China

Seminaries and Bible Training Schools

There is a legal church in China—yes, a growing, Protestant church that exists with permission of the government. In the 1980s with the advent of a new constitution that permitted religion, the Chinese government began to return to Christians the church buildings that had been closed during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Where buildings had been destroyed, the government assisted congregations by giving them comparable land and Christians gave sacrificially to fund the construction of new churches.

With the explosive growth of Christianity over the past 20 years, there has been a desperate need to train new leaders. Pastors who had been ordained before 1949 served faithfully with no thought of retiring and leaving their flocks without a shepherd. However, as they aged it was apparent that the need to train new pastors was becoming more and more acute. LCPC member Pam Bowman visited Chinese churches and Bible schools in 1993 and again in 2001 with the Outreach Foundation. The most vivid memory she has of that first trip was seeing elderly pastors working side by side with “20-somethings” who were deeply committed to ministry but had neither the opportunity for seminary training, nor a sense that they could leave for three years when local needs were so great. What a contrast to 2001! Still dealing with explosive growth, the church today has ordained new pastors and boasts 18 seminaries and Bible schools. The training of new church leaders, however cannot keep pace with the tremendous growth of the church. For example, in Heilongjiang Province, there are only 30 pastors and 190 trained teachers for 600,000 believers. The province’s only theological training program can take just 40 new students a year into the three-year program.

Liberty Corner Presbyterian Church funds theological education centers with scholarships for students, books for the seminary libraries, continuing education for seminary professors, and mini-libraries for the hard-working volunteer leaders of the rural church who own no commentaries or theological reference books to use in preparing sermons or Bible classes. The mini-libraries are presented as a gift to students upon graduation from the lay training program at the Bible schools.

A group of American Presbyterians from the Outreach
Foundation meet with the China Christian Council.
(LCPC member Pam Bowman is in center of back row.)

The Partners in Ministry team at LCPC has had many visits from Jeff Ritchie, assistant director of the Outreach Foundation and a frequent guest of the Chinese church. In 2003, Wei Hong and Don Snow visited Liberty Corner. Both are mission co-workers of the PCUSA. Wei Hong, a native of China, holds both Master of Divinity and Master of Library Science degrees. She helps the seminaries and Bible schools build their library resources using gifts from the Outreach Foundation. Don teaches graduate students in the English Department of Nanjing University, one of China’s top universities and also an institution that the Presbyterian Church had a hand in founding over a century ago. Wei Hong is serving as a volunteer at the library of Jinling Theological Seminary, assisting them in the process of computer cataloging their holdings.

We relate to the Chinese church through the Outreach Foundation.

You can learn more about this ministry at The Outreach Foundation and clicking on “Projects” and “China.”

Statistics: China

Total Area: 3,600,900 sq. mi. (slightly smaller than the U.S.)

Population: 1,273,111,290

Languages: Standard Chinese or Mandarin, and many other languages and dialects.

GDP per capita: $3,600

Literacy: 81.5%

Religions: Daoist, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian

Life Expectancy: 71.6 years

(Statistical information is from the PCUSA 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study)