When looking back at the churches in China between 1979 and 2009, we can see that growth was one of its most prominent features. Despite numerous challenges and inexperience, grassroots churches generally benefited from the era and developmental dividends, achieving exponential growth in membership and size.
Since 2009, the period of vigorous growth has subsided. While some churches have seized opportunities for development during special times (such as leveraging online gatherings during the pandemic), many grassroots churches generally feel the strain of stagnation and struggle to maintain vitality. Coupled with other factors, this has led many pastors to adopt a laid-back mentality. During a visit to a region with relatively developed churches, I was surprised to hear local pastors estimate that about 80% of pastors or churches show this laid-back attitude, exacerbating the perception that churches are struggling to sustain vitality and continuous development.
However, regardless of the era or environment, there are always churches that serve as spiritual beacons, maintaining vitality and continuous growth, passing on the faith. This holds true today. Compared to the monotonous forms of Chinese churches decades ago, today’s orthodox Protestant churches exhibit greater diversity in terms of categories and theological stances. By category, there are rural churches, urban churches, migrant worker churches, and churches for professionals, etc. Theological stances encompass Fundamentalism, Charismaticism, Evangelicalism, Reformed theology, and others.
Within the diversities of regions, theological positions, and church systems, we can find churches that remain vibrant and sustainable. Although they vary in form and characteristics, they all grasp the fundamental missions and responsibilities of a church – gathering, nurturing, training, serving, and evangelizing – to meet the needs of people and the times.
Upon closer examination of these vibrant cases, seven key principles are concluded, ranked from most to least important. By solidly implementing two or three of these points, a church can regain vitality and achieve growth; some churches may even exhibit attractiveness by excelling in just one of these points.
Below are the seven points:
I. Emphasizing Sunday worship and sermons
II. Fostering daily devotion and spirituality
III. Providing abundant pastoral resources
IV. Focus on training and educating co-workers
V. Exploring the changing strategies of evangelization
VI. Social service as a new extension
VII. Renewing the mode of management and development
While part 1 discusses the first three points, this article articulates the rest points.
IV. Focus on training and educating co-workers
"What is most valuable in the 21st century? Talents!" Originating from the sensational script of a certain movie, this statement has become the consensus of our era. In retrospect, those churches that experienced significant growth during the past few decades attached the greatest importance to training disciples and co-workers. During the past ten years, this trend has become even more prominent.
All along the ratio between pastors and parishioners in churches in China has never been high. Since the churches have been subdivided into smaller congregations or operated through cell groups, this problem has been exacerbated. According to Pastor Chen from Shandong, the urgent and gigantic mission of the church is to train more full-time and voluntary workers. A certain Pastor Li from Beijing said, “If the Church of China wants to make significant progress during the next stage so as to stem the tide of stagnation or degeneration during the next 10-20 years, it must possess the most excellent and exemplary talents --- this is the most crucial factor.” Such talents refer to not only pastors and seminary students but also rank-and-file believers.
The nurturing of talents requires massive patience, time, and energy. Now different types of resources, curricula, and handbooks on co-worker and discipleship training are readily available. Regarding theological education, during the 1990s, the Church of China started exploring courses on daily devotion. By now, three decades have elapsed. Obviously, on the basis of traditional theological education and academic systematization, there needs to be more emphasis on the sinicization and implementation of the Christian faith.
V. Exploring the changing strategies of evangelization.
Right at the beginning, almost 2,000 years ago, evangelization was one of the most important missions of the Church. While the mission remains the same, the strategies have undergone numerous changes. During the past 40 years, there have been three important changes in the strategies of evangelization: miracles and wonders during the 1980s and 1990s, gospel tracts and verbal testimonies during the 1990s and 2010s, and the increasing emphasis on relations and testimonies in daily lives since the year 2010.
In about 2014, a certain city church on the eastern coast ceased distributing gospel tracts and spreading verbal testimonies, focusing instead on building relationships. According to the pastor of this church, the era of gospel tracts is over. She explained, Previously, many people neither heard about the gospel nor read any gospel tract. So they were very curious. But now the situation has totally changed: no one bothers reading gospel tracts anymore. Even if tens of thousands of gospel tracts were distributed, just one or two people would come to church and accept Christ. This would be deemed a ‘satisfactory result’. But even more than usual, no one will come to church because they have received a gospel tract. Thus, they re-examined the Bible and discovered that Jesus spread His ministry through relationships. Peter and Andrew brought their brothers and friends to Jesus. Also, very often someone who got healed by Jesus testified to the other villagers about Jesus’ healing power and even his identity as Christ. All these show that Jesus did not always preach to strangers and Hhe e often spread the gospel through relationships. Now their gospel strategy is as follows: first try various means to build up relationships and then share the gospel.
The strategy adopted by Pastor Xu and his co-workers from northeast China is evangelization through relationship-building and life testimonies. According to Pastor Hui, in our society, mutual trust between people is very fragile. If a person is approached by a stranger, he will subconsciously fortify himself with self-defense and automatic resistance. But during the 1970s and 1980s, people communicated with strangers with more trust and good intentions. Under the present social-cultural influence, Christians telling strangers about the gospel is doubtlessly full of challenges. "In our view, the best strategy for gospel outreach is building relationships. Moreover, it is not proselytizing by verbal preaching but through testimonies in daily life.
A certain city church in Guangdong found that it is hard for old believers to take newcomers to church. Besides, if the newcomer does not understand what is being preached, it could be very embarrassing. Thus, they promote relationship-building, encouraging members to reach out to their friends and relatives by holding seminars for extended families and different professions.
Apart from this, watching movies, organizing tours, reading clubs, and cultural seminars are also being used for gospel outreach, and they do bear fruit.
VI. Social service as a new extension
According to a certain brother from Zhejiang Province who has been ministering through social service for many years, it was previously easier to invite people to church. Now it is much harder. So a change of mentality is necessary --- the church needs to reach out to the masses. He uses the analogy of "a new deep-water pier" to describe the potential of the church in offering social services.
According to the analysis of a Christian writer from Jiangsu Province, owing to historical reasons, the church has all along attached the greatest importance to structure and organization, while neglecting the offering of social services. Thus, the church of our time should embrace a social structure, offering social services, and participating in social management, thereby manifesting its core values and social responsibilities, demonstrating to society that the Christian faith entails unconditional love and does not expect any return or reward. As a matter of fact, the church has a centuries-old tradition of social service value system.
According to Brother G, who has helped churches participate in the gestation of social services for many years, an over-emphasis on evangelization during the offering of social services can backfire and diminish the scope of the gospel. Likewise, the slogan "Believe in Jesus, go up to heaven; reject Jesus, go down to hell" narrows the spectrum of the gospel. Some people subdivide the Christian mission into two facets: the gospel mission and the social mission. But such subdivision can easily lead to overemphasis on one or the other. For example, taking the "short, swift, money-saving" approach so as to see the fruit of the gospel as soon as possible: distributing charity quickly, showing love briefly, and seizing the opportunity to preach about Jesus... But actually, the kingdom of God has a very wide spectrum, consisting of peace, righteousness, love, goodness, and holiness. All these require us to demonstrate them in tangible ways through our daily lives.
Nowadays, society has undergone cellular divisions and intersections, resulting in different types of communities, each with its own specific needs. For example, after-school activities for the children of full-time working mothers, the gymnastic needs of those who spend their days at their offices, the dancing drills of the old folks at public squares and their social needs, and the cultural yearnings of the youth in regard to music and painting. In response to the above needs, the church can commence relevant major and minor social services, thereby opening up new channels to reach out to and merge with the masses.
VII. Renewing the mode of management and development
Good management is part and parcel of the development of all organizations. During the past few decades, the management system of the Church of China has undergone evolution and improvement. Many books, courses, and resources on church management are readily available and many churches are taking initiatives in learning and implementation. In Guangdong, the senior pastor of a church came across a good book entitled The Church Management and studied it with his co-workers. The co-authors of the book are a pastor and an economist. The senior pastor then realized that his co-workers sometimes had misconceptions about their ministries. Once the church adopts certain external management skills, the pastor and his co-workers can set their priorities and further perfect their ministries.
Besides practical management, the mode of church development also experiences ongoing changes. It is thus necessary to be practical and adopt models in the specific context of the local church, e.g., focusing on the dual nurturing system of emphasizing cell groups and discipleship training, the evaluation system of a healthy church, and the management mode of pastoral parishes. In recent years, there have been churches trying to revive the home church system of the apostolic era or adopt the missional church mode, which results from a review of the growth mode of the mega-churches in the West during the past few decades, stressing kingdom culture and the kingdom of God. There have also been new trials of the "central kitchen" mode, which stems from a dearth of ministers.
For the church to maintain its momentum of sustainable development, it must renew and reform its modes of operation on the foundation of its ongoing basic ministries. Let us always bear in mind the maxim of "new wine in fresh wineskins". We must be in accord with God, coping with the ever-changing world by holding fast to the immutable truth and shouldering the same and singular mission with multiple modes of operation.
- Translated by Luther Li
