Korean Methodist Church congregations in the US

Heritage

Methodism reached Korea in 1885 with Henry Appenzeller and Mary Scranton, sent by American Methodist mission boards; the Korean church grew with remarkable speed and in 1930 organized as the autonomous Korean Methodist Church, among the first self-governing Methodist churches to emerge from the American missionary movement. Korean immigration to the United States brought congregations that remain related to the Korean Methodist Church through its mission structures, worshipping largely in Korean. They are distinct from the many Korean-language congregations inside the United Methodist Church — a distinction American data sources, including ours, handle poorly.

Theological family

Wesleyan-Arminian doctrine on the Korean Methodist foundation: evangelical, revival-marked — the church carries the heritage of the great Korean revivals — with early-morning prayer and earnest piety characteristic of Korean Protestantism generally.

Who decides what

Episcopal on the Korean Methodist pattern, with a bishop and annual conferences in Korea and mission jurisdictions abroad; US congregations relate to that structure while managing their own congregational life.

What a first-time visitor would find

A visitor will find services largely in Korean, fervent congregational prayer — sometimes prayed aloud by all at once — strong preaching, and dawn prayer meetings during the week in many congregations; hospitality afterward is close to certain.

What it has always cared about

Prayer as the church's engine, in the tradition of the 1907 Pyongyang revival; the church as the center of immigrant community life; education and missions; and fidelity to a mother church across the Pacific.

Its gift to the wider church

A living reminder that the missionary movement's deepest successes became senders themselves: Korean Methodism, planted by Americans, now sustains congregations in America — and its prayer practices have begun to instruct the churches that first sent the missionaries.

Commonly confused with

Above all with Korean congregations of the United Methodist Church, which share language, style and often history but belong to a different denomination; also with Korean Presbyterian churches, which are more numerous in the US and easily conflated by outsiders.

Range of views inside it

Congregations vary in size, in generational and language balance (Korean-speaking first generation, English-ministry second), and in how closely they track the church in Korea; the public US record on this body is thin, and this record stays within it.

Where Korean Methodist Church congregations in the US churches are on the map

1 Korean Methodist Church congregations in the US congregations appear on The Church Map, across 1 states.

• California — 1