Hi,

Just found this site and wanted to share info about a cult that I used to be apart of about 7 months ago. I saw someone else who posted something... more as an outsider. But here is my blog about them as well as their website. This one is one of the more deceptive ones as I do believe people do receive the free gift of Jesus... but I believe that their leaders are not saved and are much like what 1 John warns about... Those that seem to have the Message, but are actually belong to Satan. This became evident to me when I saw the verse in 1 John 4:18. The members there live their days by fear of the pastors and fear of screwing up, and fear that they will be cut off if they do/say/think the wrong thing. These leaders know the Bible, and have a way of manipulating it.

Here is a link to their website as well as my blog about my experiences while I was involved with them which was shorter then most people... about 7-8 months:

[esfes1025.wordpress.com]
[www.goodnews.or.kr]

Also... those who pray... please pray that this groups eyes would be open. I also have two friends who went around the same time I did, but are still there. One of which is currently trying to get his family there and his family is high risk to be pulled into this group.

esfes1025, I sent Travis2008 a private email through Rick Ross' site letting him know you are newly here and posting on this destructive church. I hope he responds and adds to your posts as I and others would be interested in his plight and news of his girl friend.

In the meantime, welcome to the forum. Glad we have someone who was once active with the church. I checked out your blog as well.

thanks for your welcome Sparky

This group is very active on Korean university campuses, under the guise of IYF (International Youth Fellowship)
[www.iyf.or.kr]

Lots of focus on English education (something every Korean student studies) and travel abroad on their missionary / volunteer programs.
I attended one of their speech contest a few years ago, almost every speech was about how good their "church" was.
A promo video followed that would have put the Moonies to shame.

Here's another of their sites: [biblecrusade.com]

Esfes, good luck with your blog!
This is one cult that has managed to fly under the radar, I hope your blog helps correct that.

www.jmscult.com/forum

I am a person that has attended the GNM church for a very long time and I can tell you that this church is definitely a cult. They have many of cult like characteristics like: brainwashing, manipulation, and deceitfulness. However I would like to state that this cult is some respect more dangerous than the Moonies or Jehoviah Witness, because they do rely on the Bible and there are some truth to the things they teach. However they often do speak out of context from the true meaning of the Bible and use cleverly phrases like "break your heart", "change your heart", "or that you are evil". Basicly these words are used to make the victim feel guilty and destroyed so that they are left in a weak state where they have no choice but to accept what the pastor says. IN GNM whatever the pastor says comes directly from God so disagreeing with them and they will immediately starting attacking you and claim that "you haven't received salvation", just because you happen to disagree. It's one of the clever ways to manipulate the brothers and sisters in the church and making them feel guilty. At first I felt there was something wrong with me and the pastors are always right, but I now know that this is pure brainwashing. The GNM church often claims that they teach the Bible correctly and they teach it in entirely, but that is not the case. Often times they will just disregard certain verses from the Bible and only emphasis the verses that benefits the church. Many people would sell their lands, homes, cars, and just about everything to give offering to the church and grow Pastor Park's empire. Although they rarely tell their members directly to pay money (sometimes they do), they do pressure the members into making many unnecessary offerings and would often them they have no faith, or that they are caught up by "their own thoughts" and give them a sense of guilt and pressure to pay the church. Members of the church are pressured and therefore have to keep paying for the church. The pastors of the church have a great amount of power within the church, and there is a lot of politics and a hierarchical system with Pastor Park at the top. Basicly all the members are brainwashed into thinking that everything coming out of Pastor Park's mouth came directly from God himself. So they never question his motives and just blindly follow what the pastors tell them to do. The Pastors also tell them members that if you leave the church, bad things will happen, and eventually you will come back. That is why many of the people are very insecure, sometimes crazy, and will do everything the church tells them to do.

The IYF is another manipulative tool they use to lure unsuspecting college students into joining the program. The way it is advertised is to bring all these students together and bring them to other countries to learn the culture, teach English and do varieties of different programs. In actuality it is just a way to recruit them as short term missionaries. It's really that they would just randomly bring students who are not very intersted in religion to go there and do something they had no idea they were going to do in the first place. Often they are kept in churches and not allowed to leave the church without the permission of the pastor. They go from church to church and promote GNM church to get people to join it. It's a church yet it's operated just like a business. They claim that their goal is to bring salvation to suffering souls but in actuality it has more to do with growing their empire. Many students find it attractive because they offer to go to another country at a cheap price, thinking they are going to get free vacation, only to be shocked and controlled by the pastors there. Most of the students who come back from the IYF never comes back to the church. I feel this is very misleading and they should make it clear to people who are joining the program that it is a religious program so that they don't get the wrong idea. Perhaps a better thing to do is not getting involved with the IYf and Goodnews mission in the first place. haha

In any case I wrote this blog so that people can have a better idea of what Pastor Park's GNM is all about. They might have been a good church in the past, but slowly it has grown into a cult and right now it definitely is a cult. Rather than focusing on salvation they place more emphasis on buildings, cars, and other materialistic things. There whole focus is to grow, grow and get large much like the way a business operates. I urge people to stay away from this dangerous group. It may appear pleasant in the beginning but the longer you stay, the more destructive it becomes.. It is like an addicting drug where at first it there is pleasure and very little pain, but as time goes by pleasure part is replaced with pain, where there is more pain than there is pleasure,and you are stuck in a position where you are addicted to it and cannot get out.

Hi Sparky.
Thanks for sharing the info on the IYF (International Youth Fellowship).

I found some other blogs talking about this organization, IYF.

In response to this blog,
https://byamukama.com/beware-iyf-camps-part-1/

This was posted just today.
https://anabsolutelyordinarymom.wordpress.com/2020/11/20/response-to-beware-of-iyf-camps-by-bya-mukama/

I think this is worth checking out and find out some facts.
I hope it helps.
God bless you everyone.

Hello @esfes1025, I read your post and I completely understand :) but.. I must mention..

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Hebrews 12:6

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
Proverbs 9:10

If what you say is true, God has no love either, because he chastises all his children. Is there no fear when one is chastised? Did God not say that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Why does He ask for fear?

Without the context of the chapter, you cannot understand it fully.
I just think what you say is based off of an idea that is not adequate enough to call anyone a cult.

Please give it a thought! thanks.

Hey @Joonyah ! thanks for sharing your experience with GNM! If you don't mind, I'd also like to share my experience.

Before I begin, I would like to say I am a part of Good News Mission, and I’ve been in this mission for about 16 years. I would like to also have a chance to reply to your post and speak about the mission in a different perspective. I hope that those who read can really think about what I say, before anyone makes any assumptions.

More than angry, I was honestly sad to see how someone gets upset, and so he/she goes online and says as many false bad things as they can. I want to ask you some things, in order to question the foundation of your belief.

You stated:
“However they often do speak out of context from the true meaning of the Bible and use cleverly phrases like "break your heart", "change your heart", "or that you are evil".”

What do you mean out of context from the true meaning of the Bible?
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
Isaiah 55:8
The reason the church says to ‘break you heart’ or ‘change your heart’ is because the truth is that our thoughts/our ways is different from God. “You are evil.” Is that far from the Bible? Genesis 6:5 and Jeremiah 17:9 say otherwise.
This is what it means by “Change your heart.” If I think in my heart that I’m weak, then I must change my heart based on the Bible which it says that I’m strong in the Lord when I’m weak. What you say is out of context.

You stated:
“Often times they will just disregard certain verses from the Bible and only emphasis the verses that benefits the church.”

Can you please state what verses the church disregards? If you can answer this, I would really appreciate it. Claim without evidence is not a smart way for an argument to be valid.

You stated:
“Many people would sell their lands, homes, cars, and just about everything to give offering to the church and grow Pastor Park's empire.”

Can you please name those people and why those people did it? Were they forced to? Also, where is Pastor Park’s empire located? What is included in his empire?
Fact Check: Pastor Park doesn’t possess and none of the buildings is under his name. If you can recall his sermon about what he possess, he says he decided not to even buy an apartment for his life after retirement. All pastors in GNM follow that lifestyle model of being selfless and the heart of sacrifice. In fact, all pastors in GNM, including Pastor Park, are not allowed to possess anything but they give offering by faith before telling members to live by faith. They practice first on what they preach. Never once have I heard any sermons on sell what we have and give offering.

You stated:
“Although they rarely tell their members directly to pay money (sometimes they do), they do pressure the members into making many unnecessary offerings and would often them they have no faith, or that they are caught up by "their own thoughts" and give them a sense of guilt and pressure to pay the church. Members of the church are pressured and therefore have to keep paying for the church.”

As a member of this church, I have never been forced to give offering. The pastors have always told me, “only if God gives you the heart, give offering.” That is the only thing they have said. And if I don’t have the heart to pay, I do not pay. If you felt anything other than peace, that is of your own guilt, perhaps what Ananias did in Acts 5, compelled to sell his land to give offering. Peter didn’t give sermon to sell their lands. It was just Ananias who felt he had to do that. Just because you felt that way, that doesn’t mean GNM preached a sermon on pay money, pressuring them.

You stated:
“Basically all the members are brainwashed into thinking that everything coming out of Pastor Park's mouth came directly from God himself. So they never question his motives and just blindly follow what the pastors tell them to do”

May I ask you, what has come out of Pastor Park’s mouth and what did they do by blindly following him? Did Pastor ever tell them to do anything inappropriate and unbiblical? If you can state it specifically, I would really appreciate it. Think about it. What kind of pastor would preach on a pulpit, “Hey, I’m going to talk about the Bible but don’t listen to what I say!” Any pastors should tell people to hear the words they speak when they talk about the lessons from the Bible.

You stated:
It's really that they would just randomly bring students who are not very interested in religion to go there and do something they had no idea they were going to do in the first place.

The program you are talking about is called GNC, Good News Corps, you can find more information about this 10-month long program on our website, iyfusa.org/good-news-corps, where it also states that IYF is a Christian organization and GNC is made up of Christian missions work. There is no trick here, as it is very clearly stated.

You stated:
“Often they are kept in churches and not allowed to leave the church without the permission of the pastor.”

Unfortunately, this is quite obviously. If the pastor is the guardian of the foreign college students who are within his care, they would as a matter of fact need his permission to leave the church. Same goes with any other foreign-exchange program. This is for the safety of the students. There are people who just want to get U.S. Visa through the program and run off to work and earn money illegally. These things happen so we want to ensure that the promise we’ve made with the U.S. Immigration office for inviting them is kept. If they want to work and/or come to U.S. and do what they want to do, then they must leave U.S. and should come back with an appropriate VISA. We don’t trap them. They travel with us to at least 5 cities across U.S. plus they travel to foreign countries, like Mexico with us. It’s just that they cannot go off of our care while their legal status is under our care.

You stated:
They claim that their goal is to bring salvation to suffering souls but in actuality it has more to do with growing their empire.

Can you please give an example of this?
Every year in the US, the Gracias Christmas Cantata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXNlAzJAQvw) is hosted by about 30 cities in theatres/arenas that usually have the capacity of 3,000 to 10,000 people. This show that the Good News Mission hosts is free admission. The reason we hold the cantata every year since 2012 is specifically to give hope and the gospel to the people of that city. Does the Good News Mission announce to the audience of 10,000 people how great Good News Mission is and to join it? The answer is no. Through the events, we don’t advertise to join the church. If they want to join GNM, they should make that decision on their own. And this is the United States of America with the First Amendment of the Freedom of Religion. What kind of person would be forced to become a church member in our nation? That was never happened and it was never on any media outlets but only on shady blogs here and there. But if you can name an event that in which the GNM focuses on growing their “empire,” please state it here.

You stated:
“Rather than focusing on salvation they place more emphasis on buildings, cars, and other materialistic things. There whole focus is to grow, grow and get large much like the way a business operates.”

Can you please explain which building/car/materialistic thing was gained?

Though what you wrote was inaccurate, what I feel from your writing is that you have indeed received a lot pain during the time you have known Good News Mission. What happened and why do you feel that you need to say stuff like this?

I don’t want to fight, nor try to persuade. No matter what I say, if you don’t have an open mind, you will try to find whatever you can to use against me. I just write this post, asking those who read, to have an open mind, without assuming before they truly know what the truth is.

Hi everyone,

Just curious about a few basic things concerning this organization.

Does the organization have an elected board, which includes board members serving fixed terms? If so how are board members elected?

Is there a published annual budget that discloses in detail how much money is contributed and how it is spent, i.e. salaries, compensation, expenses, etc.

How is a pastor hired and how can a pastor be fired? What is the specific process provided by the organizational bylaws regarding such accountability?

Is all of this detailed in corporate bylaws?

Hi Everyone,

I found an interesting blog written by a Korean guy who has done a bit of research into the Good News Mission cult - [askakorean.blogspot.com]

He states:
"Also, searching on Naver (Korea’s equivalent to Yahoo!) about Park Ock-Soo results in accusations of being cult plastered with harsh rebuke against such accusation and creepy adulations for Park. Park also sued a pastor who criticized him as a heretic which lasted four years, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Korea (where Park lost.) Death threats against a person who quit the church probably count towards being a cult as well. (The person later wrote a book titled: “Why Are Park Ock-Soo, Lee Yo-Han and Yoo Byeong-Eon Heretics?”)
But most intriguingly, they are implicated in the most classic cult behavior – mass suicide."

It seems that Park Ock-Soo and another cult leader, named Yoo Byeong-Eon, attended the same makeshift 'seminary school' set up by Dick York of the Shield of Faith Mission International. Of course, that doesn't mean that the Good News Mission is the same cult as the group run by Yoo Byeong-Eon. But the association is interesting.

The blog post is well worth a read.