Si Shi (pseudonym) has lived in China for more than five years and has many friends who work in the medical profession.
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. In China, there are problems with current church-based mission-sending models. Mission-sending organizations can deal with many of the unmet needs of the Chinese missionary and facilitate missionary sending.
Family needs, particularly the needs of the spouse and children, are among the causes of the high attrition rate among Chinese long-term missionaries.
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending to unreached peoples. Field research findings with Chinese missionaries and with prospective Chinese medical missionaries highlight issues related to the needs of the Chinese missionary’s nuclear family. Although mission-sending organizations can help, much of the impetus for resolving difficulties faced by the Chinese missionary’s spouse and children must come from the Chinese missionaries themselves.
The Chinese church is vibrant and has growing passion to participate in missionary sending through undertakings like the Back to Jerusalem (BTJ) movement and the Indigenous Mission Movement from China (IMM China). Chinese Christians feel God calling them to long-term mission service. The principal factor encouraging them to long-term sustainable service is calling.
Understanding Chinese missionary perspectives on calling enables a clearer view of the foundations of the Chinese missionary undertaking. The Chinese missionary call is deeply rooted in a personal relationship with God. Despite personal loss or suffering, Chinese missionaries experience a joy that is centered in knowing Christ.
For a missionary, raising support is no easy task. When we were preparing for our first term of service, I wasn’t sure how we were ever going to raise the required budget. But for Chinese missionaries, the task is even harder. Coming from a culture that is not accustomed to supporting missionaries, obtaining financial backing is an uphill struggle.
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending. A study performed with long-term Chinese missionaries reveals four main current sources of support for Chinese mission activity. Common methods of missionary fund-raising are examined and frequently encountered fund-raising difficulties are reviewed. The Chinese church has difficulty financially supporting mission service and at the current time alternative strategies for Chinese missionary funding are still needed.
When I first went overseas, I thought things like medical insurance and retirement planning weren’t too important. Further, as funding for those two items added to the overall budget and that budget needed to be raised through supporters I personally contacted, I felt that these items were excessive. It seemed to me at the time that these items only delayed my matriculation to the field and added to the church’s financial burden in sending me and my family. I reasoned that God would take care of us anyway. Twenty years later, with retirement age nearing, (which won’t necessarily cause me to retire), I am grateful for the foresight of organizational leadership. And with my family members needing multiple previously unforeseen surgeries, I am grateful for the care we have received.
Financial issues significantly impact Chinese missionary-sending sustainability. For those Chinese physicians with mission field experience, greater degrees of field experience correlate with a greater ascribed degree of importance placed on these financial issues. Currently prospective Chinese medical missionary financial expectations are high. These expectations do not necessarily match with the lived reality of Chinese non-medical missionaries. Financial support models which can facilitate sending of Chinese missionary physicians need development.
Chinese children generally want to please their parents. Traditional Chinese culture encourages this, and those children who fall outside of this cultural norm may even be looked down upon by their peers. So what do Chinese Christians do if they want to become missionaries? How can they blend their responsibilities toward parents with the calling they feel from God to go to a foreign country to share the gospel?
The Chinese church passionately desires participation in missionary sending to unreached peoples. Nevertheless Chinese missionary attrition rates are high. A study performed using interviews with long-term Chinese missionaries and focus groups with short-term Chinese medical missionaries revealed several factors related to missionary attrition. This article examines the role of one of those factors—parent and extended family issues—and offers suggestions for resolving difficulties.
The church in China is in a period of incredible growth. Concurrent with this exponential numerical growth, Chinese Christians have developed a passionate interest in taking the gospel to parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe where relatively few Christians live scattered among two billion non-Christian people.