Gospel Operation International for Chinese Christians International Director Cyrus Lam recently reaffirmed the importance of the Chinese fulfilling the vision of bringing the gospel out from China and to the rest of the world; however, he emphasized that China’s churches must first establishment mission’s frameworks and policies, because it will create long-lasting and continuous mission results.
In the latest edition of GO’s monthly periodical, Lam pointed out some hidden concerns behind the fact that China has the world’s largest human resource capacity. As China mobilizes its people for missions, the concern is that many young people who have already begun or is waiting to begin their mission trip are unfamiliar with missions or are without any equipping, said Lam.
Furthermore, China’s churches often times only focus on sending people out but don’t properly setup a firm foundation of a missional church, which results in serious casualties and losses, even miscarriages.
In addressing this concern, Lam said that “If China wants to become a mission China and China’s churches want to build a secure foundation, then mission education and training and establishment of a mission framework are essential steps that cannot be missing.”
About half a century ago, “Back to Jerusalem” mission vision sprung up in China, which was to bring the gospel out from China, through the seven Muslim-majority nations, and back to Jerusalem, and many people boldly became the volunteers to fulfill this vision.
However, Lam said that because of lack of mission trainings and without the establishment of mission framework, which are two quintessential elements, this vision of BTJ soon became a bubble. Therefore, as the vision of brining the gospel out of China is reignited, China’s churches must focus on these two very important aspects in order to prevent the same mistakes from happening,
In recent years, Lam saw some joyful signs in the Chinese church missions, where numerous churches are focusing on the improvements of their mission capabilities and besides setting up mission education in the churches, they’ve formed mission training centers and created a systemized mission training courses, etc. Also, the students’ level has shown significant improvements.
Furthermore, in addressing the China’s churches establishment of a mission framework, Lam, the director of the most prestigious mission organization from among the Chinese Christian community worldwide, suggested that “mission framework should be formed at an early stage, but to create the framework of the agency mission policies should be established first; to establish the policies then there must be mission leaders who can push and implement these policies; in this case, the mission organization will have momentum. Besides, the foundation shouldn’t be build upon human governance, because the leaders are often times changed or replaced, but the framework will help the mission agency to be preserved for a long-time.”
He said that although western mission agencies often times changed their personnel they are able to pass down their work from one generation to the next because of the existence of a framework.
Lastly, Lam expressed that Gospel Operation International for Chinese Christians is willing to play the role as partners in the aspect of mission education, mission trainings, establishment of mission framework, and international networking, in order to walk in the same footsteps forward with China’s churches on this path of missions.
Reporter Sharon Chan contributed to this report.
