The 10th Chinese Congress on World Evangelization (CCOWE) has come to a close. As an invited participant, I am grateful for the opportunity to take part, and I am thankful to all who helped organize the congress, as well as to the local churches for their hospitality and service.
Ten years ago, I was also invited to attend the 9th CCOWE Congress in Taiwan. Since then, I have continued to reflect on what I see as an important challenge facing overseas Chinese churches: how to move beyond a certain “middle-class tendency.” By this I mean the pursuit of stability, success, influence, and growth, perhaps accompanied by a desire to avoid suffering. If this observation causes offense, I ask the reader’s forgiveness. It may simply reflect one of my own particular “biases.”
Overall, this congress gave prominence to many important themes and concepts, including the kingdom of God, holistic mission, the cultural mandate, new creation, and polycentric mission.
These are all important issues at the forefront of mission today. Yet after the congress, several questions have stayed with me.
1. Beyond “Listening to the Times,” We Also Need to “See”
The congress theme, “Listening to God in Our Time, Co-creating with God,” speaks directly to our present moment. In Scripture, hearing or listening is closely tied to responding to the word of God: “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Serious obedience to God’s word is an important part of the spiritual heritage of Chinese churches.
But I would add that Scripture calls us not only to hear, but also to see. Again and again, the Bible calls God’s people to look and discern. Jesus said:
Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. (John 4:35).
He also rebuked the people of his day:
You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. (Matthew 16:3).
For this reason, as we reflect on this CCOWE gathering, we need not only to hear God’s word, but also as we move toward “co-creating,” we also need to learn to see:
- new developments in Chinese societies and churches;
- changes in the social structures of Chinese communities in different regions;
- changes among the world’s unreached peoples, including how mainland China is situated on today’s global map of unreached peoples. Where there has been progress, is that not something worth celebrating?
- changes in the global gospel movement over the past ten years;
- the rise of churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
- developments and changes within the church in mainland China over the past decade. How might we continue to cooperate and partner?
2. A Stronger Emphasis on the Theology of the Cross
The declaration’s emphasis on the kingdom, mission, culture, and new creation is deeply valuable. Perhaps because traditional Chinese churches have at times placed such strong emphasis on the cross, the theological pendulum at this congress swung toward the other side.
As one participant noted during discussion of the draft CCOWE Declaration, the gospel of the kingdom cannot be separated from the gospel of the cross. I believe the theology of the cross deserves greater consideration in three areas.
1. The Cross Reveals Human Sin and Finitude
Large mission-mobilization gatherings such as Lausanne or CCOWE can sometimes create the impression that human response is emphasized more strongly than human sin and finitude.
Chinese culture, shaped in significant ways by the Confucian tradition, places considerable weight on human moral capacity. It can therefore tend toward a kind of moral utopianism. My concern is that a theology of the kingdom that neglects the cross may allow a Confucian moral utopianism to enter unnoticed.
The cross begins with the recognition that human beings cannot save themselves through moral effort or religious practice. It exposes the limits of Confucian moral optimism. For Chinese churches shaped by a Confucian background, this is an especially important reminder.
2. The Cross Shapes the Way We Understand Mission
The cross is not only the message of mission; it also gives the gospel and mission their shape.
Without the cross, mission can easily become a kind of spiritualized theology of success: building better churches, developing impressive ministries, expanding the church’s influence, and finding effective methods for gospel multiplication. All of these may have value. But detached from the cross, they can easily become a form of humanism clothed in Christian language.
In many places, gospel work does not develop in predictable or stable ways. The gospel often enters hard soil that may require decades, even a century, of cultivation. Without an emphasis on the theology of the cross, we cannot enter more deeply into the reality of the Great Commission. The cross reminds us that the church does not establish the kingdom of God through human power but follows the path of Christ through suffering and the cross toward resurrection and glory.
3. The Church Is United with the Suffering Christ and His Suffering Body
An ecclesiology shaped by middle-class assumptions often lacks the dimension of the cross. The cross is not only what Christ accomplished for our salvation; it is also the shape of the church’s life.
Paul writes of his desire to “know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:10).
The church not only believes in the risen Christ; it is also called to be united with the suffering Christ.
If CCOWE is to become a platform connecting Chinese churches around the world, unity cannot rest only on shared language, culture, or ethnic identity while remaining silent about the reality of the church’s suffering. Many churches are living amid different kinds of suffering. A theology of the cross can create theological space within Chinese churches to “welcome” those suffering members of Christ’s body who receive little honor.
3. A Twofold Apologetic Task: From Cultural Baggage to a Civilizational Horizon
I also attended the Fourth Lausanne Congress (Seoul-Incheon 2024), and I have continued to observe the differences between Lausanne and CCOWE. Because of its global scope, Lausanne has continued to develop ways for Christianity to engage in dialogue with contemporary civilization.
As I read the draft CCOWE Declaration, it seemed to me that the declaration gave comparatively greater attention to the particularities of Chinese culture and less attention to the changes taking place across human civilization as a whole. By contrast, the official program of this CCOWE Congress spoke more often about civilizational questions, while giving comparatively less attention to the ways the gospel critiques and transcends particular elements of Chinese culture.
The CCOWE Declaration discusses elements of Chinese culture such as filial piety, honor and shame, harmony, and family ethics. Yet the gospel must engage not only our own culture, but also developments and changes in civilization that transcend any single culture. Chinese churches are living amid profound global civilizational change. Today the world is undergoing major transitions shaped by migration, climate, technology, and war. These are no longer merely issues within particular cultures; they are civilizational questions.
Chinese churches therefore need to face both:
- their own cultural identity;
- the transformation of human civilization as a whole.
Chinese churches need not only to recognize and respond to their own “cultural baggage,” but also to engage directly with the development and transformation of civilization itself.
4. Renewing the Historical Narrative: From Lausanne to a Longer History of the Chinese Gospel Movement
Finally, I would like to offer a proposal concerning our historical narrative. CCOWE has an important relationship with the 1974 Lausanne Movement, as this congress rightly noted. But might CCOWE locate itself within a longer historical horizon?
In other words, CCOWE is not only a Chinese response that emerged after Lausanne in 1974. It also belongs within a larger, centuries-long history in which Chinese people have received the gospel, passed it on, and lived it out.
That history includes:
- the arrival of modern missionaries in China;
- the development of indigenous churches in China;
- the development of overseas Chinese churches;
- new stages of Chinese participation in global mission.
At the Fourth Lausanne Congress in Incheon, a special program presented the history of the gospel in Korea. I hope that a future CCOWE Congress might likewise devote an evening to telling the story of the Chinese gospel movement as a whole. The experiences of suffering and the historical memories of Chinese churches over the past century are part of the shared spiritual heritage of Chinese churches around the world.
Conclusion
We need not only to inherit and respond to the historical and cultural traditions of Chinese churches. We must also engage human civilization as a whole, while holding together the theology of the cross and the mission of the kingdom.
For overseas Chinese churches, the experience of diaspora over the past century should not be understood merely as a historical process of seeking safer and more stable lives. Within it may also be found God’s hidden and beautiful purposes:
- to make Chinese churches bridges between different cultures;
- to teach us to remember churches that suffer;
- to lead us to loosen our attachment to comfort, success, and influence, and to walk alongside the suffering Christ and his church.
Perhaps the future mission of Chinese churches is not simply to become an ethnic church with a global network, but to become, in Christ, a community of witness that crosses cultures, connects civilizations, and participates in the mission of the kingdom of God.
