Korean-speaking members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have a new means to connect with the church with the launch of its new Korean web page. The idea of creating a comprehensive, user-friendly site was first conceived by a handful of Korean American national staff, who were urged on by their Korean-speaking constituents two years ago.
Leaders within the Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency say it has been a long time coming.
“The whole process involved many painstaking steps that included long meetings, initial assessment of needed contents, inceptive designing, meeting with a selected group of Korean leaders—which make up the web committee—to evaluate and finetune the webpage’s objective, audience, developmental plan, and maintenance,” said the Reverend Luke Choi, Assistant Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and manager for Korean-speaking councils support.
The new Korean-language webpage will serve as the all-inclusive, user-friendly, one-stop hub for news, events, resources, and links useful for all our Korean-speaking constituents, helping them to become better informed, engaged, interconnected, equipped, and self-sufficient in their ability to access all that is offered within the PC(USA). It will provide the translation and consolidation of PC(USA) resources in one place.
“Especially considering their hyper-wired cultural context, such a web portal is critically important and long overdue,” said Choi. “Also, many Korean communities outside our church have often been misinformed about PC(USA) due to their reliance on the third-party media sources. This webpage will serve to rectify that.”
“Hopefully, the Korean community can obtain more accurate up-to-date information about the denomination easily and fast,” said the Reverend Moongil Cho, associate for Korean intercultural congregational support in the Presbyterian Mission Agency. “I also hope that the Korean congregations and constituents get engaged with life and mission of the PC(USA) through this new page.”
Cho says that, traditionally, the Korean Presbyterians have been quite successful in evangelism and new church development.
“However, the Korean Presbyterians have been relatively weak on the issues related to the theme of connectionalism although there has been some progress over the last decade,” he said. “We are still learning the Presbyterian way of church operation and governance within the bounds of the mid councils especially presbyteries.”
Through the new web page, Cho hopes that the Korean congregations and constituents can see and understand the importance of the larger church.
“This is deeply embedded in the principle of ‘One Church’ (F-3.0201) and I hope it will encourage them to participate in the mission of the PC(USA),” said Cho. “Also, I hope the Korean community discovers and takes full advantage of the services and benefits provided by the denomination because many Korean congregations have not been aware of such available services.”
“I’m greatly excited for our Korean-speaking community that we finally have our long-awaited webpage up and running. Special thanks go to many OGA and PMA staff who helped pull this together, as well as CCKAP (Coordinating Committee for Korean American Presbyteries), and NCKPC (National Caucus of Korean Presbyterian Churches) for their support and collaborations,” said Choi.
In December 2018, the PC(USA) launched the Hispanic web page.