Editor’s Note: The rapid growth of the Chinese diaspora in recent years has opened up new opportunities in global missions, creating fresh pathways for evangelism within Chinese communities and fostering connections with other ethnic groups through cross-cultural ministries. How can individuals and churches prepare to participate in this new movement of God’s work? In this reprint from CCCOWE, Rev. John Wang—International Director of Gospel Operation International, born in Taiwan and raised in Argentina, with doctorates in civil engineering and missiology and extensive experience in cross-cultural ministry and theological education—offers valuable insights from three key perspectives: the individual, the church, and the broader Chinese ethnic community.
Entering the 21st century, the term “diaspora missions” has gradually appeared in various discussions at meetings in the missionary community. As the global diaspora populations continue to increase, missiology scholars start to observe, think, and explore the many challenges and opportunities that this may bring to global missions.
According to anthropological and sociological research, when faced with unstable social and cultural situations, many dispersed populations will engage in new reflections of their self-identity, and even the directions of their lives. They will also reconsider issues of faith. Therefore, it is indeed a good opportunity to preach the gospel to diaspora populations. This is in fact the direction taken in most current missionary practices.
In addition, most missiologists are optimistic about the missionary potential of the Christian diaspora. Many years ago, a common missionary strategy had already emerged in Chinese churches in North America—to carry out evangelistic work in the local mainstream population through the Chinese believers and churches scattered everywhere. Similar calls have arisen among other ethnic groups.
In 2004, the Latin American missiologist Miguel A. Palomino made an optimistic proposal on how to carry out reverse missionary work by Latin American immigrants living in Europe, and hence to promote the revival of faith among European residents.1 He believed that through the continuous growth of Latin American Christian immigrants and Spanish-speaking churches in Europe, they would eventually be accepted by local churches. Cooperation with local churches would eventually lead to the revival of the local gospel movement.
However, today, some 20 years later, we have not seen many Christian diaspora populations or immigrant churches bring about any significant evangelical revival to local populations. This article will try to explore the issues we need to face from the perspectives of the individual, the church, and ethnic groups.
The Individual’s Perspective: Total Mobilization
Since Philip Jenkins published The Next Christendom in 2002, people have gradually begun to recognize anew the state of Christianity in the world today.2 On one hand, we thank God that we can witness the rapid growth of Christian populations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the past two hundred years—the Holy Spirit working through the efforts of missionaries and local believers.
However, looking at European and American countries today, the Christian population seems to have stopped growing in recent years and has even shown a downward trend. In other words, the Western world is no longer the traditional Christendom of the past. Today, it has become the latest field for global missions.
Churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America have not only seen a large increase in believers, but also a large number of missionaries with a global vision. In other words, every place and every ethnic group in the world today is both a mission field and a missionary force. The direction of missions is now no longer the traditional “from the West to the rest” of the past, but “from everywhere to everywhere.”
In the past, traditionally, only Christians and churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America would come in contact with Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and believers of other folk religions. However, today, due to the migration of diaspora populations, major cities in European and American countries are also filled with believers of various religions from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. No matter where they live, they are all objects of evangelistic missions.
The missionary framework in the past was to rely on missionaries to cross the oceans, go to unfamiliar countries, meet believers of other faiths, and engage in cross-cultural missionary work. But today in European and American countries, it is not only specific missionaries who will come into contact with believers of other religions in their native lands, but members of local churches. Church members have the opportunity to experience this kind of cross-cultural, cross-faith, and cross-language interpersonal interactions at work, home, school, or any social occasion every day.
In other words, in addition to preaching the gospel to their own compatriots (ethnic groups), if diaspora missions is to assume more specific responsibilities in global missions, then the diaspora groups of believers (from the Chinese perspective, Chinese believers and churches scattered around the world) and the entire church need to mobilize and participate in cross-cultural transmission of the gospel message.
In the concept of diaspora missions, the work of cross-cultural and cross-ethnic mission is not only undertaken by missionaries or church pastors, but it is the responsibility of all church members. It is understandably natural for Chinese believers to spread the gospel to their own compatriots. But cross-cultural gospel communication requires personal pursuit and breakthrough, as well as the church’s teaching and encouragement.
To answer the call for diaspora missions, Chinese pastors in Chinese churches around the world should also remind themselves at all times to commit to pursuing breakthroughs in language, culture, and ethnic understanding, because these pastors are the ones who will be the most important mobilizers of local cross-cultural mission work in this century.
From the Church’s Perspective: Embracing Cross-Cultural Ministry
When traditional religious sociology explores the life cycle of immigrant churches, the general theory is that the final assimilation of immigrant churches to the majority culture is only a matter of time. Based on the experience in American history, many Christians who immigrated to the United States from Germany or Northern European countries established immigrant ethnic churches as soon as they arrived, just like we Chinese did. Germans established German immigrant churches, Swedes established Swedish immigrant churches, and Dutch established Dutch immigrant churches.
But by the second generation, most of them have formed bilingual churches. By the third generation, they have changed to be English-speaking churches, and finally integrated into the local Christian movement, becoming American churches.
However, the reason why these theories held true is that after the immigration wave stopped, i.e., when Germans, Swedes, and Dutch no longer immigrated to the United States in large numbers, these immigrant churches faced the phenomenon of the gradual aging of native-speaking church members. This specifically highlighted the need for the gospel for the second generation, that is, the young bicultural and bilingual generation. This condition forced the church to further adapt to the local culture and accelerated the assimilation process.
Take the example of a Chinese church in the capital of Venezuela (Caracas). Over the past decade, due to the country’s constant political, economic, and social turmoil, many local Chinese residents have left and moved to other countries, and of course, there have been no new Chinese immigrants. During the pandemic, the number of Chinese believers in this church continued to decline. But because the church was supporting the local people’s economy, it unexpectedly accepted many Venezuelans into its Spanish-speaking congregation. Today, the number of congregants in the Spanish-speaking congregation far exceeds the number of Chinese-speaking congregants, and the church is increasingly recognized as a local church.
In another example, the elders of a Taiwanese-speaking church in Argentina had to wrestle with questions of its future development because, at the end of the last century, there were no longer any Taiwanese immigrants to Argentina. The church finally decided to fully develop the Spanish ministry and move towards being a multi-ethnic Spanish-speaking congregation. However, later, because of the influx of Chinese immigrants, it also started a Chinese-speaking congregation with Chinese as the main language. This became an auxiliary congregation to the church.
In contrast, in North America and European countries, although Chinese immigrants came from different regions, they came and continue to come in waves after waves. From the earliest immigrants from Guangdong in the late Qing Dynasty, and immigrants from China before 1949, as well as immigrants from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, Chinese immigrants continue even to this day. When the immigration waves continue, immigrant churches are consumed with the urgency and responsibility to serve the first-generation immigrants. This is why it is difficult to develop a very healthy second-generation ministry in North America or Europe.
Unless the commitment to cross-cultural mission is intentionally placed in the immigrant church, as long as the immigration wave does not change, the immigrant church will inevitably prioritize serving the first generation of immigrants. Then the mission work that crosses cultural barriers and targets the locals will even be a longer way off!
Immigrant churches usually live in the tension between “pressure to assimilate” and “cultural preservation”. If there is also a sense of ethnic superiority, then there may even be more resistance to cross-cultural gospel ministry targeting the local population.
Guillermo MacKenzie pointed out that in Argentina, the Presbyterian Church established by Scottish immigrants used English as the language of worship from the beginning. Although the large number of Scottish immigrants soon stopped, because of the sense of national pride of Scottish immigrants, they married among themselves, helped each other, and maintained the use of English, forming a parallel small community outside the local mainstream society. Historical records show that these churches did not begin to preach in Spanish until 158 years later, and from then on became a part of the Argentine Christian movement.3
Suppose diaspora missions really is to become an opportunity in the missionary movement and bless the local residents. In that case, it is an indispensable key for immigrant churches to intentionally carry out cross-cultural, cross-linguistic and cross-ethnic gospel ministry for local residents.
The Ethnic Groups’ Perspectives—Total Cooperation
The Chinese diaspora is scattered across the globe. Some areas have a long history of immigration, while others are relatively new. But no matter what, the Chinese diaspora all over the world have some characteristics: the first generation of immigrants are brave, diligent, and hardworking. Generally, Chinese communities have deep economic resources, and so do Chinese churches.
The Chinese also greatly value education, so many of the second generation or later generations are able to become elites in local society. In addition, overseas Chinese churches often interact with each other. Although everyone lives in their own countries, they in fact have rich cross-country and cross-cultural experiences.
When Chinese churches scattered around the world actively participate in the local Christian community, their cross-country relations with their countries of origin, and the multicultural and multilingual experiences of different generations within the church will exert some important and positive influences on the local Christian movement.
Many years ago, when a white American missionary couple was being sent to Hong Kong, the missionary organization they belonged to took the initiative to contact the church where I was serving in New York and brought the couple to the church’s Chinese congregation for a two-year missionary internship. Two years of interactions broadened their horizons. It also prepared them for the cross-cultural challenges they would face in Hong Kong.
The Chinese diaspora scattered around the world and their churches (at least those that have been established for a few years) are mostly bicultural and bilingual. In addition to engaging in gospel work with local people, they can also become missionary partners of local churches.
When the South American Chinese Christian Seminary (Seminário Teológico Servo de Cristo) in Brazil 4 faced a gradual decrease in Chinese-speaking students, they determined to develop Portuguese theological education. They successfully transformed into a school that mainly teaches in Portuguese, making an important contribution to local theological education in Brazil.
In the past, we have often heard church leaders say that it is time for the Chinese church (including the Chinese churches scattered overseas) to take the last baton for spreading the gospel. But it is undeniable that this last baton has also been handed to churches established by various ethnic groups around the world. Some of these are in their own countries, and some are scattered in different corners of the world. We Chinese churches at home and abroad must take up this baton and actively join the ranks of the global missionary movement.
Now that God has spread us to all parts of the world, allowing us to contact and interact with all global ethnic groups, how can we not seize this great opportunity to participate and serve in cross-cultural missions?
At this point, I remember what Mordecai said to Esther in the Book of Esther: “… And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b). Perhaps this is exactly what God is saying to us today!
Originally written in Chinese and published by CCCOWE, this article was translated by ChinaSource Team and republished here with permission.
- Miguel A. Palomino, “Latino Immigration in Europe: Challenge and Opportunity for Mission,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 28, no. 2 (April 2004): 55–59.
- Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
- Guillermo Mac Kenzie, “Crisis and Transformation from Monocultural to Multicultural: The St. Andrew’s Scots Presbyterian Church and the Sin Heng Taiwanese Presbyterian Church,” Churches on Mission: God’s Grace Abounding to the Nations, ed. Geoffrey Hartt, Christopher R. Little, and John Wang (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2017), 137–60.
- Seminário Teológico Servo de Cristo, accessed on July 18, 2024, https://www.servodecristo.org.br/.
