With the process of urbanization, a large number of young and middle-aged rural Chinese people flow to the cities. Influenced by the development of the times, rural churches see fewer young people. Most people who attend the church are elderly, and occasionally a few are middle-aged. The rural church is losing its vitality. Many pastors and co-workers are worried about this situation and are also exploring various ways to find a way out for the further development of rural churches.
County churches whose situation resembles rural churches are feeling the pressure more than urban ones. A pastor surnamed L (pseudonym for protection), who works in a county in southern Fujian, said that there are usually only three or four hundred people meeting in this county-level church, but during the Spring Festival, there are thousands of people. Many young people have gone to nearby cities like Zhangzhou and Xiamen to work and settle down, so some parents also move to these cities with their adult sons and daughters. He jokes that the church he is in belongs to a "rural city" and is at the lowest level of the urban churches. Because people from the towns and villages would move to the city because their children go to school and so on, the believers in his church are relatively more.
"But down in the countryside, the church is really miserable. There are fewer and fewer people in the countryside, and it is harder and harder to spread the gospel." He added that in rural areas, the patriarchal clan idea is widely accepted, so people would look at Christians judgmentally. If believers are not wise enough to deal with relationships, it would be very troublesome (for example, if believers avoid participating in funerals and weddings). "In rural areas, people usually come to Jesus only when they have physical problems or encounter some difficulties, and there are many empty-nesters in rural areas."
Rural churches also have a problem in paying their preachers. From an economic point of view, the lack of contribution is a big problem for rural churches, so they cannot afford to support ministers. Due to the lack of pastoral care, the church is slowly losing its original believers, so the situation is getting worse and worse.
As for the reality of rural churches, Pastor L believes that the solution is that urban churches support rural churches. Urban churches need to offer help in terms of the hardware needs of rural churches, such as building churches, and the spiritual needs of pastoring and supporting preachers.
In this regard, some churches and pastors have made useful attempts.
Some churches in cities and counties in Fujian have solved the financial worries of grassroots preachers by establishing a comprehensive salary system. In the 1990s, a city church in southern Fujian developed a salary evaluation system for pastors in the city. According to this system, the salary is assessed according to the years of pastorship, ordination, administrative position, and educational level. This system is implemented in all grass-roots churches in the city. Whether it is the pastor of the churches in the city or the rural churches scattered in various mountains and islands, everyone is assessed according to the same standard, even the theological students who have just participated in the ministry. The salary can reach about 4,000 yuan.
Since the system of equal pay for equal work was promoted in the city's grass-roots churches, almost all grass-roots churches in the city have full-time pastors assigned by the local CC&TSPM, and there has been no shortage or loss of pastors due to economic problems, thus the church staff can be committed to ministry. At present, in some rural churches, believers will send rice, noodles, and vegetables to preachers, and they have established a deep relationship with each other in the church.
In a church in a county in East Fujian Province, the issue of the salary of pastors and co-workers is also an important part of the construction of a pastoral team. In this county, the wages of pastoral workers are unified throughout the county. In 2000, the salary system began to be adjusted according to that of primary and secondary school teachers, and in 2010, the salary level of pastoral workers with medium-grade professional titles was equal to that of teachers. In 2006, the church of this county began to pay social security for the co-workers, and in 2013, it covered all pastoral staff in the county.
It is also clear to church leaders that no one wants to be in the grassroots churches if the life of grassroots pastors is insecure. "Due salary is not only the guarantee of the basic life of the preachers but also the preservation of the self-esteem of the preachers and the integrity of the ministry, and it is also a basic barrier for the preachers to resist temptations and hardships of the secular world."
Apart from compensation issues, pastors stationed in rural churches face doubts about their self-worth, family care challenges, and children's education problems. To address these, the entire pastoral team helps them. Over the years, pastoral workers have persisted in participating in morning prayers at 5:30 AM, bringing diverse issues and difficulties before God in prayer. Additionally, the church organizes four pastoral training sessions annually, inviting experts and pastors from other regions to teach. All pastoral workers attend these sessions diligently. The church also sends young members to theological seminaries across the country for further training.
However, in actual visits, I find that there are few cases in which churches could give equal remuneration for work of equal value, standardize urban and rural compensation, and support rural church development. In Meizhou, Guangdong, Pastor Y adopts a flexible method to support local pastors.
In 2018, Pastor Y began managing two churches, which combined have around 300 believers and annual donations of about 110,000 yuan. However, there are four young pastors, two elders, and one seminarian serving these two churches.
The local approach to supporting them involves jointly paying pastors with other gathering sites, as they are advocated to serve at different sites. A pastor can receive 500-800 yuan in subsidies for preaching at a meeting point twice a month. Combined with the approximately 3,000 yuan from the church he serves, each pastor receives a salary of over 4,000 yuan, with social security paid for by the church.
"The head of the church must find ways to solve salary issues and arrange appropriate work for pastors." Currently, the church continues to recruit new pastors, as Pastor Y knows that the Meizhou churches generally lack pastors. Newly recruited pastors can also be introduced to other churches or jointly hired and supported by several churches. The churches share employee resources while maintaining independent management.
In addition to addressing the problem of supporting rural pastors, some churches also help local rural churches nurture believers. A city church in northern Fujian has been helping local rural churches grow for many years. On the one hand, they strengthen the preaching ministry, encouraging believers to participate in the Great Commission. On the other hand, they help cultivate volunteer pastors, advising them to attract people to the gospel through funeral services and visits to relatives and friends.
If a person wants to learn about the gospel, the church assigns more staff workers caring for newcomers to follow up until new meeting points are established in local villages and towns. Once a new meeting point is established, the church sends theologically trained workers to provide pastoral care and supervisory support until the local meeting point can become self-sustaining, at which point the workers are withdrawn. For places with existing meeting points, the church also helps to carry out activities, further enhancing their vitality.
Another city church in northern Fujian strengthens the training of migrant believers, with their spiritual lives improving. The hope is that when they return to their hometowns, they can sow gospel seeds, bringing back advanced pastoral and management concepts.
Due to varied reasons, some pastors and believers have left rural churches and moved to cities. However, they still care deeply for their hometown churches and strive to support and contribute to the church’s growth. A pastor in Guangdong, who has served in rural churches for over a decade and is now serving in a city church, still keeps rural churches in mind. Currently, the church is working hard to equip retired, financially stable individuals who have a burden for rural churches, as they can enter the rural ministry after completing their theological studies.
- Translated by Abigail Wu and Nicolas Cao
