of their media ministries but I have chosen this half hour clip for a reason.    The church was born out of a group of people in a basement who where 100% committed to Christ and to prayer.  And then it grew and grew.  Unusually for a Korean Baptist Church it is also charismatic in doctrine.

Yet if you watch through this worship time clip, the whole half hour (on this Sunday) was songs of repentance.  This is as rare on the YouTubes of churches as revival is in modern England.  And that is the point. 

World Cup Churches: 31. Uruguay

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Uruguay won the first World Cup and again in 1950 and though a small country have consistently qualified for the tournament in contrast to several larger South American nations.  Arguably football is what Uruguay is famous for, but it is an unusually peaceful and progressive nation on its continent.

Progressive is not a word to fill believers with great joy given that in many parts of the West it is synonymous with unbelief attacking and dismantling belief, at least in the public space.  Nevertheless, in Uruguay it has had positive aspects in offering freedoms that non-Catholic churches found hard to come by in much of South America.

Allow me to introduce Esperanza en la Ciudad.

The sufferings of the Armenian people have led to them finding their way around the world and, despite its small population, Uruguay has many thousands of Armenians who have benefited from its placidity and freedom as a place to live.

Most Armenians identify as Orthodox but there are also Armenian Evangelical Churches, not least in the Americas, including Uruguay.  'Hope in the City [Eng]' is one and of course they bear the outreaching characteristics of all evangelical churches.  While my church has been shivering with carols on the street in North London, this Armenian evangelical church in Montevideo is giving out foody gifts in the sunshine by the waterfront.  Ah well.

World Cup Churches: 30.Ghana

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Ghana, it must be said, is not short of Christian churches.  In fact, even if Ghana started last year where Saudi Arabia is - with no Christian churches - it would still not be short of churches given the exponential growth it has.  New churches appear every Sunday.  It is an example of why, despite the miserable decline in many European countries, the Christian Church across the world continues to grow.

Spoilt for choice (or more accurately overwhelmed and bewildered by choice) I am going for Action Chapel International for this World Cup Churches blog. This probably has more to do with the founder-pastor Nicholas Duncan-Williams (or perhaps rather his current wife) than with the church itself, which is 'just another' vast Ghanaian church (with a Communion table that might trump the ones in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican).

Speaking of Trump - here he is on the front row in the rather more humble (at least in size) St John's Episcopal Church, Washington, prior to his Inauguration, with Melanie at his side.

There on the platform is the Archbishop, Patriarch, Founder-Pastor and General Factotum of Action Chapel International, headquartered in Accra, Ghana, leading prayers.  Those of us that have not heard of Nicholas before are probably revealing more about ourselves than about him by not knowing him.  

How does he end up in St John's on that auspicious day?  I am not privy to that, but it has something to do, I feel sure, with his wife.  Rosa Whitaker is American, but not just any American (with apologies to the others).  The CEO (and founder of course) of TWG (The Whitaker Group) a US based African Investment enterprise she has served different Presidents, represented the US in Trade negotiations and agreements across Africa yet also worked in various Christian enterprises including Mercy Ships International and Pan African TV.

Or to put it another way, to step into the vast auditorium of ACI is possibly to fail to grasp the reach of this and some other African churches across the world where Western churches have often lost their voice.

Whether Nicholas prayed for the right things - and whether his prayer was answered - I leave to the wisdom of Almighty God.

World Cup Churches 29: Portugal

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Portugal is such an interesting country that, despite its small size has influenced all corners of the maritime world.  It is also a country with deep Catholic history, but here for my blog is a Protestant Church - Igreja Evangelica Prebyteriana de Lisboa.  It was the first in Portugal and, predictably, the result of a Scottish missionary's initiative. 

There are not hoards of Evangelical Presbyterian churches in Portugal, and they have been through a lot over their history.  Although this one has ended up with a strong number in a modern building, many are in minuscule chapels in isolated locations, as typical of Protestantism in very Catholic cultures.  What drew me to these churches was something as simple as their default picture on their listings page.

What do you do when you don't have an actual picture of a church?  I've seen many techniques - badges, letters, blank spaces, Bibles, praying hands . . .

Like the photograph above, the default picture for the Evangelical Presbyterians of Portugal's unpictured churches is a picture of people:

Whether a typical Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Portugal is as friendly as this appears, I have no idea.   But I do like the idea that if you only envisage one thing about one of their churches you envisage warmth and fellowship.

World Cup Churches 28. Switzerland

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Switzerland is one country I've wanted to visit yet never have.  We've had a lodger from Switzerland, a family member also lived there for some years and I've visited every major country it borders - but I've never been there.

I don't doubt that were I to visit I'd be heading straight up some mountains on the amazing railways for which Switzerland is rightly famed.  But were I to visit one church I guess it would be this one in Geneva - though admittedly Geneva is barely in Switzerland.

Despite the name, St. Pierre's Cathedral is not a cathedral any more because, like Church of Scotland 'Cathedrals' it has no Bishop or Diocese since the changes of the Reformation.  My interest in this church building is simple - it is the one in which John Calvin, day in and day out, preached his way through the Scriptures.

I would be much less interested in its Protestant relic pictured here - John Calvin's chair:

Perhaps the most powerful message from this church's story is that, however great a human season is, it is just a season.  Called by the city to the city to cement and spread the Reformation, Calvin steeped the place in Scripture and the Grace of God.

Intervening centuries played around with this, and almost completely in the Canton and eventually in the city that heritage was wasted away - like the revival era chapels in Wales.  Earlier in 2022 the first Catholic mass was held in the building since the Reformation.  You can keep the chair but only God can keep the hearts of the people as they turn to him; a lesson for all of Western Europe.

World Cup Churches: 27. Serbia

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Writing on a day when the 2021 Census revealed that slightly less than half the population of England and Wales identified as Christian, it might be tempting to think of Serbia as an antidote.  In Serbia over 91% identify as Christian, a remarkable figure for a (small) European state.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily a sign of a deeper Serb spirituality.  The Serbian Orthodox Church is regarded as nearly synonymous with being Serbian.  This part of Europe has been through centuries of turmoil of all kinds, as anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Balkans knows.  For two centuries the area was Islamic within the Ottoman Empire, and a significant factor in the nationalism associated with the Serbian Orthodox Church is the sense that it was and is a bastion against Islam.

This leaves all other religions and denominations firmly on the margins, but one interesting margin has the Basilica of St Demetrius in Stremska Mitrovica.  Despite its very Orthodox-sounding name (Demetrius was a soldier saint from Thessaloniki in Greece) it is a Catholic Church.

Why is it interesting?  Because it represents something about Stremska Mitrovic which long predates the existence of Islam or the Orthodox Church.  This was once Sirmium and this ancient Roman city became one of the Capitals of the Roman Empire when the administration was shared out upon Rome's decline.  In the third century ten of the Roman Emperors came from the area around the city.

As the Empire turned Christian Sirmium naturally became important in the Church too and to cut a very long story short that is why it hosted no less than four (some think three) Church Councils.  Yet strangely anyone may have heard of the Council of Nicea and/or the Nicene Creed.  Or even the Council of Constantinople (more nerdy that).  But few have heard of any of the four Councils of Sirmium.

The reason is quite simple.  These were councils called to try and incorporate a heresy - Arianism - in the Church.  (Arius himself had been previously exiled to this area from Alexandria).

Next week we'll be singing carols in the street about God becoming Man.  Over the road the Jehovah's Witnesses will be proffering their literature - but no carols of course.  Their views are somewhat like those of the Arians regarding Jesus - a man not God.  When we talk of the Grinch that stole Christmas, that Grinch might easily have been Sirmium!