Right before he died, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Bill Bright was talking about The Billion Soul Harvest. On today’s episode I talk with Young Cho about how James Hwang from South Korea has breathed new life into this vision to lead one billion people to Jesus.
Learn more about the Billion Soul Harvest: https://www.billionsoulharvest.net/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today, I have a very special guest with me, Young Cho, from The Billion Soul Harvest. Thank you so much for joining me.
Young Cho (00:13):
Well, thank you. Glad to be here too.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:16):
Well, tell me a little bit about the history of the billion Soul harvest and what the vision is.
Young Cho (00:22):
Well, I guess I have to talk about bill Bright when he first mentioned about the billion Soul harvest in 2002, not too long after he went to be with the Lord. And that vision kind of died down the way I understood it. And the just a few years ago, Dr. James Huang from Korea, he’s a crew man, or sis C man, and we say it in Korea. So that’s like Campus Crue for Christ, which is now known as Crew in America. And sis c is still going very strong in Korea. He was Asis c staff during his medical school, you know, years in Korea. So at his heart discipleship and Evangeline is very strong, and he’s a renowned guy in Korea being an oncologist CEO of a, an honorable hospital and the health supplement products. So, but then because of his, his dna he picked up that billion soul harvest idea and wanted to do something about it. Basically he wants to win at least another billion soul by 2033. And you probably know the importance of 2033, which happenss to be the 2000 year anniversary of Jesus’s crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and Pentacost which gave the birth of church. So, you know
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:55):
I think that would be an appropriate birthday present to give Oh, yeah. To Jesus. Oh,
Young Cho (01:59):
For sure, for
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:00):
Sure. As a celebration of his resurrection.
Young Cho (02:03):
Yeah. And why billion? I think we’re not really limited to 8 billion songs. Actually the world is billion Soul instead of souls harvest billion begins with one soul at a time. So that’s the idea. But then still numerically speaking, we want to see at least a billion born again Christians. Of course, we want all people to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But by 2033, you know, having <inaudible> is always good, right? So, billion songs, because there are 8 billion people out there. And they say, Rick Warren out at our gathering last December, said there are about 2.65 Christians, but that includes Catholic, Orthodox, and all kinds of, you know, nominal cultural Christians and whatnot. So if you kind of, you know, trim down, it becomes about, you know, 1.2 billion Protestant Christians, you might wanna say 1.2, born again Christians. I don’t know. It depends on, you know, where, where you’re coming from. So and, you know, I think it is safe to say you got about a billion born again Christians, if you kind of consider the nominal Christians. So we want all rest of the 7 billion to be reached with the Gospel of Christ, but at least want to see another billion. So double the size by 2033, hence billion. So harvest
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:36):
Well, I say amen. This is a worthy goal to do for Jesus. So what are some of the strategies and the ideas that you have to accomplish this very large task?
Young Cho (03:49):
Yeah, it is, it is God-sized task, for sure. And we want God-sized task, right? That’s the only way we depend on God. And, and, and He’s the Lord of the harvest. We are not, and we don’t want to call billion soul harvest a movement. You know, we rather want to call it, at least at this stage, a vision, a vision of rich billion soul and making billion soul disciples. So, so far we’ve been really blessed to share the vision, casting the vision all over the world. So strategy is not that we actually win ourselves. It has to be really done by the body of Christ together. You know, billion soul is a big number, and even for me, in the beginning, billion soul, that’s such a huge number. How, how can you accomplish that? And I realized that it cannot be done by one person, one church or denomination for that matter of one, one country.
(04:49):
Either. It has to be done, it has to be done by the body of Christ together. Sorry, my voice is cracking up because I’ve been on the road for a long time. Anyways. So it is important to to have the churches’ denominations coming together. So what we do is we are creating a platform where different movement leaders and Christian leaders come together to share and to unite and to love one another as a body of Christ to reach the world. So in the past couple of years we had multiple global summits that have been quite successful, bringing all the continental or national, you know, global leaders from all around the world, despite, you know, during, you know, the fact that it was during the pandemic. And we had multiple, actually many, many b h or Pius Harvest gatherings all over the world in different countries.
(05:53):
Just this year we traveled 20 countries. So it’s really about casting the vision that every believer is a witness kind of what we hear at this hour. So we’re casting the vision, we’re bringing leaders together. We’re just inspiring and challenging, and recommitting to the great commission that we all agree. Anyways, and let’s do this together. We talk about four grades. One is great. Return two is great, harvest three is great unity, and fourth is great breakthrough. Whenever we go we talk about this four grades when we talk about billions. So harvest, because, you know, great return as you can imagine, and easily think, we’re talking about the return of Jesus, our king, the great return of our Jesus Lord. And we’re not saying that he’s gonna come back on 2033, that’s just an anniversary. But what we are saying is that there is a sense of urgency in our time that Jesus can come anytime, not 2033, but he can come today or tomorrow with everything that’s going on.
(07:05):
We live, we do have a sense of urgency, and we need to have a sense of urgency. And even revelation ends with marata, come, Lord Jesus, come. We want to see his kingdom established on earth. So we are in an ansys anticipation of the great return in a Bible says about the Great harvest, multitude too great to count, will be worshiping the Lord. There will be a great harvest, even matter chapter 24 14, you know, this gospel of the kingdom of God shall be priested to the whole world as a testimony to the nations. Then the end will come. Yeah. So before the great return, it will be preceded by Great harvest. So hence great harvest. And if I May 3rd you know, great is great unity, and I, as I said, it has to be done by the body of Christ coming together united and loving one another.
(08:02):
Because Jesus clearly said, you love one another as I have loved you. And when you love one another, the world will know that you are my disciple. It’s the greatest testimony to the whole world. You know, that we are God’s disciple Christ of disciples of Christ that there is God. It’s the craziest evidence. So great, unity is important, and we need to unite together. And we may be different here and there theologically, one not. But when it comes to saving, you know, winning souls to Christ, we got to do this together. We can agree on that. Amen. Amen. And so hence great unity. And great breakthrough is all about breakthrough, you know, penetration. And and we’re more focused on the prayer because every gospel movement is also preceded by prayer movement. And without prayer, we cannot do this. And there are strong holes out there, and actually strong holes are being broken everywhere by prayers lately.
(09:05):
And we see great harvest everywhere. I mean, it’s just amazing. So part of the strategy we feel important is that, you know, of course the the u PPG groups in Unrich people groups and all that, those are important. But what we see is that there are places that where God is working, you know, in a mighty powerful way. And we like to find the flame where God is at work. You know, I remember experiencing God, you know, you know, don’t try to bring God to where you are working. You go where God is at work, right? I like that. You know? So you know harvest one of the things that we really focus on is to fan the flame, pour the oil. Where is where there is anointing thing, because this world we live in is quite globalized. Our own backyard is the mission field. There are all kinds of up g groups, right in our own network or the you know geographical area of metropolitan. And, and so when you keep flame flaming the, you know, fire it’s going to reach and cover all nations and all ethnics and all people. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:26):
I think the Korean church has two great strengths. One is a commitment to prayer. There’s no church in the world that praise as long and as fervently, I think as the, the Korean church. And then the second is a commitment to missions all over the world. I run into Korean missionaries who are giving their lives for the gospel. So what role do you think that God has for the Korean church in this billion soul harvest and over this next decade of evangelism? What do you hope to stir up among the Korean church?
Young Cho (11:06):
Well billion soul harvest is not just for Korean missionaries. Yeah. But obviously, I, I I thank you for thinking and saying highly of Korean church. It is true that even at the very beginning of Korean revival the world mission was at, at the core of their heart. So now we have about 50,000 Korean world missionaries all over the places, including lay people. And so they’re everywhere. It, it just bodies coming together. But going back to billion, so harvest, it’s is really the visionary and the founder is a Korea, but is really not about Korea. It is really about mobilizing the national leaders on the field that they would own the vision of being a witness and being a evangelist to their own kind. Because as a missionary, we can only do so much, you know, with language and culture.
(12:14):
Even if you have 50,000 missionaries Korean and ethnic missionaries out there, they’re not gonna be able to do the task of, you know, winning all people to Christ, the local people, indigenous people, national people. They have to rise and rise up and shine the line of Jesus Christ to everybody. So it is important to empower those people. And, and maybe even as Westerners in, in Korean, a lot of people view as a resource country now we need to really empower and, and, and, and, and serve under so that they can shine, they can do the job. We can’t. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:58):
So if someone wants to connect with the Billion Soul Harvest and find out more about you, what is your website?
Young Cho (13:31):
Billionsoulharvest.Net We are based in Colorado Springs US and we have ASO Harvest International Leadership Institute where we train people. And so, and then we have global Summit throughout, you know, maybe one or two times a year. And then many, many national gatherings in the land. Just got back from Sri Lanka and Pakistan and, you know, India and, and <laugh>. I mean, I don’t have to list the names of the countries, but, oh, we are actually going around each country and people are signing up, joining in, in the vision owning up the vision so that they will do something about, you know Metro Chapter 28. You know, go make disciples of all Nations. Amen. Mission. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:22):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I appreciate it.
Young Cho (14:26):
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for bringing me here. God bless you. God bless you.
