Si Shi (pseudonym) has lived in China for more than five years and has many friends who work in the medical profession.
This article is a follow-up to a series of articles written by this author on Chinese medical missionary sending in 2017, published by ChinaSource. Reflections expressed herein grow out of the successes, setbacks, and surprises encountered after the implementation of many of the ideas conveyed in that series of 13 articles.
Christians of today need to hold the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. Understanding both, with attention to the thrust of meaning of each, Christians can be a bridge facilitating God’s purposes in today’s world.
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. In this article, several of the key sources of resistance to Chinese missionary sending are surveyed and strategies to defuse this resistance are considered.
Can Chinese missionary-sending organizations help re-balance the seesaw and increase the effectiveness and sustainability of cross-cultural missionaries from China?
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. Through a survey of the mission sending literature and field research with Chinese missionaries, nine best practices for Chinese mission sending are proposed that may facilitate long-term Chinese missionary sustainability.
“See one. Do one. Teach one.” A pathway to developing mission-sending capacity in China?
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. Mission sending organization musters the intentionality needed to sustain long-term missionary sending. In this article, I present a three pronged approach to Chinese mission sending organization development.
How can financial resources be shared effectively? What needs to be considered?
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. The international church seeks to partner with Chinese missionary senders. Finances are one key, but controversial, area of possible collaboration. Funds can become a stumbling block to mission efforts. Discriminating, time-limited use of money to support Chinese missionary sending in the framework of sound principles of financial giving decrease risks of dependency.
Elements of the Chinese church are passionate about participating in the great commission. There is a freshness, an enthusiasm, an excitement about taking the gospel of Christ to unreached parts of the world. To what extent should the international church, an older, more experienced church, undergird these efforts? Come alongside in a supportive role?
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. The international church seeks to partner with Chinese missionary senders. In addition to prayer, the international church can support Chinese missionary-senders through resource sharing, mission-sending organization support, and through business cooperation. Chinese medical missionary tentmaking as a business opportunity is examined as a prototype for other potential Chinese tentmaking missionaries. Leadership of Chinese missionary sending efforts must remain in Chinese hands.
The same difficulties that local churches in the west have had in sending out workers cross-culturally are being seen in Chinese churches as they send missionaries beyond their borders. Are mission-sending organiszations needed to minimize those difficulties?