RICHMOND — The dramatic growth of Christian churches in China is drawing the attention of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia, which is aiming in its 20th anniversary year to “build a bridge” to the strategic nation and its millions of Christian believers.
A highlight of the year-long focus will be a 10-day mission immersion experience in May 2013, which will introduce participants to CBF field personnel in Hong Kong and Macau and explore ways churches can engage with ministries there.
“We have a team of 10 individuals — both clergy and laity — confirmed to go on the mission immersion experience,” CBFVA field coordinator Rob Fox said in November at the annual luncheon it hosts with Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. “The names of those team members will be announced soon.”
Also on the CBFVA’s China agenda is a “Mission Box” project to assist Larry and Sarah Ballew, CBF field personnel in Macau. For 16 years the Ballews have built relationships in the coastal city in part by teaching English classes. The CBFVA is encouraging its affiliated churches to send prayer postcards to the couple and to Macau Baptist Church to forge ties with ESL students, who relish opportunities to practice English.
“About 150 cards have already been mailed to China, and we are anticipating hundreds more this winter and in the spring,” said Fox.
The CBFVA’s focus on China comes at a critical time in the nation’s life. Last month saw the biggest change of political leadership in a decade, as new members of the ruling Politburo standing committee assumed office, including Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping, who will become president in March.
What that means for the country’s estimated 80 million Christians remains unclear, but some observers believe the change could strengthen the churches as they navigate a complicated relationship with the government.
At the CBFVA’s luncheon last month, Chinese native Hanna Zhu — a BTSR graduate who is a ministry resident at First Baptist Church in Richmond — said in a keynote address that churches in China are “overflowing with Sunday attendance.”
During a visit to the country several years ago, “House churches were popping up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain — to use a Chinese idiom,” Zhu said. “They would range from being underground to completely public, depending on the locale and the political season.”
“Some experts estimate there are possibly 80 million Christians in China now,” she said. “The number continues to grow. But there are also tremendous challenges: government persecution, shortage of pastors, lack of theological education, fundamentalism, just to name a few.”
Zhu moved to the United States in 1999 and while studying at Illinois State University became a Christian through the influence of American students there. Later she went back to China briefly to teach English in Beijing, but returned to begin seminary studies. She graduated from BTSR last May.
Her parents — neither of whom are Christians— traveled from their home in Changsha for her graduation and stayed for her ordination to the ministry in June.
“I asked my parents if one of them would read the Chinese version of 1 John 4:7-8 in my ordination service,” Zhu said. “Though suspicious of any religion or ideology, Mom took the assignment. She did a beautiful job. At the end of the laying on of hands, Mom came up. She was crying when she blessed me. Then Dad came up. He was so choked up that I didn’t understand what he was saying.”
Zhu said Christians in the West can learn from their mission experience in China — which began in a colonial context — and from the explosive growth since Christianity in the country became indigenous.
“For Baptist ministers in America, we now find ourselves in an interesting place,” she said. “Our churches are dwindling. Compared to our past and to churches in the Third World countries, we can feel discouraged. But we don’t have to. Our past glory may not be that glorious when we look closely. We now live in a global village, in a new age. God is doing a new thing. And that is exciting.”
Robert Dilday (rdilday@religiousherald.org) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.