Visiting with Chinese Partners
Mr. Derek Duncan, the Global Relations Minister for East Asia and the Pacific of Global Ministries and I were invited by China Christian Council (CCC) and the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China (TSPM) to visit mainland China this past spring.
It was our first time visiting China in person after Covid-19 pandemic. During this trip, we visited our mission partners in Shanghai, Nanjing, Yunnan and Shaanxi province. The purpose of the trip is to strengthen the mission partnership and to seek future cooperation in church ministries.
In Shanghai, Rev. Xu Xiaohong, chairman of TSPM and Rev. Wu Wei, president of CCC, welcomed us at the office of CCC/TSPM. They provided a brief introduction of the protestant Church in China.
At the present time, there are about 40 million Protestant Christians in China, 70% of them live in the rural areas.60,000 churches and meeting places have been opened since 1980. 70% of churches are newly built after 2000. There are 14,000 ordained pastors and elders, and 22,000 preachers. There are 22 theological seminaries and Bible schools with about 3600 seminarians and 1200 graduates each year. 90 million copies of the Bible have been printed including 13 minority languages Bibles.
Rev. Wu introduced one of the current ministries of the CCC&TSPM by promoting the Sinicization of Christianity in China. The purpose of the Sinicization campaign is not only the expectation of the government, but CCC/TSPM also called on churches in China to be faithful to Biblical truth, rooted in Chinese culture, and able to contextualize its theology in China.
We reviewed the mutual long-term friendship and mission partnership, and shared both churches’ current situations and challenges after the COVID-19 pandemic. We discussed theological education, church pastoral care, social services and future exchanges and cooperations. We looked forward to the China-USA Protestant Church Forum to be held in the U.S. in August this year.
During our trip, we visited our mission partners – Nanjing Union Theological Seminary, Amity Foundation, Drum Tower Hospital, Yunnan Provincial Christian Council and seminary, Baoshan Christian Council, Shaanxi Provincial Christian Council and Bible School. We were warmly welcomed by the church friends. We were impressed by the church development and ministries’ range of theological education, social services, disaster relief, vocational, socio-cultural programs, and minority ministries.
We attended the Sunday Worship at Trinity International Church in Kunming and Little Water Well Miao Church, a minority church in a small village in the mountains. The pastor of the Miao Church invited Derek to share a message about how the American church celebrates Holy Communion. The church choir’s repertoire was a fusion of traditional Miao and classic Western hymns. The choir was a natural way for the Miao people to express their Christian faith and connect with their traditional culture. The choir has been featured in mainstream Chinese media outlets, performed on stage at the National Center for Performing Arts in Beijing, and even toured internationally. They invited us to have lunch with them and their hospitality was wonderful and gave us an opportunity to learn their culture as well.
During our trip, we stated that this visit enabled us to have a deeper understanding of the situation of our mission partners in China. Global Ministries would like to share the information we learned from this visit with the churches in the United States, to improve mutual-understandings and look forward to future cooperation.
The first part of our visit was with the delegation of the Asia Pacific Forum (APF) in Shanghai and Nanjing. APF consists of area executives of global ministries of Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, American Baptist Church, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, and the United Church of Canada, who work in missions and ministries with ecumenical partners across Asia and the Pacific.
CCC and TSPM of China will organize the China-US Forum in Chicago between August 27 & 29, 2024. This forum is co-sponsored by APF to share updates and reflection of the ministries in China, the U.S. and Canada after Covid impact, with the goal to strengthen mutual understanding and respect between CCC and ecumenical Christian families in North America. We look forward to further cooperation and efforts to encourage the dialogue of the civil societies of China and western countries. We appreciate your support and prayers for the ministries in China.
G. Lou’s appointment is made possible by gifts to Disciples Mission Fund, Our Church’s Wider Mission, and your special gifts.