About
"God is love" in the five distinctive writing forms besides English, which Korean students had to study in a Methodist Mission school. 1920s. Pyongyang, Korea before partition.
At Drew Theological School during the Spring 2023 semester, students in “THST 583: The History of Christianity in Korea'' embarked on a digital storytelling project. Drew Theological School has a special connection to Korean Christianity, as one of the first Protestant missionaries to Korea in the late nineteenth century was Henry G. Appenzeller, a Drew alumnus. Along with the Presbyterian Church, Methodist tradition remains one of the largest Christian churches in South Korea.
The Drew United Methodist Archive contains evidence of this history, with rich mission photography collections and countless archival sources on Korean Methodist history.
Rev. Dr. Hoojung Lee, president and professor of church history in Methodist Theological University (MTU) in Seoul, South Korea on the left. Rev. Dr. Edwin Aponte, Dean of the Drew Theological School on the right. Center is the statue of Appenzeller, which is located in the garden of the Drew Theological School. April 2023.
Spring 2023 THST 583 students exploring the archival material at Drew UMC archive
All of the students in this course are also a part of the Korean and US Methodist tradition, as they are trained in theological education and pastoral vocations at Drew. In other words, they continue the history of the transnational Methodist church and its justice-oriented social engagement across South Korea, the United States, Indonesia, and beyond.
We believe that making pieces of Methodist history accessible to the public and connecting them to our own context is a part of the “rooted education” at Drew Theological School. Furthermore, Drew’s unique resources, such as the Methodist archival resources and library support for the digital storytelling and exhibition, make this project a invaluable experience for the students and audiences of this exhibition.
A Korean Deconess (name unkown), a photo taken in the United States between 1910s-1930s. UMC digital archives.
Our Method
The most challenging task in making history accessible to the public is engaging with the audience across the black-and-white archival materials and dense historical accounts. Therefore, we have chosen storytelling as our method of conveying the history of Korean Christianity in connection to the ongoing lives of Korean/American Christians and people who have built their lives around the church.
According to the resources provided by NYU storytelling lab, storytelling is an effective method because it:
Makes the subject accessible to students
Gains the attention of novices
Builds stronger schema and memory, making knowledge easier to recover
Assimilates new ideas and build a path to understanding
Reduces resistance or anxiety to learning
You can find more resources on the storytelling method on our "Course Syllabus & Further Resources" page at the bottom left.
THST 583 students at UMC archive, March 2023