China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping has witnessed a significant shift. Formerly focused on China’s relationship with the world’s major powers, China’s leaders are now redirecting their attention to relations with the nations around China, as well as to those nations beyond with which China seeks to develop closer economic ties.
Many would agree that learning to work cross-culturally is one of the greatest barriers to achieving China’s Christian dream of becoming a mighty missionary nation. Without denying the challenges involved in raising up a cohort of culturally sensitive Chinese Christians, there is a yet another aspect of the Chinese missionary dream which has yet to receive much concerted attention. In addition to calling, equipping and sending the cross-cultural workers themselves, it is also necessary to call, equip, and mobilize the local congregations to play their part in the mission project.
Last month, we ran a series of blog posts by Joab Meyer about social media in China. He gave a helpful overview of the various platforms and tried to show how they (particularly WeChat) are useful for engaging with Chinese friends and building online communities.
Later in the month, the mainland site Christian Times published an article about how to use WeChat for the purposes of evangelism. The article is a report of a talk given by a pastor in Beijing. It is translated in full below. Please note that the terms Weixin and WeChat are interchangeable. Weixin is the official Chinese name of the app. WeChat is the English name.
Over the past couple of months, we have published on Chinese Church Voices a number of posts about the growing awareness of the importance and practice of cross-cultural missions by Chinese churches.
On November 26, the mainland site Christian Times published a long interview with a house church pastor in Shenzhen who has been leading short-term mission trips to Burma and other neighboring countries for several years. The title of the piece is “Shenzhen Pastor Talks about the Joy and Pain of Cross-Cultural Missions, Calling on the Church to Have the Courage to Pay the Price."
On November 26, the mainland site Christian Times published a long interview with a house church pastor in Shenzhen who has been leading short-term mission trips to Burma and other neighboring countries for several years. The title of the piece is “Shenzhen Pastor Talks About the Joy and Pain of Cross-Cultural Missions, Calling on the Church to Have the Courage to Pay the Price."
In recent years, some churches in China have begun to think about and become more involved in cross-cultural ministry among China’s ethnic minorities. In August the Mainland site Gospel Times published an article about efforts by some churches in eastern and northeastern China to establish churches in minority areas.
As the church in China has become increasingly global in its outlook and better connected relationally (if not organizationally) to the larger global church, its leaders are seriously weighing their role in the task of world evangelization. This cross-cultural vision is not new, either for the Chinese church globally or for the church in China; however, it is the resources, connections and capabilities of the urban church that are now making possible the emergence of a new missions movement from within China.
The past decade has seen a groundswell of passion among Christians in China to pursue cross-cultural ministry. A corresponding wave of activity among outside organizations and churches has aimed at equipping China's church for this task.
The past three decades have seen tens of thousands of Christians from outside China engaged in myriad activities aimed at serving the Chinese church and society. Today their role is changing. New skills – one in particular – are needed to work out what this role and what their relationship to China's church should look like in days to come.
In this article, translated from the site jidutu123.com, the author looks at the challenges of doing urban missions in China. His main point is that doing urban missions, traditionally defined as ministering to the marginalized, is difficult in China because it assumes that Christianity is already part of the mainstream of culture, something that is not true in China. He then calls on the church to look for ways to engage with society rather than standing in opposition to it. Only by doing this will Christianity gain influence in Chinese society.
Many people in the West are familiar with the Back to Jerusalem Movement, which refers to a movement of Chinese Christians to take the gospel to Central Asia, and then "back to Jerusalem."
Fewer people, perhaps, are aware of the fact that this movement, or vision, is not something new; it really began in the 1940's when God called a group of Chinese believers to take the Gospel to Northwest China (Xinjiang) and Central Asia. They formed a team called the "Preach Everywhere Gospel Band," and fanned out across Xinjiang.