On Reformation Sunday, PCA Stated Clerk Bryan Chapell addressed a gathering of more than 2 million Korean Christians in Seoul, South Korea. 

The event was organized as a time for worship, prayer, and peaceful protest as the Korean National Congress prepares to pass a law changing the Korean constitution to approve same-sex marriage. Korean Christians believe theirs is the only Asian democracy without such a law, and the Korean churches believe this is an important opportunity to stand for biblical marriage and morality. 

The joint worship service brought together Korean believers from 11,000 churches across denominations. About 1.1 million people attended in person at the nation’s capital and another 1 million watched online.

As Chapell told the assembled crowd, “With family love for you, we confess that the American church has been affected by the moral decline of our secular society. We have experienced the loss of our youth, disrespect for biblical marriage, breakdown of our families, and the polarization of our people along political lines…. So, we join you in prayer for a fresh anointing of commitment to God’s design for marriage and family in this land. May the world know God’s true love by the prayers you offer this day.”

Chapell was invited to address the gathering as a representative of American believers now praying for their Korean brothers and sisters. 

The invitation required him to miss a speaking engagement at North Florida Presbytery’s Reformation Day worship service so Chapell sent a video to North Florida Presbytery explaining his absence and putting the prayer rally in context. 

Chapell told North Florida Presbytery that this unprecedented gathering of Korean Christians is because they believe that if this proposed constitutional change fails to pass, it can have a domino effect in other Asian nations and with Korea’s allies. 

“Of particular importance now to the Korean Christians is the assurance that they are not standing alone, that there are Christians in the United States who are also supportive of this biblical effort,” he said. 

The PCA was the denomination that first ordained Jung-Hyung Oh, pastor of SaRang Church which helped to organize the prayer service and is one of the largest Presbyterian churches in Korea. It was Oh who invited Chapell to speak.

“Once again, the Lord has providentially chosen to have the influence of your PCA denomination far outweigh our numbers for the purposes of his kingdom,” he told those gathered for the Reformation Service in North Florida Presbytery.

Chapell was not the only representative from a Western nation to address the gathering. Andrea Williams, a lawyer with the UK’s Christian Concern legal center, and Heinrich Derksen, president of Bonn Bible Seminary in Germany, also addressed the crowd, telling of how their countries have turned away from God. They urged believers in Korea not to follow the path that Great Britain and Germany have taken.

“This fight is global. It is a fight between good and evil, God and the devil, life and death, truth and lies, heaven and hell,” Williams said. “God is raising you up. The Western church is weakening, but the Korean church must wake up and shine the bright light of Jesus Christ.”

Derksen lamented that the land which birthed the Reformation 507 years ago is now home to a church that lacks vitality. He expressed hope that Korean Christians will stand firm in their commitment to the Bible and biblical truth.

Chapell told North Florida Presbytery that the Lord has used believers in other non-Western nations to stand for truth.

“If we can encourage these Christians with our biblical stance on human sexuality, if we can help convince this government that it is not in the best interest of their people to approve immorality that will ultimately damage families and children, then the Lord can use Korea for turning back immortality in the East just as he has used faithful Kenyans, Ugandans, and Nigerians to turn back immorality across African and in many churches of the United States,” he said. “And if both Asia and Africa, where the majority of Christians now live in our world, stand for biblical truth, then the Holy Spirit can light a fire of faith to turn our world, even our nation, back to God’s ways.”

In his remarks to the Seoul prayer gathering Chapell recalled another prayer gathering, this one in East Germany in 1989, when thousands of believers gathered at Saint Nikolai Church in Leibzig to protest communist rule and pray for its end. The Community Party tried to intimidate believers with road closures, shows of force with tanks, and arrests. Still, Christians would not stop praying. 

“Their prayers spread across the land so that the Communist government lost all support. Then, the Berlin Wall fell exactly one month after that October prayer gathering. A Communist official explained the defeat of his atheistic government this way: ‘We were prepared to fight against guns and bombs, but we were not prepared to resist … prayers,’” Chapell told the gathering.

He added, “Thousands of Christians gathered to resist evil in East Germany then, and millions of Christians have gathered in Korea to resist immorality now.” 

Chapell also urged those gathered for the North Florida Presbytery Reformation Service to pray that the Lord would use prayer as the power of the church for the glory of Christ.

He urged all believers to pray for the gathering, giving thanks for the privileges of the PCA and that the power of prayer would “reign in Korea and also to change our republic.” 

Watch Chapell’s address here.