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.
We often hear about how the church in China is looking for ways to increase its presence in the "public square;" in other words trying to be more visible in society. This article from the Gospel Times is about a family in Shenzhen that is literally doing evangelism in the public square.
This cartoon was recently posted on Kuanye, a popular Christian website. It pokes a little bit of fun at Chinese "Christianeze."
In this post on the popular Christian site Voice in the Wilderness (kuanye), the writer addresses a fundamental theological question: What does it mean to believe in Jesus?
As the environment changes and restrictions loosen, many Chinese Christians are turning their attention to the issue of how to be salt and light in their communities. This article, published on the popular Christian site Kuanye Zhi Sheng ("Voice in the Wilderness") is about a local ministry in southern China that is reaching out to care for some of China's "left-behind children," children who are left behind in villages and small towns when their parents go to the cities to work.
Amidst the rapid and relentless change taking place in China today, three dynamics in particular are profoundly affecting the role of traditional nonprofit efforts in the country. This raises the question of what sort of entities will allow for sustainable engagement in the future.
With the explosion of private schools in China has come an emerging opportunity for the faith-based community to offer an alternative to the current lopsided system. By taking a holistic approach to education, these schools can prepare students for life, not simply the next exams, and can also equip parents to fulfill their vital role in the academic, emotional, social, and spiritual development of their children. Variations on the traditional home schooling model developed in the West are also being pursued in China by believing parents who choose not to send their children to public schools.
For the fourth straight year in row, the number of college hopefuls taking the national university entrance exam, or gaokao, has dropped. Analysts trace the decline to a corresponding drop in the number of children born at the beginning of the last decade due to China's one-child policy. However, the decrease also suggests two realities facing young people in China today.
In the last post we featured an interview with Dr. Zhao Xiao, a prominent Beijing economist and outspoken Christian, conducted in 2008. This article, in the Gospel Times (January 2012), is a report on a talk that Zhao gave addressing the question of how China's future missionary sending movement will be supported.
An interview with economist Dr. Zhao Xiao.
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.