Discipling the Whole Nation of China
by Chuck Chan
Thirty years ago, China was still an under-developed country, struggling to survive in the world economy. Today, China is on her road to modernization and in many aspects, she has succeeded. One of her means is through market economic reform.
On her road to economic and political modernization, she comes to realize that she is also on a spiritual pilgrimage. The Christianization of China is in fact part of her modernization process whether she admits it or not. A spiritual revival and transformation has already been taking place inside China. Socially and economically, China is going through an accelerated urbanization process; she is being rapidly transformed into a modernized and globalized community.
Spiritually, Christianity is once again a major force in China. The newest estimate of the number of Christians in China is over 10% of the population. Our goal for China ministry is to transform her network communities in the crossroad of the Chinese people’s life.
However, the effort placed in evangelizing and discipling the whole nation of China has been done in sporadic micro planning largely due to a lack of a comprehensive macro strategy. A comprehensive macro strategy calls for the mission community to look at China as a whole nation and how the country has developed and modernized in the past thirty years.
Most of us Westerners conveniently think of teaching English or being a professor in the Chinese universities would be the route to evangelize China. No doubt, many urban house churches were born because of the active involvement of these teachers and university professors.
Most of our efforts are skewed toward two extreme directions: one was thirty years ago, that many of our discipleship and training programs were mainly targeting toward the rural areas of China; at that time, China was 80% rural; twenty years later, we try to send all our missionaries to the several mega-cities because of massive migration of the rural residents to these mega-centers; at this moment, China is almost 50% urbanized.
No doubt, many factory cell churches and urban cell churches were established. But, what about the small and medium size towns and the left-behind rural farmers and other functional people groups? They are more or less of neglected by our ministry organization. What about networking the movements along the Eastern coastal regions and southern China as a mighty unified force? What about setting up the new Antioch of China to send out missionaries to the far West? What about networking the movements in the capital city of Beijing to evangelize the high level politicians?
For the Chinese counterparts, we all tend to look at “land” as the ultimate resource to build the church of China. Therefore, massive amounts of money were poured into the building projects of the Three-Self Churches. Since there are never enough churches in China, these church buildings projects become the official church planting movement, both urban and rural.
The short-sightedness of this approach is that the building itself becomes the obstacle for further church growth. The Three-self Church does not encourage mission and church planting effort across certain city or district boundaries. Evangelism has to be done inside these church buildings. Nonetheless, the official churches have grown in vast number within the limited seating of these church buildings.
For the people group movement contenders, they are the lone rangers in the remote rural areas or mountainous areas of the country, striving to reach out to the minority rural farmers with their broken Mandarin, enticing the villagers’ children to pick up a few sentences of English. Much of their effort was to entertain the travelers and tourists. A few of them succeeded in translating the Bible into several minority languages.
There are two major kinds of community: the anthropological community and the functional community. The anthropological community is identified as a community sharing a common language and a common race. The anthropological community includes people groups such as the Han, Hui, Uighur, Kazak, Russian, Uzbek, Thai, Korean, Chinese American, Hakka, etc. The functional communities are peoples working in the same functional network such as factory workers, restaurant workers, taxi drivers, entertainers, reporters, writers, advertisers, Chinese opera performers, soldiers, international business executives, construction workers, engineers etc.
The functional community is a community where people meet for a common purpose such as education, cultural and entertainment activities, health care needs, religious activities, business activities, sports and political events. Because it is functional, it can be temporal. These kinds of communities have a limited time sharing period when people share a common function together. Because of this nature, a functional community can be dynamic. It can include peoples from various people groups and their influence and values can spread to the whole nation as they are dispersed in different directions.
Building A Network Community
Ministry is to find people at the crossroads of their lives. Crossroads are places where network community usually takes place. But what is a community?
A community includes core ingredients such as relationships, tradition, and values. A community is where people meet, work, interact, and communicate. A community is where people feel a sense of belonging, find a sense of identity: who we are as individuals as well as a group; where people live together by a shared value, tradition, language, culture or vision.
The members of a community share some shared forms of entertainment, such as watching an open-air opera, a rock concert, or a soccer game. Their children are educated in a shared value system that includes some common form of political belief, economic system, cultural value and religion. In the Hui community, a child is brought up as a Muslim. The Koran is whispered and read in his ear when he is young. They all grow up worshipping, praying and studying in the mosque.
A community sometimes shares a common form of health care system. Whether by witch doctor or a modern hospital, health care is the heart of a community. Health care facilities are where community shares the most difficult and heart-broken periods of their lives. It is therefore one of community's major crossroads. Sharing lives is where ministry takes place. Ministry is people serving people, lives sharing lives, hearts touching hearts. Targeting a community is actually targeting their crossroads.
What is the infrastructure of a community? The normal definition of the infrastructure is the transportation system and road network, water supply system, electrical and sewage system. However, a wider definition of the infrastructure of a network community is found in the crossroads of people's lives. These would include tourism, education, health care, sports, entertainment, business networks, cultural and religious activities. A new community would need these four pillars as much as any established community: 1) health care, 2) education, 3) business activities, 4) arts, entertainment and sports. These “four pillars” are the crossroads where people meet and interact as a community. Crossroads are the social-infrastructures of a community. Crossroads of people lives are the focal point of where ministry should take place.
Network Enterprises
People always ask questions like, “What kind of (business or community service) activities should I get involved in, in order to serve China?” The question should be rephrased: “What kind of community would I target for China’s modernization process?” or “What kind of network community will I build within this process?”
The key to build a community is to find people at their crossroads. These crossroads are infrastructures that support a newly formed community. These infrastructures are monuments such as schools, hospitals, factories or business facilities, sport arenas and entertainment facilities. To start an urban or rural ministry, we must begin penetrating these community social-
infrastructures. We may simply conclude that ministries such as 1) educational ministry; 2) medical ministry 3) factory ministry (or business ministry, or market place ministry) 4) entertainment or sports ministry are the focal points of any urban and rural ministry.
When we target a certain community, for example, a factory facility, we would begin to focus on building the “four pillars” as our ministry targets. A major manufacturer in southern China runs five factories with a total employee population of 25,000. Within their factory facilities, they have created a medical clinic, an employee hotline (for employee filing complaints of working condition and management practices), entertainment centers (dance hall, karaoke rooms, concert hall etc.), night school (computer training, arts & craft class, English class etc.), a decent sized library, and some sports facilities.
The company has also created a community care fund called the “Coal In The Snow Fund” to support employees who have special financial needs in the family such as unexpected medical costs, funeral costs or other emergency needs. This factory is run by committed Christians where strong Christian value is practiced. In fact, the “four pillars” of a community is planted within the factory facilities: 1) education, 2) medical, 3) business, 4) sports and entertainment. This community has already planted good seeds in their ground for any form of Christian ministry to take place.
Another example would be an electronic manufacturer in China. They have over 6,000 employees in their manufacturing plants in a medium sized township. Within their facilities, they have planted a medical clinic run by Christian doctors. They have also installed a community center where employees can have English class, computer training, interest groups, and other recreational activities. There is a kiosk where employees can buy snacks and food and purchase a birthday cake for a party. A birthday party is where Christian ministry usually takes place. The kiosk is run by devoted Christians. Christian ministry and presence is strong in this community.
When we try to penetrate any people group community, we also need to focus on the “four pillars.” First of all, we need to research and find out the tradition, religion, values and habits of their social infrastructure. What they believe and how they behave in the crossroads of their lives? Before we move, we must study. Before we study we must research. Before we research, we must pray. Then we may build alongside the “four pillars” of their community.
A newly established management training company in China is imparting Christian value, business ethics and character training in their management training curriculum. They target the young urban professionals for ministry. Although they did not quote any Bible verses, their stories and training materials have already reflected strong Christian presence and values. In China today, thousands and thousands of people are hungry for learning good management principles and good business ethics. In fact, many good Christian values and ethics are already imparted in good management principles and practice as also reflected in management literatures.
A city youth center was planted by a company in southern China at a factory township three years ago. This youth center provides library service, a ping-pong table, a DVD room and a guitar training room. Every week 200 + young factory workers from this factory town would flock to the youth center for fellowship, reading and study, recreation and entertainment. At this juncture of their crossroads, they become close friends and learn about Jesus Christ. Many of them also received counseling service and leadership training. This company is planning to plant a network of youth centers across China’s major urban centers.
Crossroads of people’s lives is the support system of a community. Within a community, certain organizations play an important role in supporting these crossroads. Organization, however, unlike community, is usually defined by its tasks: tasks such as development of education, healthcare, business, sports, entertainment and the arts.
Companies are formed to facilitate the “four pillars” in order to serve certain ministry focus. Companies which we called Network Enterprises are the strategy for targeting urban and rural communities in China. Companies such as English language schools, international schools, nursery and kindergarten, tourism agency, head-hunting agency, management training and consultancy, medical clinics, medical training consultancy, sports agency, advertising agency, musical and entertainment agency are the “four pillars” Network Enterprises.
Network Enterprises are people-intensive companies which address the mass of the population. Network Enterprises are created for both urban and rural ministry. Network Enterprises are the creative access for countries where creativeness is in great demand for ministry. Network Enterprises are in fact the path to the crossroads of people’s lives. Are you ready for this challenge?
However, the author strongly believes that modernization of any network community not only needs to take place within the crossroads of people's lives, but to implant the values of modernization into their hearts. These crossroads are indeed the software of modernization. These crossroads develop human relationship, business networks, educational systems, health care systems, entertainment and sports activities for recreational purpose, religious activities for human ideal and pursuit of such ideal.
The key to build a national community is to find people at their crossroads. Any developing countries that are in the process of modernization should have these crossroads mapped out in their development planning. Crossroads of people’s lives are the support system of a national community. The community is the infrastructure of a city. A city builds the infrastructure of a province. Provinces support the infrastructure of a nation. Let us all begin here as a network community of faith - to Disciple China as a whole nation!
Chuck Chan is the CEO of Pacific Rim Foundation - a strategy planning and research organization that aims at cultivating development of community social infrastructure for the network communities in China and the Asia Pacific Rim regions.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
Print
Email
Comments
Be the first one to add a comment.
To post a comment, please login or register