China has an unusual place in the global Christian community. Its church is growing at a tremendous rate while at the same time it has some of the greatest numbers of unreached people. And it is still a Creative Access Nation (CAN), a place that is not open to traditional mission activities. So while the church in China seeks to take its place in bringing the gospel to the world, it is doing so from a place where missions cannot be done openly. It is a Creative Access Nation taking the gospel To ALL nations and thus needs a CANTALL missiology.1
The focus of most missiologies is on the receiving field and how to effectively and appropriately proclaim the gospel and establish growing churches where Christ is not known. The church in China needs to consider how to mobilize, train and sustain workers on those fields from a sending base that may be more hostile to missions than the country they are seeking to reach.
According to Yi Du Kam, a China worker with extensive Chinese ministry experience, an appropriate missiology is just one of the building blocks that is still needed for there to be an effective mission movement from China. He discusses those building blocks in the spring issue of the ChinaSource Quarterly. His article "Indigenous Mission Movement from China: A Current Assessment" also reports a number of exciting breakthroughs in missions from China and reiterates warnings that need to be heeded if missions from China are to have long-term effectiveness.
Join us in giving thanks for the work of the gospel in China and spreading out from China. These are exciting days.
Mourning with Those Who Mourn
Last week was a tragic week beginning with the Boston Marathon bombing, followed by the explosion at a fertilizer factory in Texas, ending with the earthquake in Sichuan Province. However, these are only the tragedies that captured international headlines. Microbloggers in China noted that there are many other things that threaten the peace and well-being of people around the world. In Chinese Church Voices we read:
As news that a Chinese student had been killed in the Boston Marathon bombing broke in China, netizens took to Weibo to react and comment, and Christians joined the conversation. Some of the comments reference other tragic events in the news this week, such as the earthquake in Pakistan, the poisoning of a university student in Shanghai, and the spread of the H7N9 flu virus.
One noted that both the student who died in Shanghai and the one who died in Boston had either attended seeker Bible studies or attended church. They all either call for prayer for the victims families, or urge people to put their trust in Christ.
(Read translations of posts on Weibo at ChineseChurchVoices.)
Join with us and our brothers and sisters in China as we pray for those who are suffering.
The ChinaSource Team
Earthquake image source: CNN
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1 Yu Du Kam, "Indigenous Mission Movement from China: A Current Assessment," ChinaSource Quarterly 15:1 (Spring 2013)
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