From March 11 to 12, 2019, the Protestant Church of the China Christian Council (CCC) / Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) of Hunchun City, Yanbian Korean Autonomous State, Jilin Province, held a training for Korean minority group church deacons.
According to the National CCC/TSPM, more than 120 deacons from 20 Korean meeting places attended the training.
Hunchun City is located in the lower reaches of the Tumen River in the eastern part of Jilin Province. The city is located at the junction of the three countries of China, Russia, and North Korea, and faces South Korea and Japan across the sea. The residents of the city of about 220,000 are Han Chinese, and Korean and Man minority groups. There are 30 Christian meeting places in Hunchun city that relate to the CCC/TSPM, of which 12 are for Koreans who worship in Korean. Hunchun City CCC/TSPM appointsa special group responsible for the pastoral guidance of the Korean churches and conducts training for the needs of the Korean church.
Pastor An Fengzhe, who was in charge of organizing training, said that the location in Hunchun City was very special. In recent years, due to the increasing number of people returning from working abroad, the meeting places for Christian activities in Hunchun had been disturbed by foreign affairs. At the same time, because young people have moved away to live and study, the local Korean population is aging and the number of believers in Korean churches has decreased. In order to cope with the changes in the situation, the Korean ministry department of the CCC/TSPM of Hunchun City decided to hold a deacons' training every quarter to equip these grassroots places to deal with heresy and penetration by cults.
Pastors Cui Xuelian, An Fengzhe, and Zheng Yuzhe, who were in charge of the lectures of the CCC/TSPM of the Hunchun church, taught "Biblical Prayer", "How Deacons Minister Biblically", "Explaining the Apostles' Creed", "How to Resist Heresy" as well as other topics.
Fourteen deaf deacons from the Hunchun City church also participated in the training. Zhao Yingji used sign language to translate.
- Translated by Ze Wang
