Yoido Full Gospel Church (Cho Yong-gi lineage)

Yoido Full Gospel Church grew out of a 1958 tent ministry in post-war Seoul founded by Cho Yong-gi (anglicised: David Yonggi Cho, 1936–2021) and Choi Ja-shil. The congregation moved to its current Yoido Island sanctuary in 1973 and reached a peak claimed membership of ~830,000 in the early 2000s; current active membership is closer to 480,000 across the main church and 250+ satellite chapels. Cho's 'fivefold gospel' and Three-fold Blessing prosperity theology, plus the cell-group small-group model, became the prototype for the global Korean Pentecostal export. In February 2014 Cho and his eldest son Cho Hee-jun were convicted by the Seoul Central District Court of embezzling ₩13 billion (≈US$12 m) from church funds; Cho received a three-year suspended sentence. The Yongsan family succession dispute and ongoing internal-faction lawsuits have continued to draw Korean press attention since Cho's 2021 death from pneumonia. Member-control patterns are moderate — substantial tithing pressure, intensive small-group accountability, prosperity-theology framing — but well within the mainstream Pentecostal range; the 'high-control' weight is concentrated in the founder-family financial governance.