NANJING, China — I have been attending St. Paul's Church in Nanjing for a number of years. About five years ago, the senior pastor, Kan Renping, began an English Bible study on Thursday nights. This went on for about a year before I began to attend it and to learn about his desire to begin an English worship service.
Pastor Kan has a heart for college students and young adults and wants to reach them for Christ. He also wants to provide opportunities for young Christians to develop their abilities and leadership within the context of the church, as they are future church leaders.
The Thursday night Bible study gradually did lead to a Sunday morning worship service, and later a Sunday morning discipleship group and a Saturday afternoon Bible study were added. It's important to point out that this worship service is part of the Chinese church; it is not a foreigner's congregation. First of all, it is illegal in China for foreigners to conduct religious activities on their own. The primary reason for this is to foster indigenous, or self-supported, self-administered, and self-propagating Chinese churches.
The English service meets from about 10:30 on Sunday morning until about 12 noon. The church has four worship services on Sunday, including the English one, and one on Saturday morning. The English service is the third one. It begins after the second service lets out, so there is some flexibility in the starting time.
The service has grown and developed over these few years, and boasts a choir growing in number and musical quality. A young woman who was in college and now has graduated and has a job in town is the pianist. A woman from the regular Chinese choir, and who is an English teacher, was for a long time the only one to lead the congregation in singing the hymns, but now two young people are apprenticing in this role. The Scripture reading each Sunday morning has improved greatly, as more young people have volunteered for this ministry and come early on Sunday morning to practice their pronunciation and delivery. Greeters, and those who prepare the refreshments that everyone enjoys at the end of the service promote fellowship and give people a chance to speak English if they so desire.
Foreigners are welcome, but are not in charge of the program. However, the choir director is an American; the discipleship teacher is an American with a Chinese co-leader, a professor who spent some years in Canada; and I teach a Saturday afternoon Bible study. We are all members of the church and participate as requested by the church leadership.
The sermons are brought by seminary teachers and graduate students, as well as leaders from within St. Paul itself. Every fifth Sunday, the sermon time is given over to testimonies, usually solicited from within the congregation, but volunteers are encouraged.
The church overall has more than 4,000 members, with many kinds of weekly activities, including prayer meeting, literacy class, Bible reading, choir practice and a Chinese young adult meeting. There are two baptismal services each year, baptizing 100-200 each time. There are always a number of young adults among those being baptized, including more and more from the English service. There are three ordained pastors and two seminary graduates on staff. In addition to all of the services at the main location, there are about four meeting points located at some distances from the central church which are also served by the staff.
St. Paul's Church in Nanjing is my church home in China and I am thankful for the fellowship I enjoy as a part of this congregation, and am grateful to God for a chance to serve with Chinese brothers and sisters.