Dr Younghoon Lee, senior pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church was at City Harvest Church last weekend (8-9 March 2025) to preach at the weekend services.
He delivered two timely messages on the power of faith and on being filled with the Holy Spirit. Both sermons served to strengthen and encourage CHC.
In January this year, for the second year in a row, CHC conducted a trip to Seoul to attend Yoido Full Gospel Church’s Prayer Week. The group of 700 were treated by the YFGC members to a sumptuous meal and gifts soft wool scarves and mittens. They were even given delicious Castella cake slices.
In this interview, Dr Lee shares about the relationship between the two churches, the importance of the youth for the Church, and how Pentecostalism is rapidly growing across the world.
CITY NEWS: Dr Lee, in January you and Yoido Full Gospel Church so graciously hosted our 700 members and overwhelmed us with your generosity. Can you share with us why you and your congregation have such a culture of kindness and generosity?
DR YOUNGHOON LEE: Our churches are more than brother and sister churches. We are one in Christ, one family in Christ. So we welcome all the brothers and sisters from Singapore. Also, kindness is kind of a tradition of Korean culture, so we really want to serve all the special guests from Singapore.
I understand the Castella cake was very nice.
Yes, it was made by one of our church members who has a factory.
This year was our second year at Prayer Week. Our members were very touched by the power of prayer at Yoido. How do you see the relationship between our churches growing as we spent time in Seoul each year?
God is going to use the man of prayer and the man of faith. So if we are strengthening our spirit life during this kind of spirit-filled prayer and worship, then the Father blesses us. We are going to expect great revival for churches because (that is) the fruits of the prayers.
This trip to Singapore, you brought along your board members and pastors. What do you hope they will gain from this?
Our board members want to learn many things from your church. Your church is one of the fastest-growing churches in Asia. Also, you have many youth members in your congregation. So we have to learn about the activities of your church and the growth of your church.
What have they learned so far from our youth?
This is a very good sign for the church, that there are many young people, because our church belongs to the next generation. We have to focus on the next generation. And all the churches are getting old all over the world: it’s those in their 60s, 70s that control the church. That means we need some kind of change, some kind of revival among the young generation. This is a very strong point of your church—you have young people in your church.
At Yoido, there are also more young people coming to church now too, right?
Yeah, but we have 60, 70 years of history, so majority of our members are over 50. So we are focusing on the next generation.
Dr Lee, one of the greatest attributes you personally exhibit is that of humility. Can you teach us how to cultivate humility even as we are full of the power of Holy Spirit? How can we remain humble?
You have to exercise the message of the Word of God. The Word of God already taught us that humility is our base, our foundation of our faith, because Jesus showed His humility to the people. So you have to follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ. We must humble ourselves before the Lord, as Jesus did in His ministry.
What are some practical ways we can do that?
Self-denial is the key for all church members, because many people are selfish, very egocentric. But Bible teaches us that self-denial is one of the most important parts of discipleship. There are two parts: self-denial and bearing the Cross. So every day we have to deny ourselves, we have to practise that. Apostle Paul said “I die daily”, and that’s the word for discipleship.
All over the world, the harvest is starting. So all the Pentecostal churches are growing very fast. All the churches are filled to the fullest with the Holy Spirit.
Two years ago, you prophesied that God would use our church to evangelise Asia. We have been reaching out to unreached people groups—is there anything more that we can do?
I would mention that I saw that many young people here are filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s a sign. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is a sign for the divine. You have to maintain the fullness of the Holy Spirit, be filled with the Holy Spirit. That means this is a continuous spiritual journey for everybody, it’s not an event, a one-time blessing. Every day we must be filled with the Holy Spirit again and again.
During your sermon on Sunday, you mentioned that many churches in Europe, in the US are not filled with the Spirit?
I speak of traditional churches. There’s a decrease every year; the mainline (non-charismatic) traditional denominations are decreasing rapidly. But the Pentecostals are growing, three times, four times. Right now there are around 80 million Pentecostal Christians in the world.*
So what can we do to help these mainline churches that are decreasing?
We have to worship together; we have to have revival meetings and conferences, get together. We have to share our blessings with them. We have to invite them and pray together, and share the message of the Pentecostals, then they will learn something from us.
All charismatic churches are growing, doesn’t matter if they are traditional.
As the Church experiences revival, we are also facing much spiritual attack in the form of violence, political tensions, AI and technology. How should the spiritual Christian stand firm in the face of all this opposition?
Meditate and study the Bible, the Word of God, day by day. I challenge the people to read 10 chapters of the Bible a day. The older church members (in Yoido Full Gospel Church) read the whole Bible four times a year. Then the lessons from the Word of God will lead our future.
*Editor’s Note: According to Lausanne, there are more than 120 million Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians in Asia alone and nearly 240 million Pentecostal/Charistmatic Christians in Africa.
