Resources for Lay Leaders in China - April 2020 Update

Dear friends in the United States,

Here in Hong Kong, our colleagues and families are all fine. After gradually returning to work in the office in late March, we had to resume working from home in early April. Many of the students returning from overseas after Easter break brought back the virus although they were unaware of being infected. This led to a sudden, drastic increase in the number of confirmed cases.

Although working again from home, we continue to serve churches and individual Chinese speaking Christians by conducting training and providing literature through online platforms, which has been very well received! In March we held 57 online courses, seminars, and talks.

Asia, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationMay 8, 2020Resources for Lay Leaders in China, China

Resources for Lay Leaders in China - December 2019 Update

He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest field.” Luke 10:2

“The biggest problem that we have is too many people and not enough leaders.” During a recent group visit to China coordinated by The Outreach Foundation, we had the privilege of meeting with leaders of the official Protestant Church in two of the provinces with the largest populations of Christians. In both meetings, the leaders shared how churches continue to grow in spite of the recent tightening of restrictions that religious groups in the country face. What concerned these influential leaders the most was not whether the church will survive but how to best provide sound guidance to the more than 600,000 new believers that are added to their congregations annually.

Asia, Partnership, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationDecember 11, 2019Resources for Lay Leaders in China, China

Continuing Education for Chinese Church Leaders - April 2018 Update

Walking with Chinese Pastors
“The average pastor in our province has a congregation of 6,500 members.” With those words Rev. Keyun Zhang, chairman of the Provincial Committee of TSPM and president of the Theological Seminary, explained why the development of Chinese pastors is so important for the ongoing health of the growing congregations in the Jiangsu Province.

During the week that he spent in the United States last fall, Rev. Zhang led a delegation of eight high ranking leaders in visits sponsored by The Outreach Foundation to University Place Presbyterian Church (Tacoma, WA) and First Presbyterian Church (Wilmington, NC). He used the opportunity to share how even with such significantly high pastor to member ratios, the church in China is committed to improving the quality of its spiritual life and its ministries in their communities. “We have nine times as many congregations in the Jiangsu Province as we had in 1950,” he stated. “We have gone from 540 to 4,639 churches.”

Resources for Lay Leaders in China - September 2017 Update

The backbone of the rapidly growing Church in China is its lay leaders. They want continual training in how to bring the millions of new believers into mature Christian faith. Your gifts will enhance their efforts by supplying discipleship training materials and other publications for lay leaders. This year, we have collaborated in the distribution of close to 4,000 sets of materials and many other digital books. The following stories convey the impact that the work of our partners is having with 42 schools and training centers located in 29 of China’s 34 administrative units.

Qian
Qian serves in an established church located in an urban area of China. The expectations that the senior pastor has for her are high as she was trained in one of the nation’s top seminaries. Qian was tasked with providing a leadership role in the church and building up the next generation. She feels that the leadership and discipleship resource materials will be key as she works to instruct servant-leaders. Please keep Qian in your prayers that God may lead her to face those immense pastoral challenges.

Asia, ProjectsThe Outreach FoundationSeptember 20, 2017Resources for Lay Leaders in China, China

Partner Updates