Dr. Yonggi Cho rejected Budhism in his youth and converted to Christianity. In 1958 he founded what has now become, according to PBS, the worlds largest megachurch in Korea. Spread out across 7 different services, literally hundreds of thousands attend services every Sunday. We are sad to report that Dr. Cho was convicted on February 21st of embezzling over $12 million dollars over the course of many years. As a part of his sentence, he will have to repay close to $5 million of that amount.
Devastated by Dr. Cho’s conviction, Lee Grady couldn’t help but speak out on integrity. In response, he expanded on six different ways to prevent another ministry scandal (excerpted here), “1. Never build a cult of personality. 2. Develop a culture of openness.3. Insist on financial transparency. 4. Don’t build a family dynasty.5. Beware of creating a greed monster. and 6. Never tolerate a spirit of entitlement.”
We couldn’t agree more.