Has anyone ever heard of this group"
[goodnews.or.kr]
[www.iyf.or.kr]

I operate a site mainly about Asian cults (http://falsemessiah.proboards23.com) and recently received an email from someone who claimed to have some disturbing experiences with them.

I had a quick search on the net and didn't find much critical of them
This testimony on their site I found interesting:

[goodnews.or.kr]

The guy says he was the "only saved one" at that time, implying that the only truely "saved" people are in his church. Of course, that is a notion that isn't alien to safe groups, but the tone of his comment got my spidey-cult senses tingling.

He also mentions being labelled a heretic by other Koreans...so obviously the leader has been critisized in Korea.

That IYF site also reminds me very much of Moonie style front groups.

Here's a little snippet from: [goodnews.or.kr]

Quote

When the Brother first received salvation, his wife said that he gave her even more pain because he belonged to what she believed was a cult.

Thanks

ps I know of several Korean international groups that are very destructive cults that have so far managed to avoid criticism outside Korea...so Mmmmm I'm wondering if this is another.
Then again.. maybe the bad experience described, if true, isn't indicative of the group as a hole??

I attended a IYF English presentation contest yesterday here in Korea

Did it feel like a cult? A little!!

The event began with a promotional video for their organisation.
Some of the scenes creeped me out a little. Scenes of audiances of thousands all swaying and chanting together. The founder of the GoodNews Baptist yelling out speeches and everyone cheering.

Plus they had technical difficulties and couldn't show the whole thing.. I was madly sadly disappointed.. but was it the hand of God?

The presentations were all obviously members of the IYF, no surprises there. A few of the speeches were about their positive experiences in the group. It seems a lot of them spend a year in Africa teaching English / Bible courses... so I guess its only natural that such a big event in their lives would be the subject of their speech.... but I wonder if this year in Africa has the ulterior motive of cementing them to the group?

A couple of the speeches were out right creepy, how IWF saved them, how God saved them, and some of these comments were shouted out.
A couple of the presenters looked like they had modelled their styles on the oratory techniques of Hitler.

2 American guys came from Seoul to judge the event, they seemed nice, but yeah they spoke of their organisation much the same way cult members speak of cults. This group seemed to be their lives. At least that was the vibe I got. They also had that creepy Mormon missionairy look and smile.

Plus there was a recruitment drive going on outside the event, tons of posters advertsing their group, full of phots of people smiling. Reminded me alot of other cult recruiting drives. It all looked very Scientology, Moonie and Dahn-Hakish.

In the audiance a few people were reading Bibles during the presentations.. that's just rude!

No one tried to recruit me.
I tried my best to look interested and spent 5 minutes hanging round their posters and banners! They just weren't interested and that kind of hurt.
Uni students were the focus of recruiting attempts.
Oh how I wanted to be recruited!

Stand for international youth foundation. I was at my college in
Northern Ca. I think this is the Moonies.
I questioned one of the overly exuberant members and asked him
is this a Chrisitian Youth Org? He didn't answer me but said
we study the bible.
Please if any one knows where I can confirm what their ties are
and if they are part of the moonies, respond to this post with
web sites or links. They are holding meetings at three colleges in
my area.

Thanks in advance for your help

I don't think they are linked to the Moonies, but that's just a hunch.
Their could be high level links, but my gut instinct is it's a different group completely.

There's pretty much no critical info on them in English, but they have a bad rep here in Korea. The chaplin at my university had a few encounters with them recruiting on campus.

A young guy in Germany shared his experiences with them here.

Pete

Thank you for responding. They are actively recruiting at 3 colleges like
I mentioned. Why are they not looked upon favorably in Korea?
Do they recruit and pull the kids away from colleges to join them
and preach the word in other countries?
It was a very strange encounter and the pastor, a man of about
45, caucasion would not look at me. Made no eye contact and I
stared at him. My gut instinct is this is a cult. Thank you for assisting me.
I plan on attending one of their services on sunday.

I read the link but will read again there was much written.
You are in Korea. Have you attend any of there services
and do they recruit kids out of school to serve their
mission?

Thanks
Scout77

I was looking into the group through their website, and yeah ... it emanates a slightly eerie feeling. I came across the page talking about their history ([www.goodnews.or.kr]) and noticed mention of a book, [i:d6d7e2d076]The Secret of Forgiveness and Being Born Again[/i:d6d7e2d076], which they acknowledge receiving accusations for from "so-called Christians who themselves say they believe in Jesus Christ." Has anyone looked into the book or heard about what kind of accusations it received?

If you listened to pastor Park's sermons carefully, they re mostly about the blood of Christ has set us free from all sins. "ONCE AND FOR ALL". This is also the crucial point of being a Christian and some other churches also preach the same thing. Why is he a heretic if all he does is to glorify the blood of Christ? What i dont hear about often from him is "the life after salvation". i have been to his church for several years but i still dont understand that part clearly. What he and my pastor said was that if you sin after your salvation, it is ok. i dont understand it. if you change your heart from God after your salvation, wouldnt you be chastise??? And if you have followed Christ, shouldnt you do righteous things? He said that the sin of David committing adultery with Basheba was all forgiven because of the blood of Christ. if it was all forgiven, then why did God kill the first son of David and Basheba.
Sometimes what the servants in the church said sounded weird to me. They told you to give up your own heart to follow GOd. At the beginning , i thought that it was a cult and they teached you that so that they can easily control you. But the more i listened the more i think of the metaphor of it. However, some people in the church really made me feel eerie.

tica:

You might want to also consider issues regarding accountability of the leadership and meaningful financial transparency.

Most Protestant churches have democratically elected church government through boards and officers that can discipline and if necessary fire a pastor.

Most Protestant churches also disclose all salaries, compensation and church expenses paid from church funds through detailed, independently audited and annually published reports or budgets.

Does your church have such safeguards in place?

Or is it run like a dictatorship?

the church has been very nice to my family and they have never even once forced us to give money to them. They even lessen the amount of money we supposed to pay to go to the World Camp in Korea. People does review pastor Park as a big hero but i think that s understandable because he preached well. He has more than 300 churches in Korea and worldwide. If he is a dictator and his church is a cult, do you think that many people would come and work for him???