关注中国及世界各地华人教会的生活与见证，探讨教会牧养、领导、政教关系及变迁中的挑战。
Decades of overseas involvement in equipping Chinese church leaders have shown that training involves much more than unloading knowledge on a classroom of eager students. In discussions with dozens of experienced trainers over the course of several years, the following have emerged as essential factors for effective training.
"Shiba Da," the 18th Party Congress, concluded last week with the seven (not nine!) members of the reconstituted Politburo Standing Committee appearing together for the first time on the red carpet in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Many have asked what implications the Congress has for Christians in China. While it is known that religious policy was on the agenda this year, only time will tell how the closed-door discussions on this topic will play out in terms of actual policy.
A recent and still ongoing ChinaSource survey of Chinese Christians, who have experience in working together with foreign partners, provides insight for those seeking to partner with and serve the church in China.
In their desire to create authentic, pastoral training materials, early on this team of foreigners resolved to work toward putting their national staff in posts of increasing influence and authority while they stepped into self-restricted roles of coaching, and eventually, cheering from the stands. The author describes this work which is still in process.
The emerging generation of younger leaders in China will require friends, partners and collaborators who will come alongside them with a servant mentality and without agendas.
Both foreigners serving in China and Chinese are experiencing a profound shift in roles. Chinese believers are stepping to the forefront, as it should be, but what should foreigners be passing on to them? How does vision play into this and do we want to pass it on?
The following is a suggestion made by a Chinese pastor to the rest of the attendees at the 1890 Shanghai conference of all the Protestant missionaries in China. It must have taken a lot of courage and strong convictions for him to address the room full of foreigners in this manner (there were only a handful of Chinese delegates at the 1890 Conference). Yan's purpose in speaking was to remind the missionaries that in addition to attracting new converts, there was still much work to be done to care for the believers already in the churches.
The full title of this article is "How to Make the Church Chinese: Perspectives from the Religious, Academic, and Political Spheres" and is posted on the website of the China Christian Council/Three-Self Patriotic Movement (CCC/TSPM). Originally published in the official China Nationalities News, it examines the question of how Chinese the church is in China. While most Chinese Christians would likely agree that today's church is already Chinese both in character and leadership, many in the larger society have yet to acknowledge Christianity as genuinely a Chinese religion. The process of Sinicization, this writer argues, involves not only Christians themselves, but also China's intellectual and political elites.
Hong Kong-based ministry CCL called for September to be a month of prayer for China. This article, in the Christian Times summarizes the prayer requests included in the ministry's September newsletter. Of course you can use these as prayer points for October.
Encouraging and supporting local believers as they pursue God’s calling in their lives is much more difficult than simply teaching what is most comfortable for the teacher. Here are a few suggestions to help ensure that outsiders ministering in China remain focused on serving local Chinese Christian communities.
Crossing the river by feeling the stones, a popular Chinese idiom, is a fitting way to describe Chinas emerging urban church. Its leaders have no older generation to look up to, and the opportunities and challenges they face are unprecedented in Chinas history. In this article published in the Christian Times, one pastor describes the dangers facing todays urban church leaders. He cautions them to be humble and teachable, as the decisions they make will affect an entire generation.
With translated sermons, articles and blog posts, this new web site provides a platform from which non-Chinese speakers can access conversations taking place within China's on-line Christian community to broaden their understanding of the issues facing the Chinese church.