The Chinese church is experiencing growth on such an incredible scale, it is hard to comprehend. Experts estimate the Christian church in China will grow by 55 million new believers by 2025 – that’s 15,000 new converts every single day!
But the Church in China is already crippled by a leadership drought.
Right now there is only one pastor for about every 10,000 Christians! To sustain and increase the growth that is coming, the Church needs a significant increase in the number of leaders discipling new believers and planting new churches.
If we do not increase our leadership training efforts to accommodate this growth, there will be around 16,000 Christians to every one pastor.
Based on the average church gathering of 75 people in China, the Chinese Church needs to train up 733,000 new leaders with the skills and knowledge required to lead them!
This is exactly what ABC Bible Training Curriculum (ABC) and China Mission School (CMS) help do, all in a user-friendly and flexible format. ABC provides 336 lessons of foundational and comprehensive Bible instruction in topics such as Foundations of the Christian Faith, Old and New Testament studies as well as Leadership and Church Planting. CMS equips Chinese believers for full-time ministry in some of the most hostile regions of the world; training students in Cross-Cultural Religion, Language Acquisition, Survival, and Church Planting.
With your support, we are able to make this training free of charge to the Chinese church.
We maintain close relationships with the pastors who use this material and track the monthly progress of every student, allowing us to bring encouragement and accountability to the program.
It costs roughly $141 (£95) per student to go through either of the two-year training curriculums. This includes all materials, administration, and operations of the program. When you give towards supporting an emerging leader in China, you’re not just investing in one person. Your gift will have a multiplied effect because of the lives that one person will be able to more effectively reach and disciple because of your gift.
Bible and ministry training is not necessarily a “glamorous” project to give to, but I believe it’s the most important thing we can support, because out of this ministry flows the ability to truly see the lives of others transformed through Jesus Christ.
Will you help support one or maybe even ten students? Our goal is to help several of our Chinese pastor friends train up an additional 1,000 Bible students and 500 mission students this year. That’s $211,500 (£142,600) needed over the next two years with $171,000 (£115,286) of this needed in 2015 to launch the group into the program.
In addition, this month we’re holding two separate leadership conferences in China for many of the pastors who use our ABC and CMS curricula. These conferences are such a blessing to these pastors to be able to get away, rest, and be refreshed through anointed teaching from international speakers.
It’s also an opportunity for them to develop deeper relationship with one another, talking through their challenges, praying for and learning from each other. It also gives us an opportunity to hear how we can continue to improve the program we provide as well as strengthen our communication with them.
It costs about $125 (£85) per leader who attends these two-day conferences. They pay to get there and we pay for everything else (room, board and local transportation). We have 200 leaders attending this year’s conferences – double what we have done in the past. Our total China Leadership Conference cost will be roughly $25,000 (£16,855) this year.
Despite the challenges the Chinese church faces, these men and women are committed. Uncle T, who I mentioned earlier, recently told us that there continues to be persecution in China, but he believes it’s their duty to build the Church with God and deal with the consequences. Let’s continue supporting the men and women who have this level of commitment and passion to help build God’s church in China!
