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Lead Article
Welcome to the City
Reaching the cities of China requires an urban strategy and the combined efforts of church. Serving the city, seeking good for the city expresses God's love for the city and contributes to carrying out his plan for the city.
Speeding Up? Or Slowing Down?
A Study on the Current Church Growth Situation in China
[…] VS “Number from Five Years Ago” Sample Churches Current > Five Years Ago No Change Current < Five Years Ago Total Municipality/Provincial Capital 69.0% 18.3% 12.7% 100.0% City 83.7% 5.8% 10.5% 100.0% County/Town 74.2% 12.9% 12.9% 100.0% Village 41.7% 19.4% 8.9% 100.0% Total 71.0% 12.9% 16.1% 100.0% Accordingly, the growth rate of “current reported size” over that of five years ago is as below: We can see from Table 1 that 71% of the sample churches claim they have increased in attendance significantly over the past five years. Only 16.1% of them say the opposite, and 12.9% say there has been no change. This shows that most of the churches have had good growth. Table 2: Growth Rate of “Current Reported Size” over “Five Years Ago” (%) Sample Churches Growth Rate of Previous Five Years Average Annual Growth Reference: Sample Size Municipality/Provincial Capital 43.5% 7.5% 71 City 70.1% 11.2% 86 County/town 42.7% 7.4% 31 Village -4.6% -0.9% 36 Total 49.7% 8.4% 224 Table 2 suggests that except for the rural churches, which reported a negative growth of -0.9%, the other respondents all showed considerable growth. The total average annual growth is 8.4%, quite a handsome figure and also in tune with those saying there is a growth rate of 8%. During the time of visiting the various churches, we noticed a very interesting and also common phenomenon, the figures we heard from the church leaders indicating the current number at the church and the number from the week just previous to the interview were different. For instance, often times, especially in rural areas, when we asked the church leader what the size of the congregation was, they might say 200 or 300 people. Yet, when we asked how many people attended the previous week’s service, the answer might be only 20 or 30. Why was that? Later we learned that the current number included those who had already moved to other places. Table 3: “Current Reported Number” VS “Previous Week’s Attendance” Sample Churches Current > Previous Week No Change Current < Previous Week Total Municipality/Provincial Capital 60.3% 30.1% 9.6% 100% City 63.6% 30.3% 6.1% 100% County/Town 81.3% 18.8% 0.0% 100% Village 72.2% […]
Supporting Article
The Formation of a New City-to-City Partnership
An Interview by ChinaSource
There is a growing trend for groups of churches in a city or region to partner together to develop a strategy for effective ministry. Recently a group of churches did just that and choose to focus their ministry efforts on one city in China. Here is an interview with a church leader who has […]
Peoples of China
“City Slickers” and “Country Bumpkins”
Are They People Groups?
[…] to gain even a grudging level of acceptance from the ranchers in the small town in Texas where I served as a young pastor, fresh from the city. I don’t even want to know what they called me behind my back! I suspect you have similar memories. In an incisive issue of ICWA Letters, China […]
Anticipating Urban China
[…] Although China has an ancient culture and extensive history, far too little of it has been preserved. Apart from a few scattered exceptions such as Beijing’s Forbidden City, warfare and natural disasters have combined to leave surprisingly little of her ancient cities intact. Modernization has added one more element to this destructive tendency as […]
Lead Article
The City and the Church
Towards an Urban Theology in China
[…] also the reason why therapeutic programs have become more popular with the trend of urbanization, even within the church. In his classic work The Meaning of the City, French theologian and sociologist Jacque Ellul offers an exegesis of “the city” in the Bible, integrating sociological insights with Christian anthropology and eschatology. Ellul points out that, […]
View From the Wall
A Field Study of “The Church of Almighty God” Cult
[…] of the new religious groups. In the early l990s, China’s economic transformation resulted in a great migration into the cities resulting in the spread of Christianity to city dwellers. The increasing number of Christians in urban areas became the major source of growth for the total number of Christians. About the same time, Eastern […]
Supporting Article
The Problem of Gender Imbalance in Chinese City Churches (1)
Part A
The ratio of men to women in the churches of China is about 1:2. Sometimes the ratio is even more skewed: as much as one man for every three to five women. This article explores the wide range of issues these gender inequalities create within the church.
Supporting Article
How China’s Religious Affairs Bureaucracy Works
[…] Catholics to insert “patriotic” into their names, a move that highlighted the CCP’s suspicion of where their loyalties lay.) The TSPM has offices at the national, provincial, city and lower levels. TSPM leaders are state employees, receiving state salaries and pensions upon retirement. Although Protestants typically head the associations, a state employee works closely […]