The last six weeks have been full ones for ChinaSource as the staff met for our in-person meetings in Los Angeles, August 17–21, and the ChinaSource International Board of Directors met virtually for the annual board meetings August 13–15, with ChinaSource staff participating in several sessions.
These meetings were timely and encouraging as we approach the end of fiscal year 2025/2026 and look forward to our next fiscal year, October 1, 2026–September 30, 2027.
As we thankfully and prayerfully looked back and ahead, we praised God for his sustaining grace, fruitful kingdom outcomes, new open doors for ministry, and a fresh season ahead.
Highlight Friends
I was very grateful for these gatherings because they provided opportunities to express my gratitude to everyone for the joy and privilege of serving with them these past eight years. I told the team and board that serving with ChinaSource has been a highlight of my life because they have been “highlight friends” I will never forget. Our founder, Brent Fulton, and I have especially enjoyed this friendship and ministry reunion and the opportunity to serve together as part of a friendship spanning forty-five years!
The staff and board expressed their love and encouragement to me as well. It’s always best when Christian colleagues are also dear friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, because we are all growing and maturing as Christ’s followers, making this essential discipleship territory. Through the years, we have shared the ups and downs of life together, resulting in a connection that is lifelong and beyond.
What a Privilege!
The ChinaSource team has been privileged to serve alongside Chinese Christ followers, together lifting up the name of Jesus Christ, witnessing his kingdom advance through ministry partnerships that continue to grow and make a transformational difference in lives, both through mainland China and throughout the global Chinese diaspora churches.
As with any calling of this sort, the team has engaged good, hard work, including many peaks and valleys. However, our Lord has met us every step of the way through dark, gray, and sunny days. He has been our peace and joy in the context of the Christian community that the apostle Paul calls us to throughout his letters.
Love That Binds Together in Perfect Unity
Colossians 3:12–15 is only one of several Pauline exhortations and reminders that the end doesn’t justify the means, no matter how forcefully the evangelism, discipleship, and church-planting metrics beckon. There is a way that provides a more genuine story and is truer to our heavenly Father’s nature—the way of love that binds together all the “one another” relational virtues Paul talks about, bringing the church together in perfect unity in Christ, yielding a fragrant peace and thanksgiving through the body of Christ that is essential in discipling the nations.
Brent Fulton speaks powerfully to this in his Reframing the Mission series and, over the last several months, there have been many ChinaSource website articles that speak forthrightly about our calling to love one another so that the world will see that we are his disciples, and compelling unity will result.
At ChinaSource, we talk and pray a lot about the importance of honoring and loving each other if our mission to help catalyze partnerships in the gospel and activate prayer across generations is to be favored by God and be seen as credible by ChinaSource friends, co-laborers, and partners.
The Tension of Unfinished Symphonies
Theologian Ronald Rolheiser writes, “We would rather make the uncertain certain than live in the tension of unfinished symphonies.” It has been such an honor to live in the tension of God’s unfinished ChinaSource symphony, thirty years in the writing and still no finale in sight. In fact, by God’s grace and with the help of the ChinaSource staff, board, and our incoming president, I know ChinaSource is in the best of hands.
Please pray with us as the search for our new president progresses well. Thank you for praying that we will soon be able to introduce our new leader!
Kerry Schottelkorb
President
Ways to Pray
Praise and Thanks
- Praise the Lord for raising up young adults with a passion for Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the Great Commission, and the Body of Christ. Please see “I Thought I Was Looking for a Better Church” by Levi Wu, September 7, 2026, and “Where Is God Leading Me?” by Shipaul, September 18, 2026.
- Thank the Lord for teaching his people to be still, listen, and wait in him. Please see“Learning to Be Still” by Anubhuti Raje, September 14, 2026.
- Praise God for Sparks—a ministry that “helps people to enter more deeply into Scripture and allow God’s Word to shape their lives.” Please see “What If the Church Does Not Need Another Christian AI?” by Arleen Luo, September 11, 2026.
- Rejoice with us that the search for the next ChinaSource president is going well, and please pray with us that God’s person will be selected and will respond to God’s call.
Prayer
- Please pray that God’s people will neither “treat AI as a person” nor “treat people like AI.” See “Don’t Treat AI as a Person” by Jerry An, September 14, 2026.
- Please pray that the worldwide Chinese church will generate “a culture of ‘co-learning’ and ‘co-leading’ while ‘co-creating’ with God.” See “CCOWE 2026: A Jubilee Retrospective versus a Centennial Retrospective” by Sylvia Yuan, September 8, 2026.
- Please join us in praying that the future mission of Chinese churches will be “to become, in Christ, a community of witness that crosses cultures, connects civilizations, and participates in the mission of the kingdom of God.” See “Longing for Deeper Unity” by Ezra Li, September 4, 2026.
- Please pray that the emerging church in Asia will not simply seek “its turn at the center” but will “take its place more fully in a mission landscape no longer organized around a single center.” See “Apparently, I’m Already the Older Generation” by Andrea Lee, August 28, 2026.
News and Notes
ChinaSource Team News
- Joann Pittman will be speaking at the Godward Life Conference in Minneapolis on September 26. The title of her talk: Bamboo Resiliency: Lessons from the Church in China. If you are in the Twin Cities and would like to attend the conference, please visit the conference website to register.
- On September 20, Kerry Schottelkorb preached at La Habra Hills Presbyterian Church.
- Brent Fulton preached at Northside Christian Church on August 9.
- Joann Pittman was a guest on Steve Schirmer’s podcast, Living Enviado podcast, published in August. You can watch the video here.
In Case You Missed It
A selection of recently published items:
- Doing Theology from Many Centers, ChinaSource Scholarship, September 22.
- Building Bridges, ChinaSource Stories, September 21.
- Where is God Leading Me?, ChinaSource Stories, September 18.
- ZGBriefs, September 17.
- Learning to Be Still, ChinaSource Ideas, September 15.
- Don’t Treat AI as a Person, ChinaSource Ideas, September 14.
- What If the Church Does Not Need Another Christian AI?, ChinaSource Ideas, September 11.
- ZGBriefs, September 10.
- CCOWE 2026: A Jubilee Retrospective versus a Centennial Retrospective, ChinaSource Ideas, September 8.
- I Thought I Was Looking for a Better Church, ChinaSource Stories, September 7.
- Longing for Deeper Unity, ChinaSource Ideas, September 4.
- ZGBriefs, September 3.
- A Church in Motion, ChinaSource Ideas, September 1.
- From Confidence to Curiosity, ChinaSource Ideas, August 31.
- Apparently, I’m Already the “Older Generation”, ChinaSource Ideas, August 28.
- ZGBriefs, August 27.
- After Passing the Microphone, ChinaSource Ideas, August 25.
- When “Chinese” Is Not One Thing, ChinaSource Scholarship, August 24.
- Charting a Path Forward, ChinaSource Ideas, August 21.
- ZGBriefs, August 20.
