September 17, 2009

China Notes #26

Greetings Friends and Family,

I (Don) spent most of my summer vacation in a town called Huang Shan—Yellow Mountain. Many of you will recognize this as the name of one of China’s most famous scenic spots, the mountain where they take all those pictures of gnarled pine trees on peaks surrounded by a sea of clouds. So let me assure you that instead of meditating amidst scenic glory all summer I was actually in the pleasant but not quite so spectacular setting of nearby Huang Shan city, leading an English language training course for Chinese church personnel.

This course has been held every summer for the past six years by the China Christian Council to enhance the English skills of key church people in China. Many of the students in this summer’s group work in seminaries, Bible schools, and training programs; 12 institutions from all over China were represented. Other students came from larger urban churches in cities such as Shanghai, Chongqing, and Changsha, or from provincial Christian Council offices in places like Hainan.

The program was organized by the national offices of the China Christian Council, and Rev. Bao Jiayuan (who some of you know) spent virtually the entire the summer with us. The program was housed in and hosted by Huangshan Christian Church, which has a modest but nice retreat center, complete with guest rooms, classrooms, dining hall, and kitchen. Including myself, the teaching team consisted of five people. May Chung, Teena Anderson, and Hugh Anderson are all Presbyterians, and had all taught in the program previously. Jenny Duckworth came through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and has both seminary and EFL training.

Lest this degenerate into a “how I spent my summer vacation” letter, let me get to my points. One is that this program was a wonderful opportunity to get to know Christians from all over China, and to learn more about the big picture of what the church is experiencing. In particular, I was surprised at how many new provincial-level training schools were represented in our program, including schools in Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Hainan that I hadn’t previously known existed. This is yet one more reminder of the rapid growth being experienced by the church in China.

Another point has to do with the purpose of the program. Yes, at one level this was just a basic English skills and Western culture program. However, what it is really about is preparing “bridge people” who help the church in China interact with the outside world. For example, this program prepares seminary and Bible school faculty for hosting foreign delegations and guests who visit their schools in China, and also for opportunities when they themselves will go abroad as students, delegation members, or teachers. It helps ensure that large urban churches have at least one person on their pastoral staff who can host and provide pastoral care for the increasing numbers of foreigners who live in China and attend Chinese churches. And it helps ensure that provincial and local Christian Council offices have a staff member who can interpret when foreign groups visit churches in China. In short, this course is one way the church in China is working to build bridges to the rest of the world and become more closely knit into the universal body of Christ.

I think it is wonderful that the Chinese church is training bridge people—in a sense, reaching out to the church universal—in this way, and I feel privileged to have been part of the effort. In this course I also see a challenge for Western Christians in general and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in particular: What are we doing to reach out in return?

Granted, we do reach out in some important ways. In particular, I note the growing number of American Christians who learn more about China and its church through study visits, service projects, sister-church relationships, and so forth. However, I am concerned that we are not doing enough to prepare bridge people who speak Chinese, have a deeper understanding of China and its culture, and have deeper levels of experience in the life of the Chinese church. Such people play a vitally important role not only through the impact of their own work, but by facilitating other kinds of efforts like those just mentioned. When, for example, you have an American church group sitting in a Chinese church surrounded by Chinese Christians, the number of bridge people present makes a world of difference in determining the level and quality of interaction. If there are a few bridge people present—ideally, both from the U.S. and Chinese side—there will be much more conversation and interaction; in the absence of such bridge people, the result is often lots of longing glances “through the glass darkly” or just awkward silence. The same is true with almost any interaction between Chinese and U.S. groups—U.S. groups visiting Chinese seminaries, Chinese church delegations visiting churches in the United States, and so forth.

I’m not proposing that Presbyterians need to set up a summer Chinese program in Montreat, Stony Point, or Ghost Ranch. Better ideas might include sponsoring short-term mutual language learning experiences (where a U.S. group and a Chinese group learn each other’s language, rather than just U.S. groups teaching English), more intentional promotion of study abroad programs in China for younger Presbyterians, or one- to two-year service opportunities that specifically include a language and culture learning component. My main point is that we should give more attention to the question of how to cultivate the next generation of Presbyterians who can serve as our bridge people to China. The Chinese church is actively working to ensure that it has more such people. How can we do a better job of this from our side?

God’s peace to you all,

Don and Wei Hong

The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 117