With the deepening of reform and opening up, urban churches and rural churches are becoming more and more different in the external environment and internal composition.
Although urban churches are more developed than rural churches, they are also faced with obstacles and challenges.
Pastor Fan serves in an urban church of a second-tier city in Henan Province. She introduces the current situation of urban churches in the passage. She has also pointed out the obstacles and challenges in the development and transformation of urban churches
The Current Situation of Urban Church
Urban churches have regional advantages. People in cities have access to rich resources. Believers can use the network to preach the gospel and learn the Bible. However, the urban church is now at its lowest point.
The secular world has much influence on people. The Internet has brought convenience as well as the temptation to people. In the past, people were relatively simple. Fame and fortune were not so important to them. At that time the gap between rich and poor was not large.
People used to live a simple life so they had pure faith. Although sometimes the Bible is difficult to buy, people's willingness of seeking God was true.
Why do people become secular nowadays? Read the Bible and we can find the answer. Sodom, Gomorrah city, and Noah's era are developed in the economy. Then people are drunk in the secular world's temptation. They begin to pursue money and reputation instead of God. Faith is only a spiritual support for their vacant mind.
The Problems of the Urban Church
1. Although the living conditions of modern people are quite good, it is more difficult to manage the church. Few young people serve full-time in the church. Pastor Fan said that that only two young Christians serve in her church.
Compared with the rural church, the young believers in the urban church are busy with work and family. They often choose to go on a holiday when they have a few days off. So they seldom join the party in the church, let alone the growth of spiritual life.
2. Although there are people baptized in the church every year, the growth of believers is not fast. For example, in Pastor Fan's church the number of new converted each year is about 130. Many of them gradually leave the church and never come back.
The church has arranged workers to retain new believers. However, there are some problems in the management and shepherding of new believers.
3. More and more migrants come to the city. The urban church began to focus on training believers from other places but ignored the training of local disciples. Foreign believers are more mobile. It is not easy for them to serve in a fixed church for a long time.
4 It becomes harder to preach the gospel. In the past, the church organized activities of distributing the gospel leaflets in communities and streets. However, those activities were not so effective. Now we think introducing acquaintance to the church is more effective, but it takes a lot of time.
Challenges and Transformation of Churches and Pastors
"There are many challenges." Pastor Fan said. The biggest challenge is the difficulty of shepherding. The spiritual life of many believers has stopped improving.
Faced with this situation, on the one hand, the church shall make a change. Pastor Van said that her church is now learning a course from an African church, which teaches pastors how to establish the church and cultivate disciples. Some ideas and methods in the course are also very useful in China's church.
On the other hand, pastors should keep pace with the times and never give up learning learn. Believers in the urban church are well educated. They may encounter all kinds of problems in their life. The pastors must keep learning in order to guide disciples and give them suggestions when they are in trouble.
