Firsthand accounts of faith lived out in the context of Chinese Christianity.
Chinese churches in Germany often bring together people whose paths might otherwise remain separate: migrants from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia; students and businesspeople; recent arrivals and long-term residents; people carrying very different political memories and assumptions.
Discipleship is the main assignment Jesus gave the church. No matter how successful the church becomes in other areas, if we fail in the first task then we have failed altogether.
Hadn’t we tried our best? If you don’t need to use me, what am I supposed to do?
Following the first installment in our Stories from Inside the Church in China series, “The Pressure of Ordinary Faith”, these three stories circle around a question facing some Chinese Christians today.
When I moved to China, I had no idea what would happen or where God would lead me. All I knew was that he had clearly led me to Shanghai.
What drew me out of that familiar shadow narrative was the even sweeter voice of Jesus, calling me to abide in him and rest in an identity found in him before bearing fruit.
We did not choose this path to raise elite children, nor to escape the pressures of school. We need to stay close to the Lord with the simple trust of a child and seek his will for us.
Prompted in part by Sam Ren’s recent article, “The Displaced Minority,” these brief vignettes offer glimpses of ordinary Christian life in Mainland China that often remain unseen.
The ChinaSource team has been privileged to serve alongside Chinese Christ followers, together lifting up the name of Jesus Christ, witnessing his kingdom advance through ministry partnerships that continue to grow and make a transformational difference in lives, both through mainland China and throughout the global Chinese diaspora churches.
Organized by Olive Bridge, a cross-cultural research and dialogue platform, the event was titled "The Bridge Endures—John Leighton Stuart at 150: A Commemorative Gathering of Historical Readings and Dialogue."
What I sensed God calling me to do was not to leave the church, but to help fill the gap I saw there.
For the first time, we saw that ordinary believers could begin where they were and create connections between churches that had previously known little about one another.