Following the great revival of Christianity in China that has been pushing forward by the underground house church movement, Chinese Christians are envisioned with the Great Commission to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Recently, a minister with Open Doors Johnny Li has spoken to Mission News Network (MNN) about his opinion on the issue.
The remarkable vision of "Back to Jerusalem" has influenced many Christians, particularly Chinese around the world. It is a dream of Chinese house churches to evangelize the major unreached nations of the world, conclusively known as the 10/40 window, where Islam, Buddhism, or Hinduism has dominated the land.
House churches in China have long been growing and have a great passion for world mission, yet, the minister with Open Doors USA Johnny Li said, they are still young and they lacks resources and training.
Li told the MNN that churches in China do recognize their insufficiency in skills for going to the wider world. Therefore, many ministers are trying to learn English and training for themselves.
Li says, "… mentally, we are in the preparation, and we have a great desire, but slowly. And for us, sending out 10 missionaries today is a big job already."
Open Doors, an international ministry which has been supporting persecuted Chinese Churches for the last 30 years, has tried to help on this aspect. Official statistics show it took 2.5 million training books, study Bibles and other pieces of literature into China last year. It offered training to 6,500 Christians in China as well.
Li said to MNN he knew around ten Chinese missionaries that were already on the world mission field, but added that there were actually more than 100-thousand people behind the scene. Li had a great hope on them.
"...In July I was in a class, and I asked all the students, every student raised up their hand, 'The reason why we're here because we want to learn mission, we want to prepare ourselves, we want to bring the Gospel to the world,' and out of China, I think the desire is within the church of China," Li shared.
Lastly, Li concluded that the world mission movement is not outside, but an inside thing, boiling up from within the church in China. The Chinese church hopes to make other believers worldwide aware of this movement, Li told MNN.