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Originally published June 22, 1973

All over Korea during May and early June, farmers were busy transplanting rice seedlings. On the Christian calendar, however, it was harvest time. The nation was penetrated by the Gospel as few if any countries ever have been. The spring spiritual effort was climaxed in Seoul May 30-June 3 when Billy Graham preached to more people in five days than he had ever confronted in any crusade of any length before. It was also apparently the largest gathering in Church history.

Using a system of pre marked sections that allowed for about three square feet per person, Korean organizers of the Seoul crusade estimated that 3.2 million came to the five meetings, including 1.1 million at the closing Sunday afternoon rally. (Police estimates were about 50 per cent less.) Crusade totals thus surpassed by more than 900,000 the total attendance at Graham's 1957 New York City meeting, which lasted sixteen weeks. Also falling was the record established at Glasgow, Scotland, during six weeks in 1955, when the cumulative total was 2,647,365.

The crusade was backed by virtually all the 1,600 Protestant churches in Seoul; Catholics, Buddhists, and Confucianists were in the enthusiastic crowds by the thousands. "I seriously doubt if we will ever see meetings like this again in my ministry," the evangelist said at the end of the series. What he had seen were the fruits of some ninety years of evangelical missionary work plus unprecedented cooperation among the churches in recent months of preparation. Graham often publicly acknowledged the contributions of both the missionaries and the churches, and in his final statement he declared, "Those of us who had the privilege of participating in it will never forget what God did in Korea."

What Graham saw in Seoul, six of his associate evangelists saw in six provincial cities (Taegu, Taejon, Pusan, Chunchon, Kwangju, Chonju). They each conducted week long crusades and spoke in a variety of auxiliary meetings. (For example, Grady Wilson on one occasion addressed 60,000 students in Pusan.) Cumulative attendance at their crusade was estimated at 1,177,300 while approximately 135,000 heard them in other meetings (such as in schools, military bases, and businesses). Few of the team members had ever before had larger audiences.

After the associates concluded their crusades, they came to Seoul to take on additional meeting engagements. Other members of the Graham team also spoke extensively in the capital area. In nearly every meeting, opportunities were given for public profession of faith in Christ. In the two weeks preceding the crusade, nearly 40,000 Christians from 6,142 churches distributed Christian literature to every home in Seoul (population: 6.6 million).

Statistics on responses to the invitations were difficult to obtain, since many of the meetings were held in close quarters and there was no possibility of getting inquirers to "come forward." Some of the Korean leaders expressed the opinion that for every decision card received in Crusade headquarters there we re three other unrecorded decisions.

The number on record the last day of the crusade, however, was over 75,000 (including the inquirers in other cities and meetings).

Christian leaders in Korea saw the spring evangelistic effort as a landmark in the nation's history.

"It is a new epoch in the history of the Korean church and a new beginning for Christian unity and cooperation in our church," commented the Reverend Kyung Chik Han, chairman of the crusade executive committee and pastor emeritus of the internationally known Young Nak Presbyterian church the world's largest Presbyterian church.

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February (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50